Everyone talks about how bad this class is, but really it is pretty manageable if you are willing to put in the time and effort. If you are going to take chemistry, then I would highly suggest taking it with Welch. He is very easy to work with and generally has higher scores than other professors who teach the course. The course format is pretty different from any other course I have taken. You have one lecture and one expo meeting a week. Expo is where you work in a group setting to solve more interesting and complex questions. Getting a good group is kinda important if you want to do well in the course, as you will see. The course assignments are as follows: weekly chapter readings, two small weekly assignments, expo work, 3 exams, a portfolio, a final project, and a final exam. The exams are structured differently from traditional exams. There are 3 parts: individual, group, and attempting the group questions individually. The way they are weighted for your overall exam score changes with exam, placing more emphasis on the individual portion. The group questions are VERY hard. When you are answering them be sure to write down why you think your answer is right because you will have to write an explanation for each answer your group selects on the exam. Everyone coming in prepared makes the exam go easier and quicker. My group mates never prepared and it always took us right up until time to finish. This course does take a fair amount of time commitment, but once everything starts clicking and coming together the work does start to come easier.

Take intro chem with Welch. If you're trying to figure out whether to take Welch or Morkowchuk, go for Welch. If you take 1411, you'll have Morkowchuk as your lab professor, and you will find that she talks really slowly. Welch goes at a relatively fast pace and doesn't necessarily cover everything from the textbook reading. Readings are due before the Mon/Tues class depending on your section, so he knows you all have at least a vague idea of what he will cover. In lecture, he will reintroduce what you've read over the weekend and help through practice examples and problems, especially ones that a lot of students struggled with on the homework. He records the lecture, so rewatch those before exams, or at least parts that you need to brush up on. For Expos, some days you will be able to leave early if your group works fast enough, and other days may feel like a race against the clock. If there is a section on the LBLA on what to do to prepare for Expo, do them and bring them in. It will save time, as long as you double check with your group that you have similar answers. It's also a good idea to them anyway and assume the others in your group won't do it. For exams, try reworking the LBLA problems (especially for math problems) and review concepts. Sometimes the textbook goes into far more detail than what will be on the exams. Exams are three parts, all open-note and open-source. I recommend making a study guide of textbook figures (especially tables) and equations on a Word Doc instead of flipping through the chapters during the exam. The second and third parts of the exam are challenging, but partial credit is offered (on the third part) for correct explanations even if your answer is wrong. Don't be fooled by the small amount of questions, they are hard, and you cannot do the second part last minute. Even if you guess, you will have to debate with your group on why you think your answer is correct. While taking the second part of the exam, write down explanations and your reasoning because if your logic is correct, it will earn you points back on the third part. Also, this man likes to color-code his lecture demos. It might be easy if you have many colored pens or something and follow along.

I liked Welch - he was goofy, hoped that you had a life outside of chemistry, and was open to questions. these lectures are big but there are office hours literally every day but Saturday (or something like that!) so there is always a way for u to get help. Find a TA you like and do the textbook homework with them when you can. Welch and his TAs held review sessions which were super helpful and he would also write an outline for exams which other profs didn't do but I found super helpful. If u don't have Welch, I would still recommend getting in contact with him for questions/outlines/advice/etc. I had morkowchuk for lab and I thought she was really nice and great at lab supervision (not our actual teacher, that was a pHD student) but I'm not sure she provided as many study resources for her lecture students. I do think this class as a whole couldve done better helping students become interested...bc I loved applying what I learned and chemistry in general and I wanted to want to continue but it was super in depth super quick and the textbook was fine it was just that everything was at an atomic/quantum level from the start. I thought I would hate the way exams are structured but it actually ended up helping my grade in the end bc part of the exams were group exams. I'm glad I stuck with this class.

I would highly recommend if you are taking CHEM 1410 and then CHEM 1420 in the spring to take them with Professor Welch. Welch is one of the nicest professors you will come across at UVA! Although his lectures can sometimes be long-winded, he really cares about his students understanding of the concepts that are explored in CHEM 1410 and 1420. Not only is he very approachable, but he also really cares about the overall well-being of his students outside of the classroom. I have seen multiple occasions where he has given students extensions for being sick or just because they had a really stressful week.

I came into this course not having any knowledge of chemistry from a previous institution. I found this course challenging, often frustrating, yet doable. Since there are plenty of solid reviews explaining the structure of the course, so I would like to share only my tips that allowed me to finish with an A-.

TopHat Tips:
- Take thorough notes on the weekly chapter with emphasis of trends and exceptions. They will be helpful in your completion of later assignments within the week.
- Not all chapters are created equally. Some have typos. Some are poorly worded. Some are just bad. There are other more concise recourses to learn course content from before attempting the imbedded questions. I recommend Professor Dave Explains and/or the Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube.

Lecture Tips:
- Usually they upload the lecture slides a few hours before it begins. I would take notes in advance and then take notes only on what he says during lecture. Professor Welch will suddenly switch the camera and starts doing practice problems on paper, and it's best to be fully engaged when he does that.
- They usually contain most of what you need to know, at least in 1410.

