Leah Dodson

This professor has taught: CHEM271, CHEM482, CHEM690, CHEM889E, CHEM889F, CHEM889G, CHPH709A

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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.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/22/2022	I could give Dodson a zero star if there is an option. Even after a year after taking her CHEM271, I still can't forget how much my mental health suffered during that semester because of her. I absolutely do not agree with the comment saying "these reviews are pretty average for premeds who didn't get a 100% and are mad at the professors for it." First, do not make assumptions before making nonsense comments about students who suffered solely due to the professor's faults. Maybe she was nice to you in CHEM690, but CHEM271 was completely different. Second, Dodson was merciless and obviously did not care about her students. I got all A's in college. She was the worst professor I have met where the grade I got on exams did not reflect my ability/understanding of chemistry. She did not respect students' comments and made us lose points on the final exam for her mistakes. DO NOT take Dodson!
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/19/2022	Idk what all of these 1 star reviews are about. She was a very effective lecturer. The homeworks (online software) were directly related to the exam and were not too time consuming. The exam content was very clearly stated. Seriously if you need to study, just go back through the homework questions. They even have complete explanations and a whole textbook to refer to. The reason I missed the cutoff for an A was a stupid mistake I made but I don’t see why you couldn’t earn an A in this class. She is a fair grader and doesn’t leave anything up in the air. So really if you’re leaving 1 star reviews here because you’re salty you don’t know what a pKa is, please re-evaluate your decision to blame it on Dr. Dodson. Dr. D, thanks for your time and I’m sorry you have to see all this unnescessary hate. Peace and love.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/17/2022	Dr. Dodson is honestly not as bad as I was expecting based on the previous reviews, but I definitely understand some frustrations. She is a good lecturer and although the first exam was completely unmanageable, she was willing to make changes on future exams. Her curve was fair and we received timely feedback (she is very communicative on slack). In my opinion there is too much weight on the slack participation requirement and she did not release recordings until right before the final. I found her to be a little inflexible but overall the class was manageable and I would choose her again if I had to take the course again.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/10/2022	- I'm not premed lol - I sat in the other teacher's class and she genuinely wanted her student to succeed and prepared them for the exams so pls just don't take Dodson she makes It harder for you than It should be 1. Positive- She had a good lecturing tone, she was understanding at a time, and she sounds nice 2. Negative- She has no past practice exams, her exams were extremely hard and we were all not prepared. She made mistakes many times in her lecturing and students often had to correct her. Both my exams were graded incorrectly with correct answers marked wrong. She didn't offer her recorded lectures till the last week of classes. She didn't give out practice exams or problems for us to practice. I really felt like she didn't care about how we were not doing well on exams. Her exams were so long that most of us couldn't finish in the class period. The graded question in class for attendance often closed before many people could submit Them making them lose points. It was a really unforgiving glass I wish I could have taken It with the other teacher who cared about her students. In the hws if there was an issue with grading you couldn't get a regrade. She doesn't give out the exam solutions. She doesn't give hints on what could be on the exam.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/27/2022	Professor Dodson was nowhere near as bad as other folks have written here. She really is a very kind and understanding prof, and I didn't feel the exams were 'impossible', they were challenging but certainly manageable.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/19/2021	Even a year after taking this class, I am fuming over how poorly Dodson handled teaching. In response to some of the other reviews saying we are just "angry pre-meds who didn't get 100%" -- no, we are just students who were treated incredibly unfairly and with none of the reassurance that she seems to be giving the 690 course. There is absolutely no other class for which you will find 50 1-star reviews- and there is a reason for that! Dodson gave very little useful practice to actually prepare us for exams, gave no opportunities for partial credit while also making problems especially difficult and convoluted so we would make mistakes on math things that weren't even directly related to the main chemistry concepts we are supposed to learn, which was ironic considering she made a mistake on the final exam and then refused to admit to it and give points to the students who answered the question based on how it was given. My grade went up as well but this means nothing- I am a solid A-/B+ student and this class was both taught horribly and did not test us accurately on our knowledge. Considering I got an A+ in the lab portion of the class (which tested us on similar concepts), but a C in this one only goes to show that this is an issue with the professor teaching the course. Save your mental health and GPA and avoid Dodson.
