CHEM460 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Myles Poulin CHEM460 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2025	Dr. Poulin is a great professor. He does a great job explaining content, especially complex topics. He is also extremely helpful in office hours and willing to meet at times outside of office hours. In addition, the structure and organization of the class supports learning and understanding of the content. The first half of the class is about IR, MS, 1H-NMR, and 13C-NMR. The second half is additional methods that utilize 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR. While learning the content, we have homework with a couple problems that enhance and further understanding of the content. For the grade make up, there are two exams (40%), final (25%), homework (20%), presentation (10%), and participation (5%). The exams are open-note, no electronics. For the first one, we did exam corrections to get half the points we missed back. For the second one, he curved the exam by making one of the questions extra credit, since there wasn't enough time for exam corrections. These grade adjustments were due to not having enough time to complete the exams in a 50 minute period. He has said, in the future, he might make the full exam or a portion take-home due to time being a constraint every time he has taught the class. The exams are extremely fair with everything on it being similar to content in class and questions on the homework. Originally, the final was open note, but that was changed to take-home. There are 8 homework assignments, each with 3-5 questions. You have to use data to determine the structure of a molecule and the questions aligns with what is being taught in the class. I recommend going to office hours to confirm the structure you have determined. The presentation is a 5 to 10 minute review of a research paper that determines the structure of a molecule with a Q&A portion included in the time. It is completed after the second exam. Participation is determined by completing a google form about the presentations while they occur. The grade for the presentation is determined by Dr. Poulin and classmates via the google forms.
Daniel Falvey CHEM460 Expecting an A- ariespink 12/08/2023	honestly love Falvey, He is such an amazing person and a good professor, he is super engaging and cares about the content he is teaching, by far the most passionate professor I've had. I recommend taking this class if you enjoy analyzing spectroscopy and learning more about NMR spectroscopy, it's a good insightful class.
Lyle Isaacs CHEM460 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2018	I really enjoyed his course on organic spectroscopy. Spectroscopy was one of my weakest skills from organic and I came in without a background in physical chem or instrumentation, but he made it understandable. I think he did a amazing job explaining difficult material. He make jokes in class too. The discussion problem set presentations were intimidating, but gave us practice for presenting in the real world. The weekly homework was challenging, but he encouraged us to work with peers. The class also had guest lecturers for the NMR portion. In addition, he learned everyone's names and enjoyed answering questions. Overall, he's an engaging and passionate professor!
Herman Sintim CHEM460 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/17/2012	He might be a good professor in lower level classes, but DEFINITELY NOT if you want to see deep into chemistry (preparing for grad school or research). He was the worst professor ever had in my chemistry years. From this class, I expected to learn concepts of basic techniques such as NMR, IR, EPR, rotational spec etc. Lots of people recommended this class. Not sure about other professors but do not take with him. For entire semester, we only covered NMR and IR that I ended up teaching myself everything from other people or online. He is not good with organizing, so things come from everywhere in his head. In syllabus, he provided guidelines for class such as homework and attendance. NEVER followed. He was out of country for 1/3 of semester which made me wonder why he decided to teach this semester. Reading one paragraph online before the exams was so much helpful than him talking all throughout the semester. Very disappointed!

Myles Poulin
CHEM460

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2025

Dr. Poulin is a great professor. He does a great job explaining content, especially complex topics. He is also extremely helpful in office hours and willing to meet at times outside of office hours. In addition, the structure and organization of the class supports learning and understanding of the content. The first half of the class is about IR, MS, 1H-NMR, and 13C-NMR. The second half is additional methods that utilize 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR. While learning the content, we have homework with a couple problems that enhance and further understanding of the content. For the grade make up, there are two exams (40%), final (25%), homework (20%), presentation (10%), and participation (5%). The exams are open-note, no electronics. For the first one, we did exam corrections to get half the points we missed back. For the second one, he curved the exam by making one of the questions extra credit, since there wasn't enough time for exam corrections. These grade adjustments were due to not having enough time to complete the exams in a 50 minute period. He has said, in the future, he might make the full exam or a portion take-home due to time being a constraint every time he has taught the class. The exams are extremely fair with everything on it being similar to content in class and questions on the homework. Originally, the final was open note, but that was changed to take-home. There are 8 homework assignments, each with 3-5 questions. You have to use data to determine the structure of a molecule and the questions aligns with what is being taught in the class. I recommend going to office hours to confirm the structure you have determined. The presentation is a 5 to 10 minute review of a research paper that determines the structure of a molecule with a Q&A portion included in the time. It is completed after the second exam. Participation is determined by completing a google form about the presentations while they occur. The grade for the presentation is determined by Dr. Poulin and classmates via the google forms.

Daniel Falvey
CHEM460

Expecting an A-
ariespink
12/08/2023

honestly love Falvey, He is such an amazing person and a good professor, he is super engaging and cares about the content he is teaching, by far the most passionate professor I've had. I recommend taking this class if you enjoy analyzing spectroscopy and learning more about NMR spectroscopy, it's a good insightful class.

Lyle Isaacs
CHEM460

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2018

I really enjoyed his course on organic spectroscopy. Spectroscopy was one of my weakest skills from organic and I came in without a background in physical chem or instrumentation, but he made it understandable. I think he did a amazing job explaining difficult material. He make jokes in class too. The discussion problem set presentations were intimidating, but gave us practice for presenting in the real world. The weekly homework was challenging, but he encouraged us to work with peers. The class also had guest lecturers for the NMR portion. In addition, he learned everyone's names and enjoyed answering questions. Overall, he's an engaging and passionate professor!

Herman Sintim
CHEM460

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/17/2012

He might be a good professor in lower level classes, but DEFINITELY NOT if you want to see deep into chemistry (preparing for grad school or research). He was the worst professor ever had in my chemistry years. From this class, I expected to learn concepts of basic techniques such as NMR, IR, EPR, rotational spec etc. Lots of people recommended this class. Not sure about other professors but do not take with him. For entire semester, we only covered NMR and IR that I ended up teaching myself everything from other people or online. He is not good with organizing, so things come from everywhere in his head. In syllabus, he provided guidelines for class such as homework and attendance. NEVER followed. He was out of country for 1/3 of semester which made me wonder why he decided to teach this semester. Reading one paragraph online before the exams was so much helpful than him talking all throughout the semester. Very disappointed!

Reviews for CHEM460