CHEM131S | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Ashley Baxter CHEM131S Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2023	Average teacher. Tough class. No extra credit. Runs through material so fast, and it is so hard to understand and catch up. This class was the most painful, time-consuming, stressful class I took the whole semester. Chem department needs better teachers.
Ashley Baxter CHEM131S Expecting a B Anonymous 12/24/2022	This class was extremely difficult and went at a much faster pace, with more detail, than any of the other chem professors. I had to pray every exam to pass, and I had to study till failure. There are no practice exams, and no real way to know what will be on the exams. However, Baxter is extremely nice and a really good teacher. Her exams will be very difficult, but most of the times have lenient partial credit. She is by far the best option if you truly want to learn chemistry. As far as I know, she is the only chem 131 professor who cares. This will be harder than the other profs arguably, but you will learn more and have a much better relationship with her. Take her over Guest please.
Amanda Schech CHEM131S Expecting a C+ Anonymous 01/11/2022	She was a wonderful teacher, I'm just bad at chemistry. All of her lectures were clear, she showed practice problems and worked through them with us. She answers even the dumbest questions with respect and clarity. She was always a little behind, so we literally learned a new topic the day before reading day, 3 days before the final, but you win some you lose some. I hated discussion and went twice and it honestly made me more confused, so I say avoid it if you go to the first two and don't think it's worth it, but do definitely go to GSS, I found it very useful for this class. Her exams weren't easy, but they weren't the hardest exams on the planet. You HAVE to study every single thing you learned during that unit, and study it hard!!! Also, she does clicker questions, so if you enjoy skipping classes and watching them later, she's not for you
Heather Tienson-Tseng CHEM131S Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2021	Overall, she is not a good teacher. During lectures, she is all over the place. She reads straight off the slides and her thoughts are so scrambled that it is hard to follow. Right when you feel like you are getting the material, she assigns extremely hard homework questions that make no sense. Her exams are incredibly hard, although she does change grade ranges which is the only thing I appreciate from her. She does not put grades on Canvas, so we have to manually calculate our final grade. Would it be so hard to use the college-wide database that keeps track of our grades? Also, I don't know if this was specific to this semester, but all of our midterm grades were on days where you would not want it to be on. November 1st - the day after Halloween and November 29 - the day after we come back from Thanksgiving Break. I literally blame her for ruining my Halloween and Thanksgiving Break. All I wanted to do was spend time with my friends and family, but I had to study for a test that I knew I won't do good on cause she is impossible. Please take another teacher if you can.
Heather Tienson-Tseng CHEM131S Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2021	Overall a pretty bad teacher. Bad at lecturing, reads right off the slides, and takes FOREVER to answer questions. Honestly it might be more useful to just watch youtube videos and attend discussions. All the exams had a super low average, and the practice exams don't really help much with the actual midterm. The weekly assignments are easy and the curve is super generous, so if you put in some effort or even get lucky on the exams you can manage an A.
Alice Mignerey CHEM131S Expecting an A Anonymous 10/25/2021	I took AP Chem in high school and got the credit but decided to repeat the class for a review. This professor is pretty average. It is simple enough if you have a good chemistry background, but she can be quite difficult to understand and very mean when she answers students' questions. She does write out all the problems by hand which helps to explain a lot, but her tests can be quite tricky with the wording. I can understand why a lot of student's dislike her, but if you have a good chemistry foundation and can't take any better professors, Mignerey isn't the worst choice.
Garegin Papoian CHEM131S Anonymous 12/09/2020	Do not suggest taking him online by any means.
Andrei Vedernikov CHEM131S Expecting an A mntdunk 12/21/2008	Dr. Vedernikov was the most fair professor for CHEM131. Although his lectures went off on tangents a little, he explains concepts pretty well and supplementing the book with his lectures helped a lot. The old exams he posts online are very similar to the hourly exams as well as the final he gives.

Ashley Baxter
CHEM131S

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2023

Average teacher. Tough class. No extra credit. Runs through material so fast, and it is so hard to understand and catch up. This class was the most painful, time-consuming, stressful class I took the whole semester. Chem department needs better teachers.

Ashley Baxter
CHEM131S

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/24/2022

This class was extremely difficult and went at a much faster pace, with more detail, than any of the other chem professors. I had to pray every exam to pass, and I had to study till failure. There are no practice exams, and no real way to know what will be on the exams. However, Baxter is extremely nice and a really good teacher. Her exams will be very difficult, but most of the times have lenient partial credit. She is by far the best option if you truly want to learn chemistry. As far as I know, she is the only chem 131 professor who cares. This will be harder than the other profs arguably, but you will learn more and have a much better relationship with her. Take her over Guest please.

Amanda Schech
CHEM131S

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
01/11/2022

She was a wonderful teacher, I'm just bad at chemistry. All of her lectures were clear, she showed practice problems and worked through them with us. She answers even the dumbest questions with respect and clarity. She was always a little behind, so we literally learned a new topic the day before reading day, 3 days before the final, but you win some you lose some. I hated discussion and went twice and it honestly made me more confused, so I say avoid it if you go to the first two and don't think it's worth it, but do definitely go to GSS, I found it very useful for this class. Her exams weren't easy, but they weren't the hardest exams on the planet. You HAVE to study every single thing you learned during that unit, and study it hard!!! Also, she does clicker questions, so if you enjoy skipping classes and watching them later, she's not for you

Heather Tienson-Tseng
CHEM131S

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/16/2021

Overall, she is not a good teacher. During lectures, she is all over the place. She reads straight off the slides and her thoughts are so scrambled that it is hard to follow. Right when you feel like you are getting the material, she assigns extremely hard homework questions that make no sense. Her exams are incredibly hard, although she does change grade ranges which is the only thing I appreciate from her. She does not put grades on Canvas, so we have to manually calculate our final grade. Would it be so hard to use the college-wide database that keeps track of our grades? Also, I don't know if this was specific to this semester, but all of our midterm grades were on days where you would not want it to be on. November 1st - the day after Halloween and November 29 - the day after we come back from Thanksgiving Break. I literally blame her for ruining my Halloween and Thanksgiving Break. All I wanted to do was spend time with my friends and family, but I had to study for a test that I knew I won't do good on cause she is impossible. Please take another teacher if you can.

Heather Tienson-Tseng
CHEM131S

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2021

Overall a pretty bad teacher. Bad at lecturing, reads right off the slides, and takes FOREVER to answer questions. Honestly it might be more useful to just watch youtube videos and attend discussions. All the exams had a super low average, and the practice exams don't really help much with the actual midterm. The weekly assignments are easy and the curve is super generous, so if you put in some effort or even get lucky on the exams you can manage an A.

Alice Mignerey
CHEM131S

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/25/2021

I took AP Chem in high school and got the credit but decided to repeat the class for a review. This professor is pretty average. It is simple enough if you have a good chemistry background, but she can be quite difficult to understand and very mean when she answers students' questions. She does write out all the problems by hand which helps to explain a lot, but her tests can be quite tricky with the wording. I can understand why a lot of student's dislike her, but if you have a good chemistry foundation and can't take any better professors, Mignerey isn't the worst choice.

Garegin Papoian
CHEM131S

Anonymous
12/09/2020

Do not suggest taking him online by any means.

Andrei Vedernikov
CHEM131S

Expecting an A
mntdunk
12/21/2008

Dr. Vedernikov was the most fair professor for CHEM131. Although his lectures went off on tangents a little, he explains concepts pretty well and supplementing the book with his lectures helped a lot. The old exams he posts online are very similar to the hourly exams as well as the final he gives.

Reviews for CHEM131S