Leah Dodson CHEM690 Anonymous 11/22/2021	Her class is difficult but she's honestly one of the most supportive professors I've had. It seems like all the 271 reviews are probably just angry premeds (I've been a TA for 2 years, these reviews are pretty average for premeds who didn't get a 100% and are mad at the professors for it), but she's a great quantum professor! She continually reassures us and is always willing to help even when we're worried about the difficulty of exams. I would just recommend using a different textbook, the one she's currently using isn't the most helpful for practicing concepts.
Leah Dodson CHEM690 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/04/2021	:) she's pretty rad
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 09/10/2021	Absolutely atrocious professor. Teaches the course in such a convoluted and unclear way all while maintaining an attitude of inflexibility.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/10/2021	She sent an email a couple weeks after class that the final exam grade was wrong. Ur bois grade went up. That's a dub in my book 10/10 greatest prof ever.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/23/2021	Quite literally the worst chem class I have taken at UMD (even though it was supposed to be the easiest since most of the material is covered in high school chem, CHEM131, CHEM132, and CHEM272). She made the class much more difficult than it should have been and gave a sorry curve at the end to try to fix all of her mistakes (which barely brought any of our grades up at all). She was not prepared for lectures, could rarely give a straightforward response, and made questions MUCH more difficult than they had to be. The TA was NEVER prepared for discussions (WHICH WAS HORRIBLE SINCE ALL THE LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS WERE MANDATORY) and he always had tech issues. I went to every lecture and every discussion and even asked/answered questions but I still didn't get full points on participation (like what more do you want from me?!). The exams had questions where you would have to beat around the bush with so many unit conversions and she tried having fun while making the questions which in the end just made them more confusing than they had to be. She constantly made mistakes on the exams due to this and had to put the corrections on slack WHILE we were doing the exam knowing most students are focused on trying to finish her long confusing exams and trusted that the professor wrote the exam and checked it multiple times beforehand to ensure her students would be able to solely focus on the exam and not worry about professor mistakes. I did everything in my power to try to get the best grade in this class (which is a lot since I got 4.0's in gen chem I and both orgos) and still couldn't get an A- in this class because of her horrendous teaching style. Side note: don't listen to the people that put 5 stars, they're either trolling or really sucked up to the professor this semester. Another side note: Don't get me wrong, she's not completely a monster. She has good character overall and tried to take some initiative by listening to student concerns (for example she started doing practice problems during lecture since some students requested it, but the practice problems were NOTHING like the exam questions). However, I HIGHLY recommend she listen to all of these 1-star reviews and start fixing all of the holes in her teaching style and exams.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2021	Super simple course with a great professor. If you have critical thinking skills, the exams will be straightforward. Highly recommend prof Dodson!
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/21/2021	Taking CHEM271 this semester with Dr. Dodson, it was quite apparent for most students that her teaching style and approach is substandard and unnecessarily convoluted. The course curriculum mainly follows the textbook material and concepts and would best serve as a student's guide to completing the course with relative ease. For such courses, the lectures should serve as a time for the professor to teach concepts, cover example problems, review exam practice questions, and overall make it easier for students to grasp the subject material. However, Dr. Dodson lectures are an enormous waste of time. I attended the first couple of classes, hoping to gain a better understanding of the subject material in CHEM271, but was faced with the challenge of trying to understand why she made simple concepts and basic problems utterly confusing and complex. After realizing that the textbook and khan academy offered me a better chance in performing better on exams, understanding course concepts, and approaching problems, attending lectures served no purpose beyond earning a participation grade. Moreover, the exams in this class were a total mess. Her exams questions do not reflect the level of difficulty and course concepts as seen in homework's, class examples, and textbook problems. You would think taking her practice exams may possibly be helpful, however, they are also an immense waste of time in preparing for the exam. As for the exams/finals itself, the questions were fraught with errors and composed of a majority of calculation intensive problems for which Dr. Dodson offers no partial credit. Overall this semester was utter shambles, I strongly recommend taking any other professor.