Reviews for CHEM401

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Andrei Vedernikov CHEM401 Anonymous 02/21/2024	Does not teach the course and instead goes off the lecture slides. You have to teach yourself the material.
Mercedes Taylor CHEM401 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/10/2023	The workload of this class is actually very reasonable. All of the homework is directly related to what was discussed in class. The exams are mostly very fair, although occasionally they can ask about very obscure topics that were only mentioned once or twice. Her pacing is not the best, as there is a lot of time spent either of her looking at her notes trying to figure out what to say next or her re-drawing character tables five times in a given lecture since she just didn't use the projector for the first half of the semester. She would also occasionally have to completely re-lecture a topic the class after it was originally taught, which gets a bit frustrating. The cutoffs for the class are going to be a lot less forgiving than you might expect. Overall, this class was okay. Dr. Taylor is okay and she is very kind, but there are definitely things in her teaching that she needs to iron out as she gets more experience teaching undergrads.
Mercedes Taylor CHEM401 Expecting an A- florm 05/27/2023	Dr. Taylor is awesome!! She's probably the nicest, most relatable and approachable professor in the chem department. Her lecture are very easy to follow, and she does a good job of explaining some of the weirder and less straightforward concepts in inorganic chemistry. A lot of people would go to her office hours, and she'd be very helpful. She's willing to have thorough conversations about the things in the course that aren't very well-defined, or "hand-wavey" as she likes to say. There were four homework assignments which could pretty easily be completed just by looking at your notes, although they were graded for accuracy so you gotta make sure to check through them. And while she did make us buy actual clickers, I think in the future she'll likely transition to the app now that she's more familiar with the technology. Her exams were tough but fair, and had a combination of true/false, multiple choice, and short answer. The questions were never as in-depth as what was on the homeworks, where you might've had to do a bunch of repetitive math for group theory stuff. She usually threw in one or two curveball short answers that were hard, but could be reasonably figured out. You have plenty of time too, the exams never felt rushed. I doubt that there's a professor that could teach inorganic better than Dr. Taylor, so definitely take her if you can.
Mercedes Taylor CHEM401 Anonymous 01/30/2023	She makes you buy physical clickers
Andrei Vedernikov CHEM401 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2013	Dr. Vedernikov is a very nice guy and a good professor. An 83% is an A. Just study his slides and go to class and you will do fine. Their is Homework due every 2 weeks. Questions very similiar to the homework problems and the old exams are on the exams. If you every need help understanding Inorganic Chemistry Dr. Vedernikov is very open to helping you be successful, just go to his office.
Andrei Vedernikov CHEM401 Expecting an A wordlife2101 07/29/2012	Dr. Vedernikov is straight up awesome. The first part of this class was centered around quantum mechanics and group theory, but he tries to make it as interesting as possible. From there, the class shifted into organometallic chemistry and catalysis, which is his area of research so he brings in a lot of modern day applications. Although his accent is a little tough at first you get used to it after the first week. And he's always willing to help if he was unclear about something. Exams are very fair, as in they never cover something you've never encountered in lecture or the homeworks - so go to class, do your work and you'll be just fine (oh, and the cutoff for an A is an 80%, which is good too).
Bryan Eichhorn CHEM401 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2011	Dr. Eichhorn is not a great professor. His teaching styles are average, his exams were challenging, and he is a bit of a jerk. He lacks a few social skills and is primarily focused on his research. His actions speak for him that this class, albeit a senior-level advanced chemistry course, is not one of his priorities. He was lazy about putting stuff online, it took him weeks to grade the exams, and he was unhelpful and unyielding in office hours. Chem401 is a really challenging course and Dr. Eichhorn did a less-than-average job of explaining all the new, challenging concepts. He would do one example of each problem (if that) and move scurrilously on to the next topic. I ended up with an A in the course, but that is because the curve was so beneficial. And that was only because the exam averages were so low. But - of course - that is only because Eichhorn isn't a great teacher. You won't really have a choice in picking a teacher for 401 because only one section is offered once/year in the Spring, so hope that it is someone else (I hear Professor Sita is good). But if not, Eichhorn isn't the worst. He just very much so is not the best.
Lawrence Sita CHEM401 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2009	Really good professor, who always has his students' best interests at heart. Exams were very fair and came directly from lecture notes (so go to class, pay attention, and take good notes). Don't panic if you do poorly on the first exam...I failed the first two and still managed to get an A-.
Lawrence Sita CHEM401 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2009	Hes a great teacher and he really tries hard to make the students understand inorganic chemistry.All the questions from the exams are pretty much straight from the notes. Its not an easy A but it isnt too difficult if you go to every class. The book did not really help a lot. Only four tests and a final, which was take home.