Christopher Capp

This professor has taught: BCHM461, BCHM463, BCHM464, CHEM231, CHEM232, HNUH278Y, HONR299I

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Christopher Capp BCHM461 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/19/2024	If you are a biochemistry major or cell bio or have any reason to take more than one biochemistry class, take biochem with Capp! All of the professors do different things but I think he prepares you the best for the content in 462 (or at least glycolysis and some other beginning mechanisms). He teaches using the blackboard which is highly appreciated but you need to pay attention in class because his slides do not cover everything. He also doesn't record lectures :( But he loves his job and is really good at teaching or at least it worked for me! I will say though his exams are kinda long and he only gives 1 hour out of the 1 hour 15 min (idk how it would work with a 50 min class). He also is a little condescending sometimes - he sent out a whole message after the first exam basically saying that some of us should reconsider if we need biochem if we're struggling which is valid but still :/ Anyway, take his class if you can but be prepared to do work and pay attention in class!
Christopher Capp BCHM461 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/27/2023	I honestly don't believe I could have had a better professor for this course than Dr. Capp. Prior to this past semester, I was absolutely dreading taking biochem, especially since I was awful at organic chemistry. However, Dr. Capp did an amazing job during lecture of taking these extremely complicated topics and breaking them down into their simple, individual components in order to help with understanding. Additionally, he encourages students to come to office hours and is happy to answer questions there or via email. His exams are difficult, no question about it, and you are required to begin to sort of think like him. However, I don't feel like any part of this course was unfair or unnecessary, it's certainly possible to do well in this course so long as you study and practice. Highly recommend Dr. Capp for biochem, and hopefully UMD does everything in their power to keep him considering how many lackluster professors are currently in our chem department.
Christopher Capp BCHM461 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	honestly hardest class I've had at umd. This class was more memorization than I expected and I'm not the biggest fan of capp's lecturing style. He normally covers the material verbally with some diagrams on the chalkboard. Make sure you write down everything he says because even the most seemingly irrelevant stuff can be questioned. One exam he had a 8? point question on x-ray crystallography even though he probably spent a minute and a half covering it. He has slides but he self admits that they're not meant to be comprehensive regarding the material, and if you only looked at the slides you'd fail. I'd prefer it a lot if he were to record lectures but he didn't like how students in the past would just skip lecture because of that so I guess he stopped. It would've been way easier if he recorded lecture though. He's a great lecturer and very kind, just a bad fit for my learning style personally. 6/10 class, I didn't find the material terribly interesting and it was difficult, 8.5/10 professor, great guy just not my style.
Christopher Capp BCHM461 Anonymous 12/07/2023	LISTEN. He's a perfectly nice person, will take the time to explain things to you but, the exams he makes and the content he teaches, in my humble opinion is way too much. Capp enjoys teaching, you can really tell that through his lectures, but it's really frustrating that he strives to make exams that are long to "prevent cheating." Honestly if you're cheating in biochem good for you because it's a lot easier to actually study than to cheat. Also, he talks at a manageable pace and repeats his points a lot, which is nice however, this led to us not finishing lectures on time BECAUSE PEOPLE WOULD ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS. Essentially, don't take his class if you like to ask a lot of questions during lecture and also don't take this class if you're bad at memorizing a lot of things or bad with time management.
Christopher Capp BCHM464 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2023	This course really weighed heavily on me the whole semester. There were always assignments to be done the second one assignment was completed. And any assignment there was required hours and hours of work, there was no such thing as putting in half effort and just getting a bad grade, because you could put hours into an assignment and you would still get a bad grade. My entire time in the class I felt highly discouraged because no matter how hard I tried, both in lab and on assignments, it was never good enough. The whole class just felt like I was working my butt off and only ever getting mediocre grades, and so it never once felt like my hard work was awarded. Anyways, that's my experience with the class. I enjoyed my TA tho, they were a chiller, and actually very encouraging.
Christopher Capp BCHM461 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/29/2022	Truly an amazing professor. He challenges his students and really helps you fully understand biochemistry in an interesting way! I really enjoyed that his style was to apply knowledge in unexpected circumstances on his problem sets/exams. Take Dr. Capp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Christopher Capp BCHM461 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2022	Dr. Capp is an excellent lecturer, he communicates the information he is trying to teach in a way that can be both fun and intellectually challenging. However, in terms of class structure, Dr. Capp is severely lacking and may have you in struggling in your other courses. He does not plan lessons around the relative difficulty of a concept, even though he creates his calendar well in advance. For example, the lecture before a midterm he claimed it would be a review session only to expect us to memorize two more enzyme mechanisms and fully conceptualize them. As well, he put an exam the day after thanksgiving break, leading me to study over what was supposed to be a break.
Christopher Capp BCHM463 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/11/2022	Premeds: take Capp for bchm463 Dixon is a hard af. Capp does it right. Provides learning objectives with each lecture. Problem sets (non graded) each week that prepare you for the exam. Lectures are extremely clear. Has reference slides but does most of the class written on the chalk board. Office hours are a stimulating environment to deepen your understanding of the material. 10-12 people are in his office in ESJ, asking questions one by one circled around the wall of his office. 4 people sit at the table in the center. Please note he does not do 1 on 1 appointments. Must go to his office hours to speak. I really enjoyed this class. It connected the 4 semesters of chemistry we took to the biology. Prepares you well for the mcat. Engaging lectures! Tough exams. Averages 65-70 on each exam. But my semester 80+ was an A
Christopher Capp BCHM463 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/11/2022	Capp was a great professor. As a student who was a solid B in organic chemistry and A-/C student in general chemistry, biochemistry was a scary topic to approach. However, Capp took his time in explaining topics to us thoroughly and did not rush us at all. He has useful tips and tricks and was incredibly helpful in office hours, which you really should attend if you want an A and also get a hint of how to solve some exam questions (he is very open about what he expects and I was saved multiple times during the exam by simply being there when he solved something during office hours). He is very friendly and patient, and took the time to discuss grade distributions with the class since he knew that was a major concern for many. His exams are generally fair and there was a pretty large curve (I had a total of an 81.33% in the class and got an A).
Christopher Capp BCHM463 Anonymous 12/30/2021	Dr. Capp is a gem in the chem department. BCHM463 is a hard class, but he makes it so that if you want an A you can get it (unlike some other chem professors). He gives problem sets for practice and holds lots of office hours. There's also a discussion board which helps boost your grade (full participation over the semester is worth as much as a full exam). He's also super nice and helpful and uses lots of analogies and jokes to help you understand concepts. He's so good at teaching chemistry, I learned everything about general and organic chem 1 and 2 from his class! 11/10 would recommend.
Christopher Capp BCHM463 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/01/2021	Dr. Capp is amazing. I was so scared going into this class because it's known far and wide as the premed weed-out class, but it ended up being one of my favorite classes I've ever taken! GO TO HIS OFFICE HOURS -- he's so helpful and receptive to questions, and has a ton of analogies to help you figure out difficult concepts. His exams are fair; they can be tough, but he doesn't try to trick you.
Christopher Capp HONR299I Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2019	I was a little bit apprehensive going into this class due to my lack of a Chemisty/Biochemistry background, but I felt that everything was fair, and was pretty engaging. I would definitely recommend this course for anyone who needs a Science credit and an honors seminar.