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/21/2021	I have no new stories to add because I believe the 40 1.0 star reviews below fully illuminate the magnitude of her shortcomings as professor, teacher, and empathetic human being. What I will say is in response to the few positive reviews left below. For the 5 star review left on 5/20 addressing ill-prepared students who are upset about their grade, I understand! There are always students in any class who have not done their due diligence and as a result, their grades suffer. That is not the case for this class. Never before has a professor left so many students feeling this undignified and wronged because of her insensitivity and inflexibility. I challenge you to find another professor with this many negative reviews. There are none. There is absolutely no way in CHEM271, where the majority, if not all the students, are aiming for pre-professional school, would be unprepared. Especially because everyone in this class necessarily had to have done well in organic 1 and 2 in order to enroll. The average on the final exam was a 51%. No organic final ever had such a low average. Since when was general chemistry 2 the pre-med weed out class? Her exams were made purposely to trick her students. She expressed multiple times that she would complicate the questions in order to test our "mastery and flexibility" of the content. But to what purpose? What does that teach her students? What does it do but tantalize her oddly niche fascination with chemistry? When the first midterm was held on a faulty software system, the class average was 10-15% lower than the other two midterms. She made no effort to address this besides switching the future tests to ELMS. Any reasonable professor would make further attempts to not penalize their students for technological faults. She immediately expressed after the second midterm, when students did much better because the software was not a barrier to success, that she would no longer consider curving the class -- fortunately this changed when she further tanked the class average with the final. BUT, that doesn't change what her state of mind was: she felt no need to correct her own mistakes because the students in the class worked extra hard to compensate for her mistakes. To conclude, I would also like to state that I firmly believe that the 5 star review written on 5/19, was written by her herself. No else one would write that. Honestly, just read it yourself and compare it to any other one.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/20/2021	She wasn't a great professor, but she doesn't deserve 40 one star reviews. All of the other reviewers have accurately described the mistakes that she made this semester. However, this was her first semester teaching, and I have faith that she will take into account the feedback given in future semesters (even though she didn't do that much during the semester). This environment was not a great place to learn as a student and definitely wasn't a great place to teach for the first time.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/20/2021	Dr Dodson is very inflexible. She is unwilling to actually listen to student concerns even when it is at the point where the entire class is giving her the same feedback. Whenever students asked her how she recommends that we study for the exams or what content we should focus on, she was unwilling to provide them with any advice or guidance and always gave the simple answer, "everything is fair game". The first exam was a mess where many students were either locked out of the exam or were unable to submit their answers in time due to the exam settings, and as a result, Dodson accepted exam answers for up to a week after the exam where many students took unfair advantage. Her exams were much more difficult than any practice material/homework and had no partial credit even though they were math heavy, meaning that a small calculation error would immediately cost you up to 5-7 points. I also disagree with her "solution" to this mess which was to give us a small curve. The purpose of a curve is to cover for the students' mistakes, not the professor's. A curve normally implies that the exams/course content was difficult, resulting in a lower class average; however, in this class, the issue lied in the way the professor ran the class. Taking in answers for a week after the exam leading to skewed results, lack of partial credit, disorganized discussions, and typos in exams lead to results that do not reflect a student's actual knowledge of course content, and slapping on a curve in an attempt to cover up these mistakes do not actually solve them.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/20/2021	Dr. Dodson is the most incompetent professor I've had at the university. Her lack of transparency and accommodations ended up punishing students - students who work diligently to maintain their GPA in their rigorous STEM classes. The semester was totally unfair and remains as a very painful memory in all of the students who suffered from Dodson's incompetence.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/19/2021	I truly feel bad for Dr. Dodson. The reviews are not indicative of her as a professor. She is caught in a crossfire between students who were ill prepared and did not get a grade that they wanted. She is very nice, accommodating, and overall very pleasant. This is a difficult course and the textbook is a must.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2021	Whoever wrote the 5 star positive review on Dodson, it sounds like Dr. Dodson wrote that review in a vain attempt to stop the flood of 1-star reviews. Unfortunately, I can not recommend anyone to take her. Every part of your review can be refuted by the countless anecdotes and negative experiences faced by the class, and Dr. Dodson's inability to take responsibility for her actions further illuminated how incapable she was. Furthermore, the countless errors on exams, typos during lecture, hostility and defensiveness when asked questions regarding her ability, and overall lack of teaching experience serve as a beacon to how terrible the semester went. I would have rather taken the class without the professor because at least then I would have been at peace knowing that I was teaching myself rather than relying on the countless errors on her exams.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/19/2021	While the professor seems to care about the students, the many mistakes and unfair aspects of the class ultimately led to many unnecessary issues that students had to deal with. Most students failed the final exam due to the many typos present in the exam and the lack of transparency when it came to what students should study for the exam. There was no partial credit for calculations in any of the exams despite the math intensive nature of the class. Many students were given up to a week to work on the first exam due to issues present in the program that the exam used. This provided an unfair advantage to some students since a lot of us were only given about an hour to work on the exam while the others had up to a week. The curve at the end of the semester wasn’t enough to make up for these issues and left students with grades that didn’t accurately portray their understanding of the subject. Hopefully something is done about this so students won’t have to deal with the consequences of the way this course was conducted.