CHEM132 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/20/2024	This is the most god awful lab coordinator I have ever seen at UMD. She is extremely disorganized, will randomly remove and add grades back into the gradebook, and she obviously does not know how canvas works because even though all her pre-lab quizzes give you two attempts, they are muted so you won't even know if you need the second attempt. She is terrible at her job and given these reviews I don't know how she is still employed as the lab coordinator. This is the stupidest and most poorly designed class I have ever taken at UMD. Good luck.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/01/2024	gives unclear instructions, and you'll never actually see her in person. I'm not actually sure what she does because she has TA's grade everything but get that bag I guess.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/15/2024	Chem132 is so disorganized--and you might think issues will be resolved later into the semester, but it only gets worse. Pre-labs are posted late, giving you a few days to do them, so you can't really be proactive. Then, when you can finally do the pre-lab, you don't get your score back, so you don't know whether or not to use your second attempt. Labs are disorganized, your success depends on if you get a good TA. Dr. Guest is not reachable.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/29/2024	Most disorganized professor at UMD. It is embarrassing that UMD selected her as the lab coordinator out of all the other options. Pre-labs are never posted until the day before lab. In the lab, TAs have told us to lie about our numbers and alter them to the outcomes they were supposed to be. Wearing lab safety gear is also never enforced.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/02/2024	okay the class was dogshit of course, but as a BSOS person who mustered an A in this class without cheating on everything, i'm gonna tell you how to maximize your grade in a reasonably achievable way bc all i saw online before taking this class was people being like 'you're gonna fail kiss your GPA goodbye'. as a disclaimer, i'll say i had a great TA, however even my TA would tell me wrong things for lab reports, and some of the other TAs that graded my stuff were real assholes. first of all, put effort into looking at the prelab stuff. i'd usually set aside my sunday morning for it and it sucked ass, but if you're too scared to cheat like i was (which, newsflash to the instructors, everyone else did) then thoroughly reading the prelab readings and watching the panopto video voiced by dr. guest sets you up pretty well for the prelabs. skip the TA videos that go through the experiment, i've been explicitly told by TAs that those are bullshit. but do not forget the panopto video - 70% of the time it's just recap but 30% of the time there's something there that the reading didn't even mention. and make sure you actually understand it, and can reproduce the logic in your own words before you start the prelab. usually you get 2 attempts, so start your first one as early as possible bc sometimes it takes a while before canvas tells you what your score is. for those post lab reflection quizzes, just go over the material quickly beforehand and make sure you remember the prelab content and the experiment. and for both the prelabs and postlab reflections make sure you READ THAT SHIT. they WILL word things stupidly to trip you up, but if you look at each question as skeptically as possible you can get it. i failed the first postlab reflection and then got a 100% on almost every single one afterward, and it's bc i used All my time to pay as much attention to the details of each problem as possible - make sure you leave enough time to check your answers. also, remember some of the basics from older experiments, bc sometimes you have to draw upon that knowledge for the later quizzes. for the lab reports, first of all do them right after the experiment they're for. it's boring and mind numbing but your memory of the experiment and the material at this time will be at its highest which makes it much easier. then, you have a week to check any of your answers or make any adjustments. secondly, if you have a question about formatting or basically anything not chem-related, either don't bother asking the TAs or ask multiple TAs, because they do Not know what's going on and they Will give you wrong answers. you gotta corroborate, and if you really don't know ask dr. guest, she's usually pretty helpful. finally do not be shy. if you have a question, ask. if someone made a mistake that led to a bad grade, let that person know and try to fix it. if you think something should be regraded, even if there's an 80% chance the TA will give it half a glance 3 weeks later and say no, request the regrade. be as polite and dicksuck-y as possible about it, but do it. the worst the TAs can do is get annoyed or say no (or maybe chew you out if they really suck), but the best that can happen is a grade increase which you can Always use. doing this stuff isn't 100% foolproof; this course is ridiculous and poorly made, and stupid shit Will happen. however, if you've cushioned yourself with mostly alright grades, then when this stuff happens it'll affect you less. they've also made the course itself way less difficult in the last few years, so don't get caught up in what people have said about it in the past. good luck soldier.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/29/2024	My expected grade is listed as an A, but I really have no idea what it actually will be. The letter-grade percentage correlation is based on an incredibly vague average of student performance which is not made clear until the end of the semester - this is me being optimistic. This course is a general chemistry lab, and it is going to suck. Dr. Guest herself is essentially non-existent for this course, but she is responsible for the formatting and system so I still feel validated attributing this review to her. Your main grades come from pre-lab quizzes, lab reports, and post-lab quizzes. For a one-credit class, this is a TON of work and will likely be more draining than your 3 and 4 credit classes (I spent more time on homework for this class than any other class). Luckily, there are no midterms and there is no final exam. The pre-lab quizzes typically give you multiple attempts, but you have to learn all the content from the lab manual and videos posted to elms since the lecture and lab schedules do not overlap. Therefore, you can lose a lot of points even with the multiple attempts because you simply do not know what you are supposed to be doing. Lab reports are sometimes straightforward and sometimes incredibly confusing. Post-lab quizzes are usually fine, but you have to be SURE that you are familiar with the content from labs a couple weeks ago each time. Having a good TA and a good lab partner/group will ease a lot of the pain that comes with this class.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/03/2024	This was my first lab ever and all things considered, it wasn't too bad. You will never actually meet Dr. Guest and the labs are solely TA run. The TA's do all the grading, teaching, and primary communication. If you have a good TA and ask questions/go to office hours you will be able to complete the post labs easily and get a 90+ on each. You will often get out of lab before the 3 hour mark as the labs were typically simple and easy to follow.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2023	So this isn't really about Guest herself, because you barely see her if at all, but the course itself since she's the only instructor. The TAs basically run the whole class, and I am very lucky to have gotten a good TA. There are prelab quizzes, and they aren't that bad, however, there are refection quizzes that occur 1-2 weeks after a lab has taken place that are such a pain. They are in place of a final exam, and I do think I prefer those to a final, however, they are quite challenging and only have 2-3 questions and are around 10 points, so if you get something wrong on one of these quizzes with 3 questions, that's immediately a 66%, and like I mentioned before, they are quote challenging. The lab itself isn't horrible, but the instructions in the lab manual which Dr. Guest wrote are quite confusing, and I had to ask my TA lots of questions for the procedures to make sense. The post-lab questions for your lab reports are straightforward and pretty easy. On the lab reports, you can also get extra credit. However, this past semester, some people got over 100% in the class due to the extra credit, so basically the class had a negative curve, as I have a 94.7% in the class and that's an A-, which I am not happy about. I know some people have it worse, but as I worked very hard in that class, getting an A- with a grade that would be an A in any other circumstance really angers me, since it isn't a 4.0. This class is also only 1 credit, so it shouldn't screw my GPA as someone who is also a STEM major, but I am annoyed by it. The class takes up a lot of time with the prelab quizzes and lab reports for a 1 credit class, and as someone who took this their first semester as a freshman, it really added to the stress levels. I would recommend taking this after you have already adjusted to the workload of college, and really, this class can be a hit or miss.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	If I could give 0 stars I would. I have never taken a class that was managed so poorly. There was basically no communication with her TAs given that mine, Sneha, never knew what the password was for our weekly quizzes, gave maybe two shits about us, and spent the entire lab period talking to this one kid that she knew from her premed frat. The weekly lab quizzes shouldn't have been that hard, but there were frequent wording issues that made some questions confusing. The grading was super specific on the lab reports and I got points off for answers that TAs during office hours literally told me were good. I think it's ridiculous that the grading leniency seems to vary drastically between the TAs, they need a better rubric. Also, our lab grades on Gradescope were not consistent with the ones on Canvas such that denominator on Canvas was /35 for all of the reports but that was not the case on Gradescope where the denominator ranged up to /41. This caused some of us to get over 100% on labs on Canvas (ex. 38/35). The issue was not addressed until literally after finals week where we were told (in a frankly barely comprehensible Canvas annnouncement) that she was going to correct for it by dropping all of our grades down by 3%. She also made us pay for her $60+ mandatory lab manual (she's literally making thousands off of it) that was riddled with errors that our TAs had to correct. Through all of this I have never once seen her in the flesh and sometimes I wondered if she even existed. Her pre-lab videos are useless and a waste of your time to watch. The experiments themselves sucked, but were doable. It was the crazy poor class management that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/18/2023	Her grading system sucks. The reflection quizzes are quite hard.