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Leah Dodson CHEM482 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/25/2023	Dr. Dodson is perhaps one of the least effective professors that I have met in the UMD chemistry department. I was hopeful going into chem482 that the majority of her poor reviews were due to her inexperience teaching and that she would be alright by now, but unfortunately, many of the issues listed in previous semesters' reviews remain accurate towards her teaching. She held office hours directly after homeworks were due, and sometimes would post the homeworks so that there was only one office hour in which you could visit before the homework was due, which proved very frustrating considering she would not cover all of the content on the homework until the lecture before the homework was due on a number of occasions. It ended up not mattering that much considering she was the least helpful professor in office hours that I have ever met. She would just sit there and stare at us and watch us do the homework and offered no help whatsoever except to ask our classmates, which is really frustrating for a math heavy class that requires both diff eq and linear algebra, yet we as chemistry majors do not take those classes (and had no idea we would need to, we all thought calc 3 would cover it). The homework was abysmal in difficulty. I learned the most from that class during the week she was gone at a conference and had substitutes in because she would maybe do one example problem a week. It was all derivation and no application or theory. She also decided the curve in a way that the highest grade awarded was a 94. This is an all-majors class so I'm confused why she would have such a strict cutoff for As/A-'s. If you are a chemistry major, I would recommend waiting to take 482 until a semester in which she is not teaching it if you can afford to wait. The only reason I did not award only 1 star is because her exams fair, despite everything else in that class not being so.
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/25/2023	One of the great professors in UMD department!
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting a B florm 05/27/2023	Can I give someone zero stars? I wish. Dr. Wang may come off as nice, but he is by far the absolute LEAST effective professor I have ever had, and of course it had to be for the hardest class I've ever taken. Avoid him for 482 at all costs, and here's why: 1. His expectations We're not geniuses. None of us are Schrodinger, Planck, or Einstein. Chem/biochem majors are not required to take diff eq, linear algebra, or even calc III, yet Dr. Wang expected us to have knowledge from those classes. I took calc III as a freshman, but in retrospect it would've been a good idea to take diff eq too since that was arguably more important for this course. He taught as though we had already taken an intro quantum course. I had no idea what eigenfunctions or Dirac's notation were before this semester, and he didn't explain them well at all at the beginning of the class, leaving us to figure out what he meant. This was a common theme throughout the semester. 2. His lectures He is simply abysmal at lecturing. While his accent isn't great, his English isn't very good either making communication with him VERY difficult. He often asks painfully vague questions to the class which no one can understand or answer, then he stands around in awkward silence for a minute before someone says something sorta relevant, but then Dr. Wang doesn't really understand their answer so it was all just a waste of time. I've had other chem professors with thick accents (e.g. Dr. Lai-Xi Wang for orgo 2) and haven't had a problem; it's the fact that his English/grammar is so poor that makes him hard to follow. Frankly, I learned more from Dr. Souna's 484 lectures. He sometimes used slides, but he never posted them for us to look at later. He writes very small on the board, and doesn't have the best handwriting. Granted, the classroom we had in ESJ wasn't designed very well for this kind of class; if you sat on one side of the classroom, you had almost no chance of seeing what he wrote on the board at the other end of the room. But the most annoying thing about his lectures? The fact that he messed up all the time. I lost count of how many times he would be doing some derivation or solving some equation, then mutter "Hmm this doesn't match what I have in my notes, I think I made a mistake here..." Then he'd just randomly throw a negative sign somewhere to fix it and call it a day. Like, are you for real dude??? How do you expect us to understand the material and solve problems effectively when you can't do them accurately yourself? I get that there's some pressure lecturing in front of a punch of people, but he has notes so just follow them! It never seemed like he was prepared for lectures, he'd just have a vague outline then try to figure it out along the way. Horribly ineffective. 3. His homeworks Every other week or so he'd assign a problem set with around 6 to 8 textbook questions, but his inability to lecture effectively made understanding the textbook problems insanely difficult, which were FAR harder than his exams. He would sometimes give us questions involving equations and concepts that we didn't even cover in class, making it seem like he just chose problems at random from the book. The homeworks were only graded for completion too, so we didn't get any feedback and had no idea if we did anything right or not. Why bother assigning homework at that point if you/your TA aren't gonna even look at them? How is that gonna help us learn? 