How difficult and time-consuming are chemical engineering courses at UCLA?
About as difficult and time consuming as it gets at UCLA. Many people can get by with C’s and B’s with little/average effort but to consistently get A’s, you will have to study a lot. Almost all engineering classes are graded on a curve and most UCLA engineers are pretty smart and very studious.
You can check out these grade distributions for reference. I’m not sure how valid they are but they seem consistent with my experiences:
http://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/ch-engr/s-m-senkan/
http://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/ch-engr/robert-f-hicks/
http://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/ch-engr/yoram-cohen/
It really depends on what your goals and study habits are, everyone is different. Most people I know who do really well consistently (B+ and above) study 30+ hours per exam.
My biggest recommendation is to actually do the homework when it is assigned instead of copying it from the solution manual the morning its due (trust me, easier said than done).
Thanks for the reply!