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2023	I was supposed to receive a 94% but my grade was curved down 6% to a B+. This pulls down my GPA by several points. If you can avoid it, do not take a class with Dr. Guest.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/18/2023	Lab is entirely TA-run. My TA was ok and ran the lab smoothly. You'll have some TAs who'll grade harshly and others who will be softer. Ultimately, your experience in this course depends on what TAs happen to grade your lab. The only reason why people took Guest this semester is because she was the ONLY option for this course. At least you will never interact with her in lab. This is why I'm giving her a one-star review: At the end of the semester, she unexpectedly curved everyone's grade DOWN by 3-5 percent (i.e. ~92 equates to a B+). I got a high 93% (raw percentage) which got dropped to an 88%. She states in her lab manual that "you should work as if there was no curve in this class"... so what does that mean if you curve down? This does not allow students to accurately keep track of their letter grades, and turns the class into a giant competition to get good grades. If you try to email her about that, you will be met with no response -- as other reviews have said, it is extremely difficult to communicate with her. For future students... do yourself a favor: if there is another option, go with that option. Although this isn't likely to change.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A terp2027 12/17/2023	I don't actually know Dr. Guest but the way that the lab is scheduled is great. There are many resources available to show how the lab is supposed to be done, however the reflection quizzes SUCK. Truthfully I think it is really evil that those go into the 50% category because it's usually out of 10.6 and there are three questions, meaning that if you mess a couple up and your lab reports aren't that great you can kiss an A goodbye. However, having an amazing TA like Cristina Zhang makes the experience a lot better. Christina is so kind, patient, and funny. She put up with my group's multiple mistakes and still managed to teach us a lot about chem. The overarching theme is that Dr. Guest is mid and Cristina is amazing.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/12/2023	This class is taught by a TA; I didn’t see Dr. Guest even once during the semester. Most labs can be finished earlier than the class ending time. You will usually be doing the lab with the same lab partner (so choose yours wisely), though you will sometimes work in groups of four or eight. Divide and conquer is the best way to finish and get out of there early. We had no midterms or final in this class, but we did have one pre-lab quiz due every Monday before lab as well as one reflection quiz two weeks after each corresponding lab. These quizzes can be tricky and sometimes allow two attempts; use them if you need to! Doing badly on the quizzes can bring down your grade a significant amount. Generally, if you do okay on the quizzes and follow all directions for the labs, you will succeed in this class.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	For gen chem lab, students work directly with their TAs. I never met or interacted with Dr. Guest. My TA was extremely helpful.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/06/2023	If you’ve done labs before this class isn’t that hard. I recommend looking at the modules for each lab because there’s usually a video of how to do the lab and another video of how to take any calculations the lab involves. The lab reports can be tedious depending on the experiment but it’s nothing too awful. How do you also depends on who you have as your TA too since Dr.Guest isn’t really involved with the class itself. I got lucky with my TA (shoutout Raquel) since she answered our questions and showed us how to do certain steps in the lab and gave helpful feedback with the lab reports.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2023	I had an amazing TA, Raquel, who was super sweet and helpful! She made sure we understood the experiments and gave tips for the lab reports. We usually got out of lab earlier than the 3hr time slot as well. A few labs were a little tedious but most were pretty painless. This was my first chem lab course (in HS it was online) and it was pretty positive. Sometimes the lab reports were graded harshly but the lab manual has good explanations and sample problems that are helpful if you take the time to read them. Prelab quizzes are pretty easy and you do those online outside of class. The reflection quizzes (online, in class) are not hard but you do have to remember essentially how to do the previous lab. Overall, solid experience!
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/23/2023	The course is set up as a pre-lab quiz on Canvas, a 3 hour lab section each week with a short lecture at the beginning, lab reports due a week after each experiment, and a midterm and final exam. With all lab professors, it's definitely a hit or miss because your TA will be the one teaching the course and grading your lab reports. Definitely be wary of who you choose as a lab partner because this class will be awful if you have one that doesn't do anything like I did. The experiments weren't too bad, and luckily I ended up with a super kind and understanding TA who would patiently guide me through any trouble I was having. I would definitely recommend reading through the experimental procedures and background information before lab, because it will save you some confusion during the experiment. Also definitely go through the module for each experiment and watch the pre-lab videos-- they walk you through each step of the experiment. It was hard to expect what would be on the midterm and final, but Dr. Guest provided a recorded review session that was super helpful in reviewing what you needed to know from each experiment. I would also recommend going to office hours if you need help-- Dr. Guest is super kind, patient, and helpful and will take time to explain concepts.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ mgurvich 05/14/2023	This class was probably my least favorite class of the semester because it was so tedious and boring. I was also not friends with my lab partner so it made the class even worse, so make sure to get a good lab partner just to make the long class more enjoyable. The lab reports were pretty time-consuming, but going to office hours really helped. Your TA plays a big role and I was so lucky to get an extremely helpful one who did everything she could to help me succeed. You barely ever interact with or see Dr. Guest. The quizzes at the beginning of lab are a bit difficult, but it is way better than having exams. The class was a bit disorganized because sometimes assignments would be due at a certain time, but a place to submit them wouldn't open up until very close to the set due date (ex. weekly lab reports). The curve at the end was not too bad and it helped my grade. The lab reports were also graded by different TAs every time, so sometimes you just got lucky with a TA who grades easily or unlucky with a TA who grades harshly.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ Manssuri 05/02/2023	She is a very inaccessible professor. She is near impossible to get ahold of and her answer keys for the post labs are often very specific and odd. Certainly go to office hours for help with them. My TA (Laura!) was lovely and always helped make the labs go faster. The 'reflection quizes' (so a final but broken up into a little every week) weren't too bad as long as you looked the material over beforehand. She never grades the assignments before you are tested on them, however, and you often aren't able to use both attempts on the pre-lab because you won't get a grade back for the first one until a week or two after. I understand that she is a very busy woman, but perhaps she should have other help and less courses than everyone in chem132 having the same issues.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A neesh1903 01/05/2023	Thank god I had a good TA (Natasha!!) . If you don't like your TA, find another section. If not just go to office hours and find a good TA to help you with the lab reports. She is so disorganized and her review videos are hopeless with her accent and terrible handwriting. She does push back pre labs but does it so late. The midterm was honestly fine, the final was kinda hell
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B georgelkelley 01/05/2023	I was lucky enough to get a great TA for this class who was super chill and funny. There were so many things wrong with this class though. It was super unorganized; from hearing from students in other sections, every TA had a different answer regarding lab report questions. The lab manual had multiple spelling/grammar errors, the procedures for MANY of the experiments were not descriptive enough, and the midterm and final had almost nothing to do with the experiments, making them impossible to study for. Grading on lab reports takes forever. It literally took up until the LAST week of classes for one of my lab reports to get graded, which was due way back in October. Students had this same problem with the same lab report. It was not hard to get decent grades on the lab reports though.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2022	Yall don't need another review from me. Just pray and do your best lol. Try to get 100% on all the lab reports (its honestly doable) and try to get around 50-60 on the midterms. If you do, you can snag an A in the class. But I have seen Dr. Guest like .5 times idek if shes real either