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/19/2021	Dr Dodson is very inflexible. She is unwilling to actually listen to student concerns even when it is at the point where the entire class is giving her the same feedback. Whenever students asked her how she recommends that we study for the exams or what content we should focus on, she was unwilling to provide them with any advice or guidance and always gave the simple answer, "everything is fair game". The first exam was a mess where many students were either locked out of the exam or were unable to submit their answers in time due to the exam settings, and as a result, Dodson accepted exam answers for up to a week after the exam where many students took unfair advantage. Her exams were much more difficult than any practice material/homework and had no partial credit even though they were math heavy, meaning that a small calculation error would immediately cost you up to 5-7 points. I also disagree with her "solution" to this mess which was to give us a small curve. The purpose of a curve is to cover for the students' mistakes, not the professor's. A curve normally implies that the exams/course content was difficult, resulting in a lower class average; however, in this class, the issue lied in the way the professor ran the class. Taking in answers for a week after the exam leading to skewed results, lack of partial credit, disorganized discussions, and typos in exams lead to results that do not reflect a student's actual knowledge of course content, and slapping on a curve in an attempt to cover up these mistakes do not actually solve them.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/19/2021	While this course may have had its ups and downs, I need to give Dr. Dodson 5 stars for always working her best to teach us this semester and for always being very caring and understanding. I think it is important to emphasize that this was her first semester teaching this course, and it is human nature to make mistakes along the way. This class may not have been perfect, but I can say for a fact that Dr. Dodson cares deeply about all of her students, and I know that she worked very hard to find the most effective ways possible to resolve issues. For example, one time she literally stayed 30 minutes after office hours ended to help me understand concepts that were covered that day!! Only professors with true dedication would do that! To students who are disappointed in how this course went - please please please schedule a meeting with Dr. Dodson! She is such a genuine and amazing person and is very open to hearing and listening about your concerns and how she can help. Also, I really want to emphasize again that we are all human! Humans make mistakes and we can not completely bash Dr. Dodson for hers! So, I urge you all to understand that Dr. Dodson really did try with all her effort to make this semester a good one for us, but naturally, there were bumps along the road which no one could have foreseen and that is not her fault. I know Dr. Dodson is an incredible professor, and I believe with all my heart that she never meant for any of us to feel hurt or frustrated.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/19/2021	The other reviews have already more than adequately emphasized all of the professor's shortcomings in teaching this course. The textbook will teach you far better than she ever could, even though she teaches directly from the textbook. Do yourself (and your mental health) a favor and do not take CHEM271 with Dodson.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/18/2021	Worst possible Professor ever. DO NOT TAKE HER. You will regret it. Barely any curve. Does not do problems correctly in class. Exams are all multiple choice or 1 number answers without any option for partial credit. Too many typos on exams and expects you to see corrections on slack rather than email. I can 100% say she is the worst Professor you will ever have so save yourself
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/18/2021	While I strongly feel that Dr. Dodson is a very kind-hearted professor who cares about her students, the manner in which this course was conducted was very unfair and I agree with all of the reviews posted thus far. Moreover, I find it disappointing that we are asked to complete course evaluations and told by the university to reach out to admin when we have concerns, yet our voices this semester were not heard and our feedback was not utilized. I know that many of my peers and I expressed the concerns listed earlier in the reviews during midterm evaluations, but the only aspect of the midterm evaluations that was taken into account by the professor was the lack of example problems given during class. I am curious to know why the other, more serious concerns, such as those relating to the flaws in course organization, were not addressed and why the chemistry department did not take immediate action to fix them. I also know students reached out to the chemistry department mid-semester, but they did not show much interest in helping to resolve these issues-- perhaps it was a busy time of year for the department with midterm exams, but at the same time, I feel that even if it is just a single student reaching out about a concern, the department should prioritize finding ways to help and guide that student. Finally, I am saddened to see that the chemistry department has not yet released a statement regarding the feedback on Dr. Dodson's CHEM271 course. A simple letter saying that they have read the reviews and understand our frustration would be enough to make my peers and I feel heard right now, but there has not been anything yet. I feel like Dr. Dodson truly did everything she could to help teach us the material this semester, but given that the course instruction this semester did not meet most student's expectations, I believe it is now in the administration's hands to give Dr. Dodson's CHEM271 students the grades they deserve. (Personally, I feel my grade is not a reflection of the work I put into this class as well as my potential, and this is justified as my grades in UMD chemistry courses in the past have been substantially higher.)
