Step Up/UA Sessions

[Mrudula Akkinepally]

After taking the two midterms, I realized that whatever I'm doing to study needs a little but more help. I heard a lot of people saying that the step up/UA sessions are worth trying out. However I'm a little unsure of what to expect. What do you guys do in them? Do you personally find them helpful? If so, what about them is helpful? If not, what do you think they're missing?

Please let me know!! Thank you :)

[Steph Du 1H]

I find them super helpful! I go to Matthew's workshops most of the time and what he does is he posts a worksheet beforehand on Chemistry Community and during the session, we do 1-2 questions at a time on our own then he goes over them with us. It's good practice in addition to Sapling and the homework problems and you can always ask questions if something is unclear which he will explain in detail.

[Julianna Shimabukuro 1D]

I go to step up sessions when I can, especially when I am not confident in a certain topic, and I find them helpful since they work through the problems step by step. If you have any questions, you can also get clarification. I also think the sessions are useful as the UAs sometimes provide some tips to memorizing difficult to memorize topics.

[Kaitlyn Hernandez 3I]

I personally find them really helpful! I recently started going to Hannah's step up session on Tuesdays from 2 to 4pm and she's been really helpful in explaining the concepts. She usually posts a worksheet that in the chat from google drive and I just copy that onto my iPad so I can write directly on it. She goes over the basic information that we need to know in the beginning before doing practice problems. Hybridization was a confusing topic for me, but after I attended the step-up, I was able to get the hang of it and understand it more! I think they're also really helpful because they provide us with more practice problems.

[Brendan Duong 1I]

In my experience, they are basically just additional proctored practice problems. Helps solidify your understanding of material

[Sachi Sengupta 2C]

I haven't been to any step up sessions yet but I'm starting to struggle more in this class so I'm definitely going to check them out. During the UA sessions we generally get a worksheet and have time to complete it then the UA will work through the problems. Personally, I find them extremely helpful and if you aren't able to stay the entire time you still get a worksheet of practice problems to do in the future.

[apurva-3E]

They are super useful, definitely go to them for help!

[Mahnoor_Wani_1I]

They are really helpful! I try to go to at least two workshops per week. I think the workshops problems are very similar to the structure. And they go step-by-step to make sure you understand the concept/problems

[Katie Le 3K]

I like them a lot. I feel like I solidify my understanding of the Lavelle's lecture and you can ask them questions. They also give you practice problems that are very helpful imo. Highly rec going to Hannah's or Justin's sessions.

[Nadya Higgins 3F]

I often don't have the time to go to them, but when I do, I find they really help me to understand the concepts better! Having a space to do practice problems and ask questions is always really great.

[Vivian Chang 3L]

Yes! UA sessions are extremely helpful, but from what I've noticed, you have to find a UA that you feel fits your learning style. Some are faster-paced and some are slower-paced. You might like the way one UA explains a concept and not so much another. At the beginning of the quarter, I attended one of Justin Sarquiz's workshops and found it super helpful. I've been to maybe 6 different UA's sessions and out of all of them, I've found Justin's to be by far the most helpful so I usually attend his workshops twice a week. Some others that I've been to (not routinely; only when I want a lot of extra practice) and also really liked were Matthew's and Rosa's.

What you do in UA sessions depends on the UA but usually you do some practice problems and the UA will explain how to solve them. Some UAs give really helpful tips or a heads up on what you might see on an exam. What's helpful about them is you do problems that are really similar to what is on the tests and the UAs are always happy to answer questions which I appreciate. I highly recommend finding at least one UA whose teaching style you like and to stick with their workshops!