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2022	I took this class for an entire semester and never met or saw Dr. Guest once the entire semester. The TA's run the entire lab which is fine, but Guest has terrible communication with them which causes alot of problems when grading. Good luck if you have any problems throughout the semester because it is near impossible to reach her. Her midterms and finals are aggressively difficult and only consist of about 15 multiple choices with 6-7 answer choices, making it very easy to make mistakes. That being said, despite my two star review, it is not impossible to succeed in this class. Lab reports are worth most of the grade, so failing the midterm and final does not impact your grade too much. I gave her 2 stars for the PHAT curve she gave at the end (about 6% for me at least). Although, I am still annoyed I was 1% off from an A.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	Just prepare yourself, chem lab is the ugliest course ever and the fact that it's only 1 credit makes me want to rip my hair out. communication is absolutely awful. if there's a mistake in your grade, you literally just have to accept that - the TAs communication with each other and Dr. Guest is literally nonexistent (at least with my TA). I've been trying to get one of my lab report grades just LOOKED AT for months now and have gotten no response. this class is very unreal like Dr. Guest is just a figment of my imagination and the grading doesn't align with logic. As long as you do all your work you should be okay grade-wise, but you might lose your sanity. Pray for a good lab partner that's the only thing that made this manageable for me.
Fahad Shaikh CHEM132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2022	Fahad is an amazing TA, is very knowledgeable and does so well in helping all the students in the class succeed. He made attending lab more fun and less tedious. He was always so happy and definitely brought good energy into the room. Definitely has such a kind and caring heart.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/12/2022	Both Chem lecture and Chem lab with Dr Guest have been a pleasure. She always makes sure to teach us the material and she never surprises us with difficult questions on the exams. If you study and do the achieves/practice problems she provides you in class, then you will do great.
Fahad Shaikh CHEM132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/07/2022	Fahad is simply the best TA I've ever had the privilege of having. He always had a smile on his face, was always super helpful in making sure we were all successful. I can confidently say my entire class loved this man so if you have the chance of having Fahad as a TA treat him so well!
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ wild 12/05/2022	DISCLAIMER: Mind that this is coming from someone who got a 100% on the midterm (final is pending) and has a near perfect grade in the class. Yet, I have a very strong opinion of Dr. Guest. (should lowkey be stripped of the "Dr." title) We are approaching the end of the semester and I am not sure if she even exists. The TAs run the class, grade all of your labs, and organize equipment. She also has a Canvas manager who is in charge of all the pre-lab exams and midterm/final. So the purpose of having Guest is kind of unknown. Guest wrote the lab manual which is your holy grail for the semester. Everything for the class comes from that so protect it with all costs and just study that for the midterm/final and you'll do well. For prelab quizzes, they're on Canvas and only some are lockdown browser. They're very easy but just don't make stupid mistakes. She gives like two attempts for each which is enough to get perfect on all of them. I feel that any person could do her job because she is literally getting paid to sit there. Actually, she doesn't even sit there because she only came into our lab class once over the course of the entire semester. The class and labs are easy but for people who don't have a background in chem (this is an intro chem lab), it would be somewhat difficult. The class is also out of sync with the professors. I had the professor who was ahead of everyone else in CHEM131 so people from my class knew the concepts in lab, but other profs did not teach up to pace. I don't even think her own lecture was up to pace so try and learn stuff on your own or take a nice professor (...not her). Hacks to do well: 1) Ace the prelab quizzes because they are gimme points and online. 2) For labs, go on her Canvas modules and make sure you are submitting everything you have to. Don't leave out any details and explain all questions and answers thoroughly because the TAs are required to take points off for dumb mistakes (she makes some answer sheet, which also is quite bad but we all have to bear with it). 3) For midterm (and final we haven't taken yet but should be similar), read through the experiments which are on the exam. Should be half and half but +/- 1. Practice the types of equations and stuff and it'll be fine overall. Average was like a 50 something percent but I studied the morning of the exam and got a 100 so doing similar prep should get you at least a C, which is enough. 4) Pray. She apparently has some curve but no idea how much it is. It won't impact my grade but if it is rly nice, I'll edit this review. Get to know your TA, they have to deal with her.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/21/2022	I've never met her ever, because she will never actually teach you. Your TA will run the entire lab. I recommend meeting with TA's because they will teach you everything. This class has lots of work and the exams are difficult to score high on. Getting in contact with her is very difficult and the grading in her class is pretty unfair (different TA's grade each assignment, leading to inconsistencies). You will be in the lab for the entire period and spend probably an equal amount of time for your post-labs, depending on the lab. Make sure to buy the print textbook because you will have a very rough life without it. She is the only professor teaching CHEM132, so good luck. She does give a phaaaat curve at the end though, but don't rely on that.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 02/16/2022	This woman is literally a mystery. This class was a ridiculous amount of work for a one credit lab, but I gave her an additional star for her ginormous curve at the end of the semester.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/06/2022	I've never met this woman, she does not interact with her students, deliberately stating at the beginning of the course to not email her barring emergency. Her lab reports, while fair, are inconsistently graded due to different grading policies of different TAs. The midterm and final were not fair however, as they had many poorly worded questions. I would say avoid if you can, but she's the only one who proctors this lab, so instead I'll just wish you good luck.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/21/2021	You are probably forced to take this class so there is no escaping it. Dr. Guest is a ghost to her students and TA's. She does not always check in with her TA's which I found to be funny. Her lab manual which she wrote (and forces us to buy) is filled with typos. This made so many question problems more confusing than they needed to be. Her labs are okay their fun in my opinion. I can't believe there is a midterm and a final in this class because what do we actually learn? Most of the things in this class is contingent on you understanding concepts from chem131. She tells us to study off of the lab manual for our exams, but these lab manuals do not prep for her exams whatsoever. Her Panopto videos of her teaching often have poor video and audio quality, making it hard to understand her at times. Her exams consist of multiple-choice questions. Which is good right. No. She would have 10 choices to 1 multiple choice question. She would also make each question worth 7 points making it hard to achieve an A. For our midterm and final the average was below a 49. Take that as you will. There is no escaping this class. Just hope that you have an awesome TA like I did!
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2021	This class was okay if you stayed on top of the work. However, it still seemed very excessive for something only worth one credit.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/20/2021	Genuinely bad professor who does not respond to emails and has put me at a disadvantage because of my disabilities. Blatant ableism. I took AP Chemistry in high school and got an A every quarter and a 4 on the final exam. Since I am a biology major, I decided to retake it as a review in preparation for organic chemistry. I can justifiably say that this was the most awful class I have taken thus far. Dr. Guest rarely responds to emails. The midterm was extremely unfair (average was below a 50%) and the final was similar. On top of this, I have ADS accommodations and have experienced ableism in this class that I will have to address with the College of Computer and Mathematical Sciences here at UMD. I was unable to use my accommodations during my midterm because we had a lab immediately after during the same class period. One of my accommodations enlists an increased time to take tests, so I would have missed this lab and been forced to do a make-up lab instead, taking more time out of my schedule. The final was online and I was at ADS taking my exam and noticed I did not have my time extension. The testing proctor contacted Dr. Guest with no response. I then was unable to complete the final and had to email her myself. She replied that she would "get back to me" but never did and instead released the grades for everyone's final, mine included. I have reached out to her again, but am leaving campus today due to COVID-19 protocol. Dont know what my final grade will be looking like because I have no idea what I am going to do for my final.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/19/2021	She was the only professor for gen chem lab this semester so its not like anyone had a choice to take her but if I had a choice I would definitely not take any class with her ever again. She wrote the lab manual that we use in class and it has so many typos and the experiments can be unclear I recommend looking at the pre lab video she posts under the modules and watching them do the experiment instead of following the book. My main issue with this class is not the labs themselves since they are definitely doable, its the two exams in a LAB course. Every exam is all multiple choice and each question is worth 6 POINTS which makes it almost impossible to get an A on them since the questions are so confusing and nothing like the lab manual. For some questions she would give 7 answer choices which is insane. Don't take her if you don't have to. If you do have to take her, pray your TA is nice and helpful
