This course is hard. The class is broken into lecture and lab. In the lectures, she uses the same iClicker program, so attendance is mandatory every week. And, just like in the 1820 course, her lectures are horrendously boring. She spends 15 minutes describing the purpose of a beaker, then glosses over the reaction mechanism you need to understand perfectly.

The lab itself is rather enjoyable. As a prospective chemistry major, I had much fun in the lab, learning techniques and using different reagents and getting products in the end. Its very entertaining and it is all individual, so you really get to understand the techniques well. Make sure you are comfortable with the theory and execution of each separation and analysis technique, as they will be used in the later labs and later courses.

The worst part of the course are the lab reports. You are expected to write a full 4-5 page lab report every week for every experiment. This is not too hard on its own. If you have good work ethic, you can knock it out in 3-4 hours. However, it is the grading of the lab reports that is horrible. Firstly, you are not given a rubric of any kind. You are given 3/4 things you must discuss within it and expected to write a full 5 pages. As for formatting help, all you are given is 2 example articles that are real published articles. They are somewhat helpful, not too much. While you do not have a rubric, the TAs who grade it do. They have a checklist of things you need to include in each report, and take off points for each thing that is not done properly. As a rule of thumb, always include percent yield calculations explicitly shown, but there are dozens of other little things that they will take points off for unless they are explicitly mentioned, and no one will ever tell you this unless you ask a TA directly in office hours, or when you see the comments on the lab report and why you got points taken off.

I think this style of teaching is horrible, not giving you any information and only revealing it once you get points off for it. You really have to find things out on your own, not even collaborating with classmates is very helpful. In all, the lab report grading is horribly designed and the worst part about this course.

This course also has a final exam, which is rare for a lab course. It covers the the theory behind each technique as well as designing some experimental procedures. It is not too hard, similar to the 1820 exams, and a little studying will get you good results.

The only good thing about this course is that the TAs are awesome and super helpful. They are there to help you, so reach out whenever you need anything. They are the bridge between you and the professor, and most of the time they are on your side. Lastly, try to enroll in a lab section that has few people (usually the Friday section has very few people) as it makes for a much nicer experience than working in a fully crowded lab.

This class has a heavy workload but is manageable if you stay on top of everything. Pre-lab quizzes require detailed studying of the lecture slides. Pre-lab modules and clickers are easy points, though the lectures themselves aren’t very helpful.

While the labs are interesting, they are significantly more stressful than the labs in 1811. Several of them take the full four hours and it’s super common to get poor data. Reports take 5–6 hours and grading varies a lot by TA, so going to office hours helps.

The final is fair, basically a longer pre-lab quiz with some added calculations and mechanisms. The median was an 87. If you do the work in this class, you’ll probably get an A, but expect to be pretty stressed. I wouldn’t recommend this class unless you’re prepared for the immense workload.

I would say this course overall is tedious, but on the bright side, you get used to chugging out a full blown lab report on an almost weekly basis. Overall, I did learn basic lab skills and reinforced some concepts learned in 1820, so it wasn't too bad. Highly recommend going to TA office hours if you can because, as you probably know, Serbulea is particular about what she wants for each report so if you want to do well, you best find out. Also she gives out snacks (at least during COVID times)!
#tCFspring2021

I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with this lab. You will definitely learn a lot from this class, both in the lab and in the lab lectures. You learn a lot of lab techniques that you use throughout the semester and will probably use in other chem labs in the future. There isn't a prelab like in 1811, but you need to have your lab notebook prepared with the procedure and all reagents/possible unknowns (names, structures, hazards, properties) listed out, which can take a hot minute. You start each lab with a prelab quiz, 5 questions about the procedure or other general information about the lab. They aren't difficult as long as you know what you should be doing. Unlike 1811, 1821 labs are done individually, but you work with a hood partner which is great. The labs really take the full 4 hours sometimes and you need to work fast because at the end everyone needs to use the same IR and you might not get your data in time if you're at the back of the line. The reports are a full report (intro, results and discussion, methods, conclusion, 5 pages single spaced) for each lab instead of bits and pieces like 1811. You NEED to go to TA office hours to know what they are looking for in the reports, or at least have someone else go and tell you later. 1821 also has a final exam so it's important you understand why you are doing certain things in lab and not just follow the procedures without thinking about them. Also there's clickers, because Serbulea. The 1821 labs sometimes match with the content from 1820, so they are easier to think about together than the 1810/1811 class and lab. I thought this lab was great, but it was a lot of work and it wears you down sometimes. Good Luck!