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2021	This class was absolutely legendary. Given that I had taken multiple finals in the previous day and I had woken up at 6 am to study for this final, to say that I was in a depleted mental state is an understatement. There was no end in sight, and the endless barrage of questions beat me down as I continued to fight my way through the beast. Then, it came. A question that was unsolvable. No answer choice made sense. I felt what remaining sanity I harbored drip away as I carefully reviewed every choice and the wording of the question statement, no answer choice made sense. I scrolled up to look at the remaining time, 30 minutes, and then back down to look at the question again, no answer choice made sense. I looked at my notes, no answer choice made sense. Then, it hit me. I stopped, and placed my TI-30X calculator at a crisp 90 degree angle to the side of my desk. I closed my eyes and attempted to beam myself into the maker of this question's head; what was the learning outcome? What was the point of this question? What were we even trying to achieve? After a couple minutes of rigorous thought, it hit me. I had failed to completely train my Esper powers for this exam. I shook my fist and cursed at the sky, I had not only failed myself, but big daddy Pearson as well. I selected my answer choice in shame and submitted my exam. I highly suggest Dr. Dodson if you want to find out if you have psychic powers or to train already existing ones. Attending the lectures were especially key for training the power of telepathy, as not only was every practice problem practically taken out of the book, but made into a riddle of sorts as you never know what information within the problem might be correct or just a typo. My biggest gripe with this class was the essentially mandatory attendance, which for a forgetful person like myself (still working on my Astral Projection) ended up hurting me in the course whereas I did fine on the exams. I believe the department was misleading with the course title, CHEM271 should be renamed as WIZARD101 for full transparency. Other than that, I rate this class 5/5 stars, or 0/5 points because I selected the wrong multiple choice answer.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/18/2021	Dr. Dodson was by far the worst professor I have taken at UMD this far. She was unable to explain concepts well, which is especially tragic once you consider that CHEM271 doesn’t have to be terribly difficult. She was not accommodating at all and completely unresponsive to student concerns. It was as if her pride got in the way of her ability to make improvements the course. I got through this course by relying on the textbook and what I learned from Dr. Schech’s CHEM272, which was taught much better. I should’ve known that this class would have been a mess from the moment I found out that the lectures were synchronous for no good reason. I’ll give her some slack (pun intended) since this was her first time teaching the course and she tried to be nice, but it should honestly also be her last time teaching the course.