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/15/2021	everything you read is true. i got a 29% on my midterm, which was released a day after dropping period. the labs make sense and can be useful, but Guest is as uninvolved as humanely possible. exams are completely unreasonable and consist of poorly written multiple choice (multiple choice for a LAB exam? yup.) She does not deserve to be associated with the great State of Maryland.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/15/2021	CHEM132 is needlessly complicated but Dr Guest is fairly easy to reach as long as you go through a TA
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/14/2021	Extremely hands off. Her zoom sessions aren't even that helpful and her TAs are the only people that give any help whatsoever, and even my TA doesn't seem to know what they're talking about. The whole class is a mess and the grading is awful and done by TAs. If I feel as if I would do a better job than my professor and TA, there is a clear problem with the course.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/07/2021	If I could give negative stars I would. Christiana Guest should have her teaching degree suspended. She was the WORST i repeat the WORST professor I have EVER had. She shouldn't even be called a professor. The class suspects that Christiana doesn't actually exist, and rather UMD chooses a random student with zero chemistry experience to act as Christiana Guest because they couldn't find anyone else. To begin, this is a one credit course. However, it has the amount of work as a 4 credit class. To put it into perspective, my TA explicitly said to me midsemester, "This is a one credit course? Why do you guys put so much effort into this?!" I spent more time on this lab as I spent on my actual chem lecture class. Be prepared to spend hours on top of hours every week Lets talk about the midterm. Everyone fails it thats just how it is. My TA basically told me not to even study for it because everyone fails and there's no point and when we looked at him with concerning faces he said "Lets just put this into perspective, I failed both my midterm and my final and I'm your TA so you guys will be fine." In any of your classes has your TA blatantly said that they failed their exams???? Another thing, Dr. Guest only has one hour slot of office hours herself, which she usually only shows up for about 10 minutes for, with her camera off, and its during my actual lab section so i have zero way of commuciation with the so called "professor". and you must go to if you have an issue with grades as she does not answer emails. I logged onto the zoom, (her camera was off!!) and one student mentioned an issue he had with a grade. He mentioned how he has emailed her every day for the whole semester about the first assignment that he has a 0 for. She simply responded, "Why are you only telling me this now?" with her camera still off. I came to her with another issue after emailing her every day for a month because I had missed a lab due to religious holidays and I hadn't heard back from her or the TA. She again didn't have her camera on and her response to me was "why didn't you title the email to be more urgent?" Hmm I don't know, maybe it's because in her syllabus it says specifically to title your emails a specific way or else she won't see it. She even told me "I get too many emails so I can't respond to my students." I'm sorry but what's the point in having an email and having specific instructions in your syllabus for emailing you if you don't check your emails to begin with. Now lets move on to the pre labs. The pre labs were on lockdown browser and there were automatic answers they were looking for that were usually wrong, so even if you got the answers right, it was graded wrong. As a result the average on the pre lab quizzes were usually between a 2-3 out of 10. She hasn't done anything to fix this. The questions were completely arbitrary, something we never learned and had zero clue how to do. Also, we had 10 minutes to answer 10 questions of something we have never seen in our life before. She claims that the pre lab videos will teach you how to do this, but do not watch them!!! This will be the biggest waste of your time!! Again, putting into perspective, you watch the video and thoroughly study it, read the lab, waste all this time, take the quiz to realize you know nothing on it one bit. Moving on to the labs. The labs had the most difficult and time consuming questions. They were graded extremely harshly and arbitrary, each TA grading it however they want. It's based on luck which TA you had. This class doesn't have anything to do with hard work, hard work does nothing for you in this class, it solely relies on luck. Randomly everyone's grades went up because everyone was doing so poorly. However, it was a game of chance how much your grade would go up. Some went up 2 percent, some went up 15 percent, it happened out of no where with zero explanation. STAY CLEAR OF THIS CLASS. IT IS THE WORST CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN AND I HAVE NEVER HATED MY LIFE MORE. But, because you all have to take it as she is the only option for this lab, all I can say is best of luck.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 07/16/2021	Truly a terrible professor. Seriously can't express how bad her class was.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/17/2021	Definitely not a good professor because she makes the course more difficult than it needs to be. The final exam dropped most people I know's grades by a letter grade!
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Anonymous 12/20/2020	Definitely not the worst professor, but she definitely makes the lab course more difficult than it needs to be. While the labs themselves were fine (the TAs ran them), the other assignments like pre-lab quizzes and the final exam were usually poorly written and hard to understand, with multiple typos. She also did not post answer keys for them after you took them so that you could understand your mistakes. She can also be difficult to communicate with, and is strict with email formatting. That being said, she still explained material well in review sessions and Panopto lectures, and overall seemed like a nice person. She also gave a rather generous final grade curve.
Lenea Stocker CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/15/2020	Pros: One of the easier STEM labs you'll take. I'm not saying it's easy, but in comparison to other poop courses, it is. The exams are manageable and fair if you study and review your notes. Cons: A lot of work.
Jie Jung Shih CHEM132 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/01/2020	Responds to questions promptly and really helpful. Nice to students.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2020	I wish I could give 0 stars. Dr Guest is rude, unintelligent, and does not care about her students. During review sessions she laughed at students who were struggling with difficult material. She has an accent that makes it difficult to understand her. Our lab final exam had an average of 40%. The final exam also had lots of typos and mistakes on it, and was overall just horrible and bad. Dr Guest should not be in charge of a chemistry lab at UMD. I did not have a good experience with her this semester.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/03/2020	AVOID AT ALL COSTS. The lab book is written by her and seems like no one bothered to edit it before publishing. It's super inconsistent (ex. in the pre-lab background information she'll refer to Part A of the lab, Part B of the lab, etc, but in the actual procedure it's labeled Part 1, Part 2, etc. Not an issue at first but in later labs when there are multiple parts it gets VERY confusing VERY quickly). Grammatical errors and typos actually make it difficult to understand what she's saying. In sample calculations nothing is labeled so you don't know where any of the numbers come from, or why she's using them, or what they mean. When there is an explanation, a lot of times she makes assumptions that you know things that were never explained. The lab book is about $55. The only reason I mention the price is because it's so poorly written that it almost feels like exploitation that we had to buy it. The TAs run the labs and grade the lab reports. Grading is VERY harsh and it seems like they want to deduct points (one of my lab reports got a RAW score of 27.85/30. The TA grading my paper literally took off 0.15 points from a question. I can understand taking 1/2 point off, but 0.15???) Exams are outrageously difficult, but apparently that's how all labs are. Be prepared to spend an hour or two in your TAs office hours every week if you even want a chance of getting a good score.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/23/2019	Bad lab reports consisting of many typos, way too much work for a one-credit course.
Jason Tran CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2018	Jason is easily the best TA for all of CHEM132. I don't know how long he is going to be around because he is probably going to be offered a position as a TA for a more selective class but that just goes to show how good he is. He puts a lot of effort into the class and into the students as well.
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2018	You're probably forced to take CHEM132 at some point but if you want to take this class for fun... don't! I was lucky enough to have a great TA but other's are harsh and you literally never even meet the professor... all she did was write the lab manual which has SOOOOOO many typos in it anyway. Even the TA's say that the procedures she writes suck
Christiana Guest CHEM132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2018	never met her, so can't say anything about her personality but lab manuals have extreme typos, post lab questions make no sense, mid term and final are very hard as well. if you have to take her for lab just make sure you go to office hours for the post lab otherwise the questions can be interpreted 10 different ways.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/20/2024