Expo Tips:
- You have no control over your group. Hopefully you have a smart person. If not and you're willing to work hard, you will become them.
- Complete your portfolio assignment immediately after Expo. It is less annoying this way, trust me.
- Don't hesitate to ask the TAs questions, and don't worry about sounding stupid. There's a chance they may not understand anything either.

Individual Exam Tips (1):
- Usually several (if not most) of questions stray from the types you will have encountered on weekly assignments. It is imperative that you have a decent conceptual understanding of each topic in order to approach these problems. I would call my parents and give them chemistry lectures without looking at my notes to work towards that. Lame? Perhaps, but it worked for me.

Group Exam Tips (2 and 3):
- :(
- These questions are always outside the scope of the course and do a poor job at assessing knowledge because students are expected to come to multi-step conclusions on concepts that are not covered during lectures or mentioned briefly in TopHat with vague instructions.
- Process of elimination is your friend here, and trust your instincts if you are torn between two choices.
- Getting a 6/10 is perfectly fine! Don't panic!

On Professor Welch:
- I did not directly interact with this semester. I consider him a decent lecturer.
- He is most passionate about inorganic chemistry (observed during color & crystal field theory weeks), and they ended up being the most interesting chapters to me as well (and least difficult exam).

People say Chem is hard but Welch and the UVA chem teachers made it pretty easy to do work/ understand. Expo can be annoying at times but really not that bad considering its group work. Weekly readings can be annoying at times but make sure to understand it well as thats where you will learn most of the content. It will take a good amount of time depending on how fast you read and comprehend things. Overall, if you have to take chem it's not that bad.

I'll start by prefacing that I am not a STEM-major, nor am I by any means a chemistry prodigy. I came in the semester with basic chemistry knowledge from high school and the CHEM 1410 professors made it clear early on that it did not matter what background knowledge you had going in to the semester. While I am not sure how true that statement was, fortunately I did exit CHEM 1410 with a B. The class is split up into three parts: lecture, expo (kind of like a group discussion), and lab. Definitely make sure you attend lecture, whether it be remote or in-person, Professor Welch definitely knows his stuff, and while it does feel easy to feel lost in the crowd, you can message him or the TAs on Microsoft Teams for extra help. As for expo, for your own sake, make sure you end up with a helpful group. You do not have much choice in your group for lab, but expo is 100% self-taught team based, so ensuring that you have a group that either knows their stuff or are hard-working will work to your favor in the long-run. The content of the class is difficult. Chances are you won't understand things the first read-through. That is what lecture and expo are for. If you have meaningful discussions with your expo group, pay attention in lecture, and study, you should be fine.

Welch is a really nice person and he definitely knows his stuff. I only talked to him once but he was super friendly. However, I found that sometimes the lecture didn't pertain to the TopHat readings or were unrelated to anything we'd be tested on. They could be hard to follow sometimes. But he records lectures which is good. He also provides many resources in preparation for the tests, such a chapter review notes and recorded TA review sessions, which I don't think every professor does.

Content-wise, I didn't really enjoy the material, but I'm not a big chemistry person in general so that was probably why. The tests weren't impossible - they're open internet/note so they mostly tested on concept application instead of stuff you could just memorize. They're basically a week-long event though (3 parts over 3 days) which can be a hassle.

You don't get to pick your Expo group but they're really important as you do the group test with them. The expo questions could be difficult sometimes; in the beginning our group would use up almost the whole time to finish them all but we got quicker throughout the semester.

Also if you know you're going to take 1420 the semester after, get the year-long subscription for TopHat because it's used in all of those classes too lol.

Overall take this class if you need to. I don't really see a reason to if you're not interested in chemistry/premed/engineering etc since it's not the most captivating material. However, it's not necessarily as difficult as it is time-consuming.

Class set up is- 5% portfolio grade (completion), 15% each exam (open notes and split between individual and group), 20% final (open notes and super easy), 5% final project (group project), and 25% split between the tophat activities and expo portion. The group portion of the tests are super hard and should not even be legal. I hear Welch is the best professor but honestly, even he is not that good. Ended with a B (86.7, which they don't round to the nearest whole number, or I would have a B+) in the class, which I am not proud of, but I feel like if you study hard and try your best you should do decent and at least get a B-. Also, lectures are dry and are honestly useless.

Welch is a great lecturer and super understanding. He always responds on teams to your questions. There is a lot of reading that is often hard to teach yourself, but usually it all makes enough sense by the time he lectures. Expo is the most chaotic time of your week. You kinda just get set free, but generally no one totally knows what is happening. The questions are great for reviewing for tests but really hard without a ton of help sometimes. Do the portfolio every week, it’s easier to manage that way (and it’s a great review). Review the test your understanding portions of the readings and BITs/LBLAs for tests. The material can be really confusing but if you plug away at it you will understand it.