Leah Dodson Anonymous 05/17/2021	GRADES DO NOT ASSESS LEARNING. AT. ALL. (Not even remotely, I can't emphasize this enough) NO PARTIAL CREDIT. IN A MATH INTENSIVE CLASS. She is so unreceptive to feedback and literally I feel like everyone deserves a 15% curve (if not more) from how she is handling the course. I have voiced my complaints so many times but she has done absolutely NOTHING to try to make the environment fair. She keeps saying she's frustrated too and blamed the online environment in her final grades announcement. Sorry what? She said that her typos were another consequence of the online environment. Ummm??? She has yet to take accountability for her own mistakes and it is hurting students. She said that to mitigate the typos on her final, she is curving our grades. While I absolutely agree the entire class deserves a generous curve, I don't see how a curve will mitigate her typos. Students who did not see the corrections most likely got those questions on the exam wrong, which hurts their grade. Curving implies an equal foundation where everyone's mastery of content is fairly assessed. Grades are not fair. Someone said this in another review, but academically honest students were seriously screwed over. If you can't get out of taking her, buy yourself a tissue box.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/17/2021	my grade dropping 14% after the final should tell you everything you need to know after studying my butt off for this final. the worst parts of the course was the lack of being accommodating enough to allow for partial credit in a math heavy course, the lack of practice problems/tests -she literally only provided 2 eleven question practice tests as the only practice problems and nothing for the final exam (where the average was an E and no one got above a B btw probably heavily due to that decision), her not wanting to release specifics on the curve after releasing final grades (meaning we just have to sit and wait for days until they process on Testudo for all 230 students), and her not saying anything, absolutely nothing, about how she accounted for points with all her errors on the exam. Like are we just supposed to forget that it even happened? What was with the lack of transparency? It isn't illegal to disclose information about the curves and grade cutoffs after everything has been graded and submitted? It isn't illegal to offer information on how many questions the final was going to be so we could prepare pacing ourselves better? Also, who's sincerely going to wait till June to review their final with her after the semester is over and summer/summer classes begin? I definitely learnt a lot in this class with the significant one being how to cry
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/17/2021	Everyone wrote some very justified dissertations about why this professor was horrible. But to keep it short and sweet, unless you are 100% sure you will never make a single calculation error in a multi-step math problem, save yourself the trouble (and about 10 points per exam).
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/17/2021	Echoing every other review on here, do NOT take her if you can help it. Her grading was horrendous, she was incredibly inflexible during a global pandemic, and had pretty ridiculous expectations for her students for a 2 credit class (the expectations which differed verbally from what was on the syllabus). She refused to give us recorded lectures unless we had a serious emergency, so we could never even go back and listen to what she said or watch her do example problems. That being said, the lectures themselves were horrendous. We had to go to them for participation, but for the first half of the semester, she would just discuss basic theory while giving us really challenging homework and exam questions. I tuned her out after about the fourth lecture. In terms of grading, she refused to give any partial credit, where CHEM271 is a super heavy math class, so if you made a simple calculation error you would get 0 points on a question. When I booked a private appointment with her to voice my concerns about how my effort wasn't being reflected in my grade, she simply told me to practice more, where I had already been using all the resources she had given us. When asking her how to study for the final, especially when she refused to give us answer keys to previous exams, she told us to do every. single. problem. in the textbook. That's around 3000 questions. There was no guidance on how to study, no actual teaching, and your best bet was to work off the textbook because her actual teaching was ridiculous. I urge you to listen to the reviews here and do NOT take this class with her if you can help it.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/17/2021	This was by far the worst chemistry class I have taken in college thus far. Dr. Dodson did not know how to teach the material, and her lectures were just a copy/paste from what was in the textbook. She could never answer anyones questions and always told people to refer to the slack for questions later, where usually a student would answer. She clearly did not know the material very well, and I ended up learning everything solely from the textbook. Not only were her lectures super unhelpful, but the exams did not reflect the material she "taught" and it was frustrating how they were way more complicated as we were completely unprepared. She also did not have any resources for us, and would not even bother to give us practice exams for the final. She never reciprocated to the students' needs and clearly had a lack of understanding on both content for her class and general teaching skills.