This is the most god awful lab coordinator I have ever seen at UMD. She is extremely disorganized, will randomly remove and add grades back into the gradebook, and she obviously does not know how canvas works because even though all her pre-lab quizzes give you two attempts, they are muted so you won't even know if you need the second attempt. She is terrible at her job and given these reviews I don't know how she is still employed as the lab coordinator. This is the stupidest and most poorly designed class I have ever taken at UMD. Good luck.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/01/2024

gives unclear instructions, and you'll never actually see her in person. I'm not actually sure what she does because she has TA's grade everything but get that bag I guess.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/15/2024

Chem132 is so disorganized--and you might think issues will be resolved later into the semester, but it only gets worse. Pre-labs are posted late, giving you a few days to do them, so you can't really be proactive. Then, when you can finally do the pre-lab, you don't get your score back, so you don't know whether or not to use your second attempt. Labs are disorganized, your success depends on if you get a good TA. Dr. Guest is not reachable.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
09/29/2024

Most disorganized professor at UMD. It is embarrassing that UMD selected her as the lab coordinator out of all the other options. Pre-labs are never posted until the day before lab. In the lab, TAs have told us to lie about our numbers and alter them to the outcomes they were supposed to be. Wearing lab safety gear is also never enforced.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/02/2024

okay the class was dogshit of course, but as a BSOS person who mustered an A in this class without cheating on everything, i'm gonna tell you how to maximize your grade in a reasonably achievable way bc all i saw online before taking this class was people being like 'you're gonna fail kiss your GPA goodbye'. as a disclaimer, i'll say i had a great TA, however even my TA would tell me wrong things for lab reports, and some of the other TAs that graded my stuff were real assholes. first of all, put effort into looking at the prelab stuff. i'd usually set aside my sunday morning for it and it sucked ass, but if you're too scared to cheat like i was (which, newsflash to the instructors, everyone else did) then thoroughly reading the prelab readings and watching the panopto video voiced by dr. guest sets you up pretty well for the prelabs. skip the TA videos that go through the experiment, i've been explicitly told by TAs that those are bullshit. but do not forget the panopto video - 70% of the time it's just recap but 30% of the time there's something there that the reading didn't even mention. and make sure you actually understand it, and can reproduce the logic in your own words before you start the prelab. usually you get 2 attempts, so start your first one as early as possible bc sometimes it takes a while before canvas tells you what your score is. for those post lab reflection quizzes, just go over the material quickly beforehand and make sure you remember the prelab content and the experiment. and for both the prelabs and postlab reflections make sure you READ THAT SHIT. they WILL word things stupidly to trip you up, but if you look at each question as skeptically as possible you can get it. i failed the first postlab reflection and then got a 100% on almost every single one afterward, and it's bc i used All my time to pay as much attention to the details of each problem as possible - make sure you leave enough time to check your answers. also, remember some of the basics from older experiments, bc sometimes you have to draw upon that knowledge for the later quizzes. for the lab reports, first of all do them right after the experiment they're for. it's boring and mind numbing but your memory of the experiment and the material at this time will be at its highest which makes it much easier. then, you have a week to check any of your answers or make any adjustments. secondly, if you have a question about formatting or basically anything not chem-related, either don't bother asking the TAs or ask multiple TAs, because they do Not know what's going on and they Will give you wrong answers. you gotta corroborate, and if you really don't know ask dr. guest, she's usually pretty helpful. finally do not be shy. if you have a question, ask. if someone made a mistake that led to a bad grade, let that person know and try to fix it. if you think something should be regraded, even if there's an 80% chance the TA will give it half a glance 3 weeks later and say no, request the regrade. be as polite and dicksuck-y as possible about it, but do it. the worst the TAs can do is get annoyed or say no (or maybe chew you out if they really suck), but the best that can happen is a grade increase which you can Always use. doing this stuff isn't 100% foolproof; this course is ridiculous and poorly made, and stupid shit Will happen. however, if you've cushioned yourself with mostly alright grades, then when this stuff happens it'll affect you less. they've also made the course itself way less difficult in the last few years, so don't get caught up in what people have said about it in the past. good luck soldier.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/29/2024

My expected grade is listed as an A, but I really have no idea what it actually will be. The letter-grade percentage correlation is based on an incredibly vague average of student performance which is not made clear until the end of the semester - this is me being optimistic. This course is a general chemistry lab, and it is going to suck. Dr. Guest herself is essentially non-existent for this course, but she is responsible for the formatting and system so I still feel validated attributing this review to her. Your main grades come from pre-lab quizzes, lab reports, and post-lab quizzes. For a one-credit class, this is a TON of work and will likely be more draining than your 3 and 4 credit classes (I spent more time on homework for this class than any other class). Luckily, there are no midterms and there is no final exam. The pre-lab quizzes typically give you multiple attempts, but you have to learn all the content from the lab manual and videos posted to elms since the lecture and lab schedules do not overlap. Therefore, you can lose a lot of points even with the multiple attempts because you simply do not know what you are supposed to be doing. Lab reports are sometimes straightforward and sometimes incredibly confusing. Post-lab quizzes are usually fine, but you have to be SURE that you are familiar with the content from labs a couple weeks ago each time. Having a good TA and a good lab partner/group will ease a lot of the pain that comes with this class.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/03/2024

This was my first lab ever and all things considered, it wasn't too bad. You will never actually meet Dr. Guest and the labs are solely TA run. The TA's do all the grading, teaching, and primary communication. If you have a good TA and ask questions/go to office hours you will be able to complete the post labs easily and get a 90+ on each. You will often get out of lab before the 3 hour mark as the labs were typically simple and easy to follow.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/23/2023

So this isn't really about Guest herself, because you barely see her if at all, but the course itself since she's the only instructor. The TAs basically run the whole class, and I am very lucky to have gotten a good TA. There are prelab quizzes, and they aren't that bad, however, there are refection quizzes that occur 1-2 weeks after a lab has taken place that are such a pain. They are in place of a final exam, and I do think I prefer those to a final, however, they are quite challenging and only have 2-3 questions and are around 10 points, so if you get something wrong on one of these quizzes with 3 questions, that's immediately a 66%, and like I mentioned before, they are quote challenging. The lab itself isn't horrible, but the instructions in the lab manual which Dr. Guest wrote are quite confusing, and I had to ask my TA lots of questions for the procedures to make sense. The post-lab questions for your lab reports are straightforward and pretty easy. On the lab reports, you can also get extra credit. However, this past semester, some people got over 100% in the class due to the extra credit, so basically the class had a negative curve, as I have a 94.7% in the class and that's an A-, which I am not happy about. I know some people have it worse, but as I worked very hard in that class, getting an A- with a grade that would be an A in any other circumstance really angers me, since it isn't a 4.0. This class is also only 1 credit, so it shouldn't screw my GPA as someone who is also a STEM major, but I am annoyed by it. The class takes up a lot of time with the prelab quizzes and lab reports for a 1 credit class, and as someone who took this their first semester as a freshman, it really added to the stress levels. I would recommend taking this after you have already adjusted to the workload of college, and really, this class can be a hit or miss.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2023

If I could give 0 stars I would. I have never taken a class that was managed so poorly. There was basically no communication with her TAs given that mine, Sneha, never knew what the password was for our weekly quizzes, gave maybe two shits about us, and spent the entire lab period talking to this one kid that she knew from her premed frat. The weekly lab quizzes shouldn't have been that hard, but there were frequent wording issues that made some questions confusing. The grading was super specific on the lab reports and I got points off for answers that TAs during office hours literally told me were good. I think it's ridiculous that the grading leniency seems to vary drastically between the TAs, they need a better rubric. Also, our lab grades on Gradescope were not consistent with the ones on Canvas such that denominator on Canvas was /35 for all of the reports but that was not the case on Gradescope where the denominator ranged up to /41. This caused some of us to get over 100% on labs on Canvas (ex. 38/35). The issue was not addressed until literally after finals week where we were told (in a frankly barely comprehensible Canvas annnouncement) that she was going to correct for it by dropping all of our grades down by 3%. She also made us pay for her $60+ mandatory lab manual (she's literally making thousands off of it) that was riddled with errors that our TAs had to correct. Through all of this I have never once seen her in the flesh and sometimes I wondered if she even existed. Her pre-lab videos are useless and a waste of your time to watch. The experiments themselves sucked, but were doable. It was the crazy poor class management that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/18/2023

