CHEM 1820

As a student who has just completed 1820, 1821, 2810, and 2811, this accelerated organic chemistry series was an incredibly rigorous and often frustrating experience. CHEM 1820 is not a bad course, and Dr. Serbulea does a decent job of explaining Orgo 1 topics (although the same cannot be said for Orgo 2). In terms of workload, there is homework due three times a week (pre-lecture quizzes, study modules, and weekly homework assignment). Additionally, there are mandatory discussion sessions in which she administers difficult problem sets and graded iClicker quizzes, which can be very stressful. There are three midterms (lowest is dropped) which were pretty difficult with class averages around 80%, and a broad final exam which almost everyone did better on. I felt that 1820 was fair in terms of grading and workload- it was a difficult class but manageable. However, if you are taking 1820, please look into the student experience in 2810, because the quality of the course significantly drops off in the second semester of Organic Chemistry with Dr. Serbulea.

Serbulea falls behind in lecture a lot, so sometimes you’ll be a week ahead in the readings and homework with stuff she hasn’t even begun to cover in lecture. Overall though, I didn’t think the class was too hard. There are TA office hours every week, and it’s useful to go to them especially to check your discussion answers. Discussion being mandatory isn’t fun but it’s good practice for what exam questions are like. I personally found Serbulea’s exams to be much easier than Harman’s - and the fact you can drop one of the three midterms helped my stress level. #tCFS24

I would definitely recommend 1820 with Serbulea. At the beginning of the semester, I spent a lot more time with the textbook and pre-lecture stuff before lectures and ended up being pretty bored during them. However, as the semester went on, I saw a lot more value in the lectures (the 8 AM time is absolutely brutal, and I definitely struggled with paying attention, but on the bright side, I was often so tired that I thought everything was hilarious, which kept me awake). When studying for the exams, I realized that actually doing the textbook problems as I went would have helped me significantly with understanding the content for discussions & discussion iClickers, so do that lol. She said to spend 12-15 hours outside of the class studying weekly-- I only did the masteringchem assignments and studied the week before exams and was fine. The exams themselves were pretty straightforward (the average for the third midterm was significantly lower than the others), and the grade is spread out. overall, I feel like this class is probably a lot better than 2410 would have been (no evidence for that just vibes).

Serbulea is a really good teacher and genuinely cares about you, though it may not seem like it at first. She assigns readings and assignments based on the textbook that cover the same content as her lectures, which seems annoying but helps in the long run. Compared to 1810, your grade is more spread out and tests are less of a big deal. Also, her exams are more straight-forward and to me, much more manageable once you know what to study. I found Serbulea made learning the content as easy as possible-which is good since the content can be tricky sometimes!
#tCFspring2021

So this class is great for people who are interested in chemistry and are going for some kind of chem degree, if that's not you, then I'd probably stick with the 400 organic chem classes. Professor Serbulea is awesome; she cares a lot about the topic and her students and her lectures are generally easy to follow. That being said, Serbs has a habit of rambling about one topic (usually an easy one) for an ungodly amount of time and then rushing through the hardest stuff at the end. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she uses the discussion section to catch up on lecture material rather than only for actual discussions. The grading in 1820 is more spread out than in 1810, which is mostly exams. There is A LOT of homework on MasteringChem, but they aren't all that difficult and you get several attempts for each question so it's not hard to get high scores. Those really boost your final grade because they add up to a lot of weight. The exams themselves aren't particularly difficult and they have a certain pattern that you get used to (naming organic compounds and ranking compounds by certain properties). The average scores for 1820 exams was generally mid 80s, higher than 1810 exams, and they have built in bonus questions. Also 1820 and 1821 (lab) are both taught by Serbulea and they match up content a little bit, unlike 1810 and 1811, so they are easier as a pair. This class is really interesting and I thought it could be fun at times, mostly because of awesome classmates. If chem is an interest, I definitely recommend continuing the 800 classes with 1820. Good Luck!

Honestly, this class wasn't that bad. I thought that Dr. Serbulea did a very good job at teaching us the material, and it is clear that she is extremely passionate and knowledgeable about organic chemistry. I definitely learned a lot from this class. However, it definitely requires a lot of work; the work you put into this class is really what you get out of it. Discussion was mandatory (unlike CHEM 1810 where it wasn't) and was kind of long, but in the end the problems we worked on were pretty helpful in teaching and preparing you for the exams, and the TAs we had were very knowledgeable and awesome people. At first I found iClicker questions to be pretty stressful considering that there was a time limit, but overall they did help us get practice in quick problem-solving, as well as were great for testing understanding of material; and don't worry if you get a couple wrong, because she always drops a few when calculating you final grade. I thought that the exams were very fair, and I didn't mind that there was no curve, since there was the opportunity for extra credit, and homework and CCAs can really help your grade. Exam grading was pretty timely, and Dr. Serbulea made herself available to help during office hours, and was super willing to help out students when they had questions on-on-one, or to just talk.

On the other hand, she fell behind in teaching material often, and would sometimes go a little slow in lectures. This could just be due to the breadth and quantity of material that organic chemistry contains or because she wants to emphasize an important point, but be prepared to wanna fall asleep sometimes, especially bc lecture is at 8am like last semester (for those of you who took CHEM 1810). I also didn't like the fact that no practice exams were made available. This was mostly a problem for the first exam, since we would have no idea what to expect, but after seeing the first exam, it would get clearer how the upcoming exams would be structured. She definitely teaches more from the textbook, so I found her exams to be fine, as long as you could do the problems in discussion and understood what was in the reading.

Overall, even though this class was a lot of work and required a lot of time, Dr. Serbulea is a great professor who cares about teaching, and I learned a lot.

Dr. Serbulea is incredibly knowledgable, and genuinely wants her students to do well. That being said, the class is demanding and requires a lot of work. Also, lectures are at 8am, attendance is mandatory due to clickers, and you will never want to fall asleep more in your life.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS Serbulea is a nice woman ... but she falls behind in lecture and doesn't change exams to reflect this. Taking exams on reactions learned literally the morning of the exams results in sadness.