so Prof Zhang is pretty erratic. His lectures and his labs don't line up. It's a lot of figuring stuff on your own. His pre-labs are not straightforward. The TA's make or break the class. GET KELLY DUNHAM. SHE"S THE BEST. Prof Zhang is also a big believer in only a certain percentage of people should be getting A's. You should be prepared to write a lab report every week. If you haven't written a lab report in a short amount of time, then I don't recommend this class. One thing is that 1811 is much better than the 1411 because there's much less BS labs that you could've done in middle school.

Professor Zhang is relatively new to the course material and it shows. He understands the material himself but does not effectively explain anything about the lab - you must rely on having a good TA for that- PS Kelly Dunham is the best TA if you can have her in Fall 2019. This class does NOT align with the material in 1810 so that is not helpful. The lectures/discussions relatively unnecessary to understand the lab, but you must attend in order to get credit for the in-class activities that Professor Zhang often does. He may tell you that something is extra credit, but it probably is NOT. What he calls extra credit he explained to me as "an extra in-class bonus activity" after I almost did not turn one in and asked for clarification on the matter. He often does not help when writing reports so attend TA office hours if you want high grades because they are the ones grading this class. Still, as long as you understand chemistry, you should be able to pull an B at minimum.