Her grading system sucks. The reflection quizzes are quite hard.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2023

I was supposed to receive a 94% but my grade was curved down 6% to a B+. This pulls down my GPA by several points. If you can avoid it, do not take a class with Dr. Guest.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/18/2023

Lab is entirely TA-run. My TA was ok and ran the lab smoothly. You'll have some TAs who'll grade harshly and others who will be softer. Ultimately, your experience in this course depends on what TAs happen to grade your lab. The only reason why people took Guest this semester is because she was the ONLY option for this course. At least you will never interact with her in lab. This is why I'm giving her a one-star review: At the end of the semester, she unexpectedly curved everyone's grade DOWN by 3-5 percent (i.e. ~92 equates to a B+). I got a high 93% (raw percentage) which got dropped to an 88%. She states in her lab manual that "you should work as if there was no curve in this class"... so what does that mean if you curve down? This does not allow students to accurately keep track of their letter grades, and turns the class into a giant competition to get good grades. If you try to email her about that, you will be met with no response -- as other reviews have said, it is extremely difficult to communicate with her. For future students... do yourself a favor: if there is another option, go with that option. Although this isn't likely to change.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
terp2027
12/17/2023

I don't actually know Dr. Guest but the way that the lab is scheduled is great. There are many resources available to show how the lab is supposed to be done, however the reflection quizzes SUCK. Truthfully I think it is really evil that those go into the 50% category because it's usually out of 10.6 and there are three questions, meaning that if you mess a couple up and your lab reports aren't that great you can kiss an A goodbye. However, having an amazing TA like Cristina Zhang makes the experience a lot better. Christina is so kind, patient, and funny. She put up with my group's multiple mistakes and still managed to teach us a lot about chem. The overarching theme is that Dr. Guest is mid and Cristina is amazing.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/12/2023

This class is taught by a TA; I didn’t see Dr. Guest even once during the semester. Most labs can be finished earlier than the class ending time. You will usually be doing the lab with the same lab partner (so choose yours wisely), though you will sometimes work in groups of four or eight. Divide and conquer is the best way to finish and get out of there early. We had no midterms or final in this class, but we did have one pre-lab quiz due every Monday before lab as well as one reflection quiz two weeks after each corresponding lab. These quizzes can be tricky and sometimes allow two attempts; use them if you need to! Doing badly on the quizzes can bring down your grade a significant amount. Generally, if you do okay on the quizzes and follow all directions for the labs, you will succeed in this class.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2023

For gen chem lab, students work directly with their TAs. I never met or interacted with Dr. Guest. My TA was extremely helpful.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/06/2023

If you’ve done labs before this class isn’t that hard. I recommend looking at the modules for each lab because there’s usually a video of how to do the lab and another video of how to take any calculations the lab involves. The lab reports can be tedious depending on the experiment but it’s nothing too awful. How do you also depends on who you have as your TA too since Dr.Guest isn’t really involved with the class itself. I got lucky with my TA (shoutout Raquel) since she answered our questions and showed us how to do certain steps in the lab and gave helpful feedback with the lab reports.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/04/2023

I had an amazing TA, Raquel, who was super sweet and helpful! She made sure we understood the experiments and gave tips for the lab reports. We usually got out of lab earlier than the 3hr time slot as well. A few labs were a little tedious but most were pretty painless. This was my first chem lab course (in HS it was online) and it was pretty positive. Sometimes the lab reports were graded harshly but the lab manual has good explanations and sample problems that are helpful if you take the time to read them. Prelab quizzes are pretty easy and you do those online outside of class. The reflection quizzes (online, in class) are not hard but you do have to remember essentially how to do the previous lab. Overall, solid experience!

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/23/2023

The course is set up as a pre-lab quiz on Canvas, a 3 hour lab section each week with a short lecture at the beginning, lab reports due a week after each experiment, and a midterm and final exam. With all lab professors, it's definitely a hit or miss because your TA will be the one teaching the course and grading your lab reports. Definitely be wary of who you choose as a lab partner because this class will be awful if you have one that doesn't do anything like I did. The experiments weren't too bad, and luckily I ended up with a super kind and understanding TA who would patiently guide me through any trouble I was having. I would definitely recommend reading through the experimental procedures and background information before lab, because it will save you some confusion during the experiment. Also definitely go through the module for each experiment and watch the pre-lab videos-- they walk you through each step of the experiment. It was hard to expect what would be on the midterm and final, but Dr. Guest provided a recorded review session that was super helpful in reviewing what you needed to know from each experiment. I would also recommend going to office hours if you need help-- Dr. Guest is super kind, patient, and helpful and will take time to explain concepts.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
mgurvich
05/14/2023

This class was probably my least favorite class of the semester because it was so tedious and boring. I was also not friends with my lab partner so it made the class even worse, so make sure to get a good lab partner just to make the long class more enjoyable. The lab reports were pretty time-consuming, but going to office hours really helped. Your TA plays a big role and I was so lucky to get an extremely helpful one who did everything she could to help me succeed. You barely ever interact with or see Dr. Guest. The quizzes at the beginning of lab are a bit difficult, but it is way better than having exams. The class was a bit disorganized because sometimes assignments would be due at a certain time, but a place to submit them wouldn't open up until very close to the set due date (ex. weekly lab reports). The curve at the end was not too bad and it helped my grade. The lab reports were also graded by different TAs every time, so sometimes you just got lucky with a TA who grades easily or unlucky with a TA who grades harshly.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
Manssuri
05/02/2023

She is a very inaccessible professor. She is near impossible to get ahold of and her answer keys for the post labs are often very specific and odd. Certainly go to office hours for help with them. My TA (Laura!) was lovely and always helped make the labs go faster. The 'reflection quizes' (so a final but broken up into a little every week) weren't too bad as long as you looked the material over beforehand. She never grades the assignments before you are tested on them, however, and you often aren't able to use both attempts on the pre-lab because you won't get a grade back for the first one until a week or two after. I understand that she is a very busy woman, but perhaps she should have other help and less courses than everyone in chem132 having the same issues.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
neesh1903
01/05/2023

Thank god I had a good TA (Natasha!!) . If you don't like your TA, find another section. If not just go to office hours and find a good TA to help you with the lab reports. She is so disorganized and her review videos are hopeless with her accent and terrible handwriting. She does push back pre labs but does it so late. The midterm was honestly fine, the final was kinda hell

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
georgelkelley
01/05/2023

I was lucky enough to get a great TA for this class who was super chill and funny. There were so many things wrong with this class though. It was super unorganized; from hearing from students in other sections, every TA had a different answer regarding lab report questions. The lab manual had multiple spelling/grammar errors, the procedures for MANY of the experiments were not descriptive enough, and the midterm and final had almost nothing to do with the experiments, making them impossible to study for. Grading on lab reports takes forever. It literally took up until the LAST week of classes for one of my lab reports to get graded, which was due way back in October. Students had this same problem with the same lab report. It was not hard to get decent grades on the lab reports though.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2022

Yall don't need another review from me. Just pray and do your best lol. Try to get 100% on all the lab reports (its honestly doable) and try to get around 50-60 on the midterms. If you do, you can snag an A in the class. But I have seen Dr. Guest like .5 times idek if shes real either