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/17/2021	It’s been two days since the final...and I just found out there were 4 typos on the exam. She uses slack to give out announcements, and I only used slack to check for announcements of exams and other stuff. Turns out she posted on slack during the final that there were 4 typos on the exam, and then she says we were supposed to be in the zoom call to find out what the typos were. Through reading these reviews I also learned we were supposed to be participating in slack for participation points, but in the syllabus it says it’s ok to just attend lectures and discussion. I’ve never been more confused about what’s going on or what I’m supposed to be doing than in this class, unless at least a year or two has passed since this review and she has been able to get her lectures and class together just don’t take the class. She’s a new teacher so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, but she could’ve made the course so much easier on herself by listening and acting on the students advice.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/16/2021	I think all of the other reviews hit the nail on the head but I have to repeat our frustration towards this professor as, even during a difficult time as the COVID 19 pandemic, she was absolutely awful and inflexible. I did every homework assigned and received As on all of them, I was able to complete them without too many issues with the help of the textbook as her lectures were too confusing to really get much out of them. I used past exams from other professors to review and practice for each exam, yet the questions in her exams were much more complicated than what she covered in lecture and did not allow for partial credit despite the intensive math. The first exam was administered through MasteringChem which is a fine website for homework but absolutely horrible for exams, as I was kicked out of the exam after the first question. When I was let back in, I could only see one question at a time and could not change my answer after entering it in the allocated space, and between the time crunch and my inability to view all of the questions in the exam, I had no way of estimating how much more work I had to do and how much time I had for each question. Needless to say, my grade on this exam was absolutely awful. And it did not get any better! I practiced more and received a better grade on the second exam, but the third exam was again quite difficult. As my grade was heavily suffering from the first exam, I messaged her to make her aware of my concerns, but she was quite unhelpful and simply told me that she could not do anything about it and I had to suffer through it. For a 2 credit class, I spent more time studying the textbook and practice exams than some of my other 4 credit class this semester, and despite everything, it got worse! In our final she made 4 typos that heavily influenced the questions, and decided to correct them on Slack DURING THE EXAM! The only window I had open during this exam was... well the exam itself since she had told us to refrain from using slack. Yet she claimed that it was not her fault, as she had sent an announcement on slack and said something on the zoom call during the exam. I did not go to the zoom call because I did not want to be distracted by other students asking questions, so of course I did not hear or read anything about the typos and I wasted a lot of time on those questions that were indeed worth a lot of points. I strongly recommend taking anyone BUT her. Save yourself from the headaches and the tears, college is already stressful as it is.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/16/2021	Lectures were not useful, exams did not coincide with lecture and hw and too many issues in the exams , so disappointing since 271 isn’t a very difficult class like Orgo is notorious for.:( very sad that my gpa will be affected by this class
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/16/2021	handled the online environmen terribly
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/16/2021	This was one of Dr. Dodson's first semesters teaching chemistry and it could not possible be more apparent how utterly unprepared and inexperienced she was. Lectures were an absolute waste of time as her teaching style was so convoluted, and the practice problems she walked us through were filled with errors that she did not take any time to proofread before teaching to her 200+ students. Much of lecture time was spent completing these practice problems together, but when she walked us through these problems she managed to make them more complicated than they otherwise would have been had we just used the textbook. Oftentimes when students asked her seemingly rudimentary questions, she did not have a response and would say she had to check her notes. As mentioned in a previous review, she somehow managed to make relatively simple content seem more difficult, and I am sure most of the class would have been better off by just reading the textbook. As for exams, she refused to even give partial credit on an extremely calculation-intensive course with multi-step math problems, which just seemed like pure laziness on her part. The final was also filled with numerous typos which she notified the class of only on Slack during the exam (no one expected to have to routinely check Slack during a time crunched final), then proceeded to refuse culpability for her mistakes and blamed the class for not checking Slack during the exam. I do not think I have encountered a more incompetent professor in my life, and I will be shocked if I one day do.