Although I learned a lot about lab techniques in this course, there could definitely be improvements to this course. This course was extremely time-consuming, and was a lot of work, even for a 3 credit lab. Lab reports (all of them were 5-page, single-spaced lab reports) often took me 7-8 hours in total (spread out over multiple days) to actually complete and proofread, and attending TA review sessions are basically a must if you want to know what information the TAs are looking for, although for many it doesn't exactly fit into their schedules. One thing I didn't like was that the lab reports would be given back to us after we turned in the next lab report; multiple times I did end up unneccesarily losing points on lab reports because I didn't get a chance to get feedback on previous lab reports in a timely manner. However, I quickly learned what was to be expected on lab reports, and ended up getting pretty high marks on them after the first two lab reports, although it does depend on the person. Lab lectures were definitely long and slow, but you do learn information and theory that is important for the labs. Prelab quizzes were not free 100s, so definitely study the theory/procedures for the lab before coming to lab, as there is always going to be a prelab quiz before each lab. One thing that I hated were the prelab modules, which often had poorly worded questions. I think normally they aren't mandatory, but when we switched to online learning she made them count as a grade, but only if they helped you grade, which was nice of her. There is a final at the end of the course, and it is not super easy, so make sure you really understand what she teaches in lab lecture and understand your experiments you do in lab. Overall, I learned a lot about scientific writing and lab techniques in this course, but be prepared to work hard for this course.

This course requires way too much work for three credits. The labs are great, and you genuinely learn a lot of theory because Dr. Serbulea's lectures are very informative, but it seems that professor Serbulea wants you to go to office hours if you want to do well on the reports. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time do be doing so. If you are taking an otherwise light load during the semester, definitely take this course. However, don't couple this course with other science classes beyond the lecture course.

This was by far my hardest class of the semester. The first two lab reports were graded unfairly and I lost about 15 points on each solely on formatting errors because my reports "didn't match the Journal of Organic Chemistry." After that I did well on most of the reports but had to go to one or more office hours to know what the TA's wanted exactly. The quizzes were mostly memorization but not easy but the final was fair if you studied the preparatory materials. Overall, I would say I put more effort into this class than any others this semester and I still only got a B because Serbulea doesn't believe in curving, despite the TA's harsh grading. However, I did learn a great amount about lab procedures and reports in this class that I will be sure to use in the future.

This class was miserable. Lab reports were graded incredibly harshly and no one ever knew what to expect with grading - even the TAs. Serbulea would expect you to have very specific things in your reports and if you didn't, you instantly lost a ton of points. Eventually you learned how to write how she wanted you to and sort of learned to anticipate what she was looking for. However, it was a painful process and it took me an unreal number of hours to write each lab. On weeks when I didn't start writing my report days ahead of time, I was forced to pull all-nighters in order to finish the report and have it be of acceptable quality. The course was structured with a 3-4 hour lab every week (which was usually fairly interesting and taught a lot of lab technique). Then, every week there was a 5-page single-spaced lab report due. There were also prelab quizzes which weren't usually that easy. This class was the worst, most stressful class I've ever taken at UVa. After getting nearly 100 in the first semester of 1800 lab and lecture, I thought this class couldn't be too bad. I was very, very wrong. I would strongly recommend dropping to the 1400 series after first semester rather than taking orgo in the 1800 track. It is 100 times harder, you get no special credit or designation for having taken this harder class, and it only hurts your GPA (as well as quality of life).

Professor Serbulea is fantastic and makes the lab assignments really clear and easy to execute. The lab itself was fascinating and exceptionally relevant to anyone that wants to work in a lab. It was probably one of my favorite classes this semester, and I highly recommend it.

As a non-chem major in this course, I found it very difficult. The write-ups took me easily 4-5 hours per week, and you get marked off by the most seemingly minor pieces of missing information. Serbulea is a decent teacher, and while apparently abrasive is fairly friendly and does truly care about her students, learning all of our names. Make sure you can get your hands on a basic 4-function calculator as the final (and only) exam will require it.