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/19/2022

I took this class for an entire semester and never met or saw Dr. Guest once the entire semester. The TA's run the entire lab which is fine, but Guest has terrible communication with them which causes alot of problems when grading. Good luck if you have any problems throughout the semester because it is near impossible to reach her. Her midterms and finals are aggressively difficult and only consist of about 15 multiple choices with 6-7 answer choices, making it very easy to make mistakes. That being said, despite my two star review, it is not impossible to succeed in this class. Lab reports are worth most of the grade, so failing the midterm and final does not impact your grade too much. I gave her 2 stars for the PHAT curve she gave at the end (about 6% for me at least). Although, I am still annoyed I was 1% off from an A.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2022

Just prepare yourself, chem lab is the ugliest course ever and the fact that it's only 1 credit makes me want to rip my hair out. communication is absolutely awful. if there's a mistake in your grade, you literally just have to accept that - the TAs communication with each other and Dr. Guest is literally nonexistent (at least with my TA). I've been trying to get one of my lab report grades just LOOKED AT for months now and have gotten no response. this class is very unreal like Dr. Guest is just a figment of my imagination and the grading doesn't align with logic. As long as you do all your work you should be okay grade-wise, but you might lose your sanity. Pray for a good lab partner that's the only thing that made this manageable for me.

Fahad Shaikh
CHEM132

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/12/2022

Fahad is an amazing TA, is very knowledgeable and does so well in helping all the students in the class succeed. He made attending lab more fun and less tedious. He was always so happy and definitely brought good energy into the room. Definitely has such a kind and caring heart.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/12/2022

Both Chem lecture and Chem lab with Dr Guest have been a pleasure. She always makes sure to teach us the material and she never surprises us with difficult questions on the exams. If you study and do the achieves/practice problems she provides you in class, then you will do great.

Fahad Shaikh
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/07/2022

Fahad is simply the best TA I've ever had the privilege of having. He always had a smile on his face, was always super helpful in making sure we were all successful. I can confidently say my entire class loved this man so if you have the chance of having Fahad as a TA treat him so well!

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
wild
12/05/2022

DISCLAIMER: Mind that this is coming from someone who got a 100% on the midterm (final is pending) and has a near perfect grade in the class. Yet, I have a very strong opinion of Dr. Guest. (should lowkey be stripped of the "Dr." title) We are approaching the end of the semester and I am not sure if she even exists. The TAs run the class, grade all of your labs, and organize equipment. She also has a Canvas manager who is in charge of all the pre-lab exams and midterm/final. So the purpose of having Guest is kind of unknown. Guest wrote the lab manual which is your holy grail for the semester. Everything for the class comes from that so protect it with all costs and just study that for the midterm/final and you'll do well. For prelab quizzes, they're on Canvas and only some are lockdown browser. They're very easy but just don't make stupid mistakes. She gives like two attempts for each which is enough to get perfect on all of them. I feel that any person could do her job because she is literally getting paid to sit there. Actually, she doesn't even sit there because she only came into our lab class once over the course of the entire semester. The class and labs are easy but for people who don't have a background in chem (this is an intro chem lab), it would be somewhat difficult. The class is also out of sync with the professors. I had the professor who was ahead of everyone else in CHEM131 so people from my class knew the concepts in lab, but other profs did not teach up to pace. I don't even think her own lecture was up to pace so try and learn stuff on your own or take a nice professor (...not her). Hacks to do well: 1) Ace the prelab quizzes because they are gimme points and online. 2) For labs, go on her Canvas modules and make sure you are submitting everything you have to. Don't leave out any details and explain all questions and answers thoroughly because the TAs are required to take points off for dumb mistakes (she makes some answer sheet, which also is quite bad but we all have to bear with it). 3) For midterm (and final we haven't taken yet but should be similar), read through the experiments which are on the exam. Should be half and half but +/- 1. Practice the types of equations and stuff and it'll be fine overall. Average was like a 50 something percent but I studied the morning of the exam and got a 100 so doing similar prep should get you at least a C, which is enough. 4) Pray. She apparently has some curve but no idea how much it is. It won't impact my grade but if it is rly nice, I'll edit this review. Get to know your TA, they have to deal with her.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/21/2022

I've never met her ever, because she will never actually teach you. Your TA will run the entire lab. I recommend meeting with TA's because they will teach you everything. This class has lots of work and the exams are difficult to score high on. Getting in contact with her is very difficult and the grading in her class is pretty unfair (different TA's grade each assignment, leading to inconsistencies). You will be in the lab for the entire period and spend probably an equal amount of time for your post-labs, depending on the lab. Make sure to buy the print textbook because you will have a very rough life without it. She is the only professor teaching CHEM132, so good luck. She does give a phaaaat curve at the end though, but don't rely on that.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
02/16/2022

This woman is literally a mystery. This class was a ridiculous amount of work for a one credit lab, but I gave her an additional star for her ginormous curve at the end of the semester.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
02/06/2022

I've never met this woman, she does not interact with her students, deliberately stating at the beginning of the course to not email her barring emergency. Her lab reports, while fair, are inconsistently graded due to different grading policies of different TAs. The midterm and final were not fair however, as they had many poorly worded questions. I would say avoid if you can, but she's the only one who proctors this lab, so instead I'll just wish you good luck.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/21/2021

You are probably forced to take this class so there is no escaping it. Dr. Guest is a ghost to her students and TA's. She does not always check in with her TA's which I found to be funny. Her lab manual which she wrote (and forces us to buy) is filled with typos. This made so many question problems more confusing than they needed to be. Her labs are okay their fun in my opinion. I can't believe there is a midterm and a final in this class because what do we actually learn? Most of the things in this class is contingent on you understanding concepts from chem131. She tells us to study off of the lab manual for our exams, but these lab manuals do not prep for her exams whatsoever. Her Panopto videos of her teaching often have poor video and audio quality, making it hard to understand her at times. Her exams consist of multiple-choice questions. Which is good right. No. She would have 10 choices to 1 multiple choice question. She would also make each question worth 7 points making it hard to achieve an A. For our midterm and final the average was below a 49. Take that as you will. There is no escaping this class. Just hope that you have an awesome TA like I did!

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/21/2021

This class was okay if you stayed on top of the work. However, it still seemed very excessive for something only worth one credit.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/20/2021

Genuinely bad professor who does not respond to emails and has put me at a disadvantage because of my disabilities. Blatant ableism. I took AP Chemistry in high school and got an A every quarter and a 4 on the final exam. Since I am a biology major, I decided to retake it as a review in preparation for organic chemistry. I can justifiably say that this was the most awful class I have taken thus far. Dr. Guest rarely responds to emails. The midterm was extremely unfair (average was below a 50%) and the final was similar. On top of this, I have ADS accommodations and have experienced ableism in this class that I will have to address with the College of Computer and Mathematical Sciences here at UMD. I was unable to use my accommodations during my midterm because we had a lab immediately after during the same class period. One of my accommodations enlists an increased time to take tests, so I would have missed this lab and been forced to do a make-up lab instead, taking more time out of my schedule. The final was online and I was at ADS taking my exam and noticed I did not have my time extension. The testing proctor contacted Dr. Guest with no response. I then was unable to complete the final and had to email her myself. She replied that she would "get back to me" but never did and instead released the grades for everyone's final, mine included. I have reached out to her again, but am leaving campus today due to COVID-19 protocol. Dont know what my final grade will be looking like because I have no idea what I am going to do for my final.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/19/2021

She was the only professor for gen chem lab this semester so its not like anyone had a choice to take her but if I had a choice I would definitely not take any class with her ever again. She wrote the lab manual that we use in class and it has so many typos and the experiments can be unclear I recommend looking at the pre lab video she posts under the modules and watching them do the experiment instead of following the book. My main issue with this class is not the labs themselves since they are definitely doable, its the two exams in a LAB course. Every exam is all multiple choice and each question is worth 6 POINTS which makes it almost impossible to get an A on them since the questions are so confusing and nothing like the lab manual. For some questions she would give 7 answer choices which is insane. Don't take her if you don't have to. If you do have to take her, pray your TA is nice and helpful