4. His quizzes/exams At the end of each chapter, we had an 8-question, in-class quiz consisting entirely of true/false questions. The exams (two 80pt midterms + 150pt final) were half true/false, then just a couple questions that actually involved some kind of math. Some people were fine with all the true/false, but frankly it seems ridiculous to make the vast majority of questions on these assignments a 50/50 tossup, especially in such a high-level class. Someone who knows the material very well might get tripped up on a couple poorly worded questions and then get the same grade as someone who guessed on everything (more often than not, "true" was the right answer). Doesn't seem very fair to me. The math questions on the exams were hit or miss. There'd always be one question with some complex integral which is just stupid for a chem class, we all took calculus already. They were also very hard to prepare for, since the textbook problems were way too challenging to be of any benefit, and throughout the entire semester Dr. Wang only gave us ONE practice exam—but it was all true/false anyways! I resorted to looking up random practice exams online, but they often covered a lot more material than what Dr. Wang "taught." For the first exam (77% average), we didn't get a formula sheet, meaning we had to memorize all the formulas we thought were important. He did, however, still provide us with a handful of new integral relations, but he never ONCE talked about any of them in class. I guess he expected us to already be very familiar with them somehow, even though they weren't used in calc classes to my knowledge. For the second midterm and the final (69% and 78% averages respectively), we were thankfully allowed to make our own formula sheet, but he hinted that he'd make the exam slightly harder as a result. He also didn't even show up to the final exam, which like come on man, I get you might have stuff going on but if we've all gotta be there at 8am then the least you could do is try to make it yourself. Dr. Wang did drop 1 homework and 2 quizzes which sounds like a good thing, until it winds up lowering your grade which was the case for me... The cutoff for an A- wound up being an 85%, I think. There was also a survey halfway through the semester for any suggestions we had for him/the class, but the only thing he changed from this was allowing formula sheets on exams. He didn't start writing bigger/more clearly, he didn't start sharing his slides, he didn't give us more practice problems for the exam, nothing. It was almost insulting how he acknowledged some of these problems after the survey, but didn't put in the effort to change them. In summary, DO NOT take 482 with Dr. Wang. In addition to all the things I've already mentioned, the vibe in the classroom was just terrible. Dr. Wang wasn't mean or anything and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but it was easy to tell that no one wanted to be there, no one wanted to participate, and no one understood what was going on—sometimes including Dr. Wang himself. Just wait a semester for a different professor if you can.
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/24/2023	Class in general was a real pain to have to go through, especially since we are not equipped with the math skills needed to fully understand the concepts. While Dr. Wang is incredibly knowledgeable of the subject, he often times does not understand that certain concepts are not as intuitive as he makes it out to be. It would've been really nice and helpful if he went over example problems or walked through the application of the concepts rather than using convoluted math and logic that's barely tested anyways. The HW selection is also just a means to regurgitate math jargon that most people are simply not equipped to do, much less understand. With that being said, when it comes to quizzes and exams, so long as you understand at a conceptual level, which is sometimes difficult to discern, it isn't too difficult to get a decent grade. Really be intentional with your time and prioritize the big picture. This one of those humbling classes where you have to accept the findings as is and move on rather than wrestle with how to solve an integral or differential equation. Overall, did not have a good time, but the class could've been so much worse based on other professors' reviews for the same class.
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/21/2023	He’s a good prof. Regardless of what question he asked you in class, just answer with “particle in a box”. You’ll have a 50/50 chance of getting it right! He might of asked for your name, but it’s ok….. you’re particle in a box now, he’ll love you more for it!
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/22/2023	Do not take this mf for quantum chemistry. He is a very smart person and has a deep understanding of quantum chemistry, but learning from him is like learning from a brick wall. He is insanely difficult to understand because of his accent, and he has no understanding of how difficult the concepts are for the course. He teaches it as if we are all genius physical chemists and have a deep understanding of linear algebra and diff eq. He skips around the topics in the chapter, but expects you to know all of it. He speedruns each lecture and holds 30 min office hours over zoom and right outside the classroom, so there is no point in even asking questions. You will essentially be teaching yourself quantum mechanics by just reading the textbook and praying. Additionally, you will have 0 clue what kinds of questions he asks on exams because the homework questions are rarely related to what you learned in class and take longer than an exam lasts soooo yeah. Just don't take him, wait a semester for a different professor.
Devarajan Thirumalai CHEM482 Anonymous 11/01/2022	This professor have to take Teaching 101 course before teaching this graduate level course. He has no idea how to approach a specific lesson rather boasting about his own success. How he was hired anyway?
YuHuang Wang CHEM482 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/02/2022	Very knowledgeable as you have to be to lecture QM, but very hard to understand. Personally, I did very well, but he had a lower grade distribution for 2022 than previous years. Other mentioned his accent which makes him hard to understand which is very true. Very nice and willing to talk after class.
Devarajan Thirumalai CHEM482 Expecting a C Anonymous 11/04/2014	Never before has a professor actually made me dread coming to class the way he does. He serially picks on students for answers assuming we have a working knowledge of quantum mechanics, but the whole point of taking the class is that we don't know, we're there to learn. He's very much a bully, and he is more focused on humiliating his students than he is on teaching them, a fact that I find extremely aggravating. He doesn't have any sort of respect for time limits (he has only finished class on time once this semester so far) and will not give any sort of direction or help for homeworks and exams. 482 is a hard enough class without having a professor that works against you.
Janice Reutt-Robey CHEM482 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 10/27/2010	this class was at 8 am. its quantum chemistry. it's hard to think that much at 8 am. she's a poor teacher as well.