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/16/2021	This is by far one of the worst professors I've had at the University of Maryland. During COVID-19 she was not at all accommodating. All of her lectures were set at a scheduled time, and you wouldn't have access to them unless you had a serious excuse. She doesn't take into account that other students have other responsibilities. (Not only that, but she posted them a couple of days before the final to everyone (who is going to watch hours of lectures, when she could have set them out every week like every other teacher)). Participation is HIGHLY subjective. I went to all of the lectures, discussions and commented on the slack, and yet I did not get the full credit! It takes a heavy hit on your grade. Furthermore, during our final exam, she made 4 typos on the exam and posted them on SLACK. I don't know any other professor that does that. Most professors send an email from ELMS, especially because the exam is CLOSED book and internet. She specifically states to contact her on slack if you have any questions or to join the zoom. How am I supposed to know there are errors on the exam? Her lecture style is horrible, and I personally learned more from the books. The homeworks are easy and do not set you up for her exams at all. Her reviews/prep work for the exams are USELESS! She makes them so easy but when you take the exam it's not at all what you expect. In addition, during the first exam, it was on mastering chem and for some students the exam glitched. She let those students turn in their work 7+ days later and yet all of the other students had to do the test at the allotted time period. This was totally unfair, and she honestly did not care. She is just really EXTREMELY confusing and just all around not a good gen chem II professor! If you have the choice, take any other professor but her.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/15/2021	The worst possible professor in the CHEM department, or in any department period. Just a couple of the things CHEM271 students had to endure this semester (buckle down this is gonna be looong): 1. The first exam was administered through MasteringChem, and had a feature where you had to lock in your answers before moving forward. No one was aware of that before taking the exam, so that, along with multiple other technological issues that arise, accumulated to a horrible exam. She then let students submit the answers FOR A WEEK after the exam, which I'm sure many students took advantage of - I think this speaks for itself. Then, we were told that the exam would not be dropped, and that no one hates MasteringChem more than her...ok. 2. We never received a practice exam that was analogous with the level of difficulty, or even represented the problems we would see in her exams. Also, not once were we given a solutions manual to any exam because she, in her exact words, would "not be doing that." Had questions about the first exam while studying for the final? Professor Dodson's exact words at Office Hours: "You're just going to have to figure it out." 3. No partial credit on a SINGLE exam. Your calculations had you off by more than 0.5 of the answer? Sorry bestie, that's a 0/5 on the question (on an exam out of 50 points)! 4. As mentioned in a previous review, we were told at the beginning of class that participation is accrued by one of the following: attending lecture, going to discussion, or posting in Slack. Then, halfway into the semester when the first half of the semester participation was tallied, and most students lost multiple participation points, we were told that we had to attend lecture AND go to discussion (which was not always helpful) AND/OR post in Slack. The expectations outlined in the syllabus was FAR different than the expectations she verbally set, which I have honestly NEVER encountered in any class in my time at UMD thus far. 5. When she made a mistake while writing on the board and students pointed it out in lecture, she said "Sorry guys, I'm being dyslexic" twice. Disclaimer: she may be dyslexic in reality which we don't know, but if she isn't, that's an extremely discriminatory statement propagating stigma from a professor who is in a position of power. Many students felt highly uncomfortable from these comments. UMD prides itself in being an extremely welcoming school which prides itself on inclusivity, and I'm certain that comments like that do not fit with the school's moral tenants it strives to uphold. 6. THE FINAL. Oh, the final. She told us electronics was strictly forbidden on the exam, THEN makes MULTIPLE typos which affects the meaning of the questions, and posts corrections on Slack (which we were told not to access during the exam). When students mentioned this and highlighted the unfairness, she said "the corrections were also available on the Zoom call." ?????? The expectation for attending the Zoom call was ONLY if you had questions on the content, so none of us thought to stay in the Zoom call in the case that our professor makes huge mistakes on the exam (isn't that what proofreading is for???) Then, when this was brought up, she silenced us by telling us that people were still taking the exam, so we were to refrain from discussing the exam. Typical response from an individual who won't take accountability for their actions. It's extremely unfair to uphold us to a standard in which we cannot make mistakes on the exam so we get no partial credit, then she goes and makes multiple mistakes in writing the final exam. Make it make sense. Just do yourself a favor and take ANY other professor - college is already stressful and Gen Chem is already a lot to handle, especially with having to take 272 at the same time (Dr. Schech is AMAZING at teaching that class BTW), so any other professor would honestly be better than what Dr. Dodson will put you through. I'm sure Dr. Dodson is extremely knowledgeable in her field, and it is evident she is extremely passionate about the research she does. However, if UMD is interested in having professors that encourage students to develop a passion for Chemistry or who encourage students to learn/enjoy in the subject, I, along with many of my peers in her class this semester, would wholeheartedly suggest that you allow Dr. Dodson to sit out on teaching. She will bring nothing but misery to students, induce unnecessary anxiety, and instigate extreme apathy and