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/15/2021

everything you read is true. i got a 29% on my midterm, which was released a day after dropping period. the labs make sense and can be useful, but Guest is as uninvolved as humanely possible. exams are completely unreasonable and consist of poorly written multiple choice (multiple choice for a LAB exam? yup.) She does not deserve to be associated with the great State of Maryland.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/15/2021

CHEM132 is needlessly complicated but Dr Guest is fairly easy to reach as long as you go through a TA

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/14/2021

Extremely hands off. Her zoom sessions aren't even that helpful and her TAs are the only people that give any help whatsoever, and even my TA doesn't seem to know what they're talking about. The whole class is a mess and the grading is awful and done by TAs. If I feel as if I would do a better job than my professor and TA, there is a clear problem with the course.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/07/2021

If I could give negative stars I would. Christiana Guest should have her teaching degree suspended. She was the WORST i repeat the WORST professor I have EVER had. She shouldn't even be called a professor. The class suspects that Christiana doesn't actually exist, and rather UMD chooses a random student with zero chemistry experience to act as Christiana Guest because they couldn't find anyone else. To begin, this is a one credit course. However, it has the amount of work as a 4 credit class. To put it into perspective, my TA explicitly said to me midsemester, "This is a one credit course? Why do you guys put so much effort into this?!" I spent more time on this lab as I spent on my actual chem lecture class. Be prepared to spend hours on top of hours every week Lets talk about the midterm. Everyone fails it thats just how it is. My TA basically told me not to even study for it because everyone fails and there's no point and when we looked at him with concerning faces he said "Lets just put this into perspective, I failed both my midterm and my final and I'm your TA so you guys will be fine." In any of your classes has your TA blatantly said that they failed their exams???? Another thing, Dr. Guest only has one hour slot of office hours herself, which she usually only shows up for about 10 minutes for, with her camera off, and its during my actual lab section so i have zero way of commuciation with the so called "professor". and you must go to if you have an issue with grades as she does not answer emails. I logged onto the zoom, (her camera was off!!) and one student mentioned an issue he had with a grade. He mentioned how he has emailed her every day for the whole semester about the first assignment that he has a 0 for. She simply responded, "Why are you only telling me this now?" with her camera still off. I came to her with another issue after emailing her every day for a month because I had missed a lab due to religious holidays and I hadn't heard back from her or the TA. She again didn't have her camera on and her response to me was "why didn't you title the email to be more urgent?" Hmm I don't know, maybe it's because in her syllabus it says specifically to title your emails a specific way or else she won't see it. She even told me "I get too many emails so I can't respond to my students." I'm sorry but what's the point in having an email and having specific instructions in your syllabus for emailing you if you don't check your emails to begin with. Now lets move on to the pre labs. The pre labs were on lockdown browser and there were automatic answers they were looking for that were usually wrong, so even if you got the answers right, it was graded wrong. As a result the average on the pre lab quizzes were usually between a 2-3 out of 10. She hasn't done anything to fix this. The questions were completely arbitrary, something we never learned and had zero clue how to do. Also, we had 10 minutes to answer 10 questions of something we have never seen in our life before. She claims that the pre lab videos will teach you how to do this, but do not watch them!!! This will be the biggest waste of your time!! Again, putting into perspective, you watch the video and thoroughly study it, read the lab, waste all this time, take the quiz to realize you know nothing on it one bit. Moving on to the labs. The labs had the most difficult and time consuming questions. They were graded extremely harshly and arbitrary, each TA grading it however they want. It's based on luck which TA you had. This class doesn't have anything to do with hard work, hard work does nothing for you in this class, it solely relies on luck. Randomly everyone's grades went up because everyone was doing so poorly. However, it was a game of chance how much your grade would go up. Some went up 2 percent, some went up 15 percent, it happened out of no where with zero explanation. STAY CLEAR OF THIS CLASS. IT IS THE WORST CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN AND I HAVE NEVER HATED MY LIFE MORE. But, because you all have to take it as she is the only option for this lab, all I can say is best of luck.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
07/16/2021

Truly a terrible professor. Seriously can't express how bad her class was.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/17/2021

Definitely not a good professor because she makes the course more difficult than it needs to be. The final exam dropped most people I know's grades by a letter grade!

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Anonymous
12/20/2020

Definitely not the worst professor, but she definitely makes the lab course more difficult than it needs to be. While the labs themselves were fine (the TAs ran them), the other assignments like pre-lab quizzes and the final exam were usually poorly written and hard to understand, with multiple typos. She also did not post answer keys for them after you took them so that you could understand your mistakes. She can also be difficult to communicate with, and is strict with email formatting. That being said, she still explained material well in review sessions and Panopto lectures, and overall seemed like a nice person. She also gave a rather generous final grade curve.

Lenea Stocker
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/15/2020

Pros: One of the easier STEM labs you'll take. I'm not saying it's easy, but in comparison to other poop courses, it is. The exams are manageable and fair if you study and review your notes. Cons: A lot of work.

Jie Jung Shih
CHEM132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/01/2020

Responds to questions promptly and really helpful. Nice to students.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/15/2020

I wish I could give 0 stars. Dr Guest is rude, unintelligent, and does not care about her students. During review sessions she laughed at students who were struggling with difficult material. She has an accent that makes it difficult to understand her. Our lab final exam had an average of 40%. The final exam also had lots of typos and mistakes on it, and was overall just horrible and bad. Dr Guest should not be in charge of a chemistry lab at UMD. I did not have a good experience with her this semester.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/03/2020

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. The lab book is written by her and seems like no one bothered to edit it before publishing. It's super inconsistent (ex. in the pre-lab background information she'll refer to Part A of the lab, Part B of the lab, etc, but in the actual procedure it's labeled Part 1, Part 2, etc. Not an issue at first but in later labs when there are multiple parts it gets VERY confusing VERY quickly). Grammatical errors and typos actually make it difficult to understand what she's saying. In sample calculations nothing is labeled so you don't know where any of the numbers come from, or why she's using them, or what they mean. When there is an explanation, a lot of times she makes assumptions that you know things that were never explained. The lab book is about $55. The only reason I mention the price is because it's so poorly written that it almost feels like exploitation that we had to buy it. The TAs run the labs and grade the lab reports. Grading is VERY harsh and it seems like they want to deduct points (one of my lab reports got a RAW score of 27.85/30. The TA grading my paper literally took off 0.15 points from a question. I can understand taking 1/2 point off, but 0.15???) Exams are outrageously difficult, but apparently that's how all labs are. Be prepared to spend an hour or two in your TAs office hours every week if you even want a chance of getting a good score.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/23/2019

Bad lab reports consisting of many typos, way too much work for a one-credit course.

Jason Tran
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/19/2018

Jason is easily the best TA for all of CHEM132. I don't know how long he is going to be around because he is probably going to be offered a position as a TA for a more selective class but that just goes to show how good he is. He puts a lot of effort into the class and into the students as well.

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/19/2018

You're probably forced to take CHEM132 at some point but if you want to take this class for fun... don't! I was lucky enough to have a great TA but other's are harsh and you literally never even meet the professor... all she did was write the lab manual which has SOOOOOO many typos in it anyway. Even the TA's say that the procedures she writes suck

Christiana Guest
CHEM132

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/18/2018

never met her, so can't say anything about her personality but lab manuals have extreme typos, post lab questions make no sense, mid term and final are very hard as well. if you have to take her for lab just make sure you go to office hours for the post lab otherwise the questions can be interpreted 10 different ways.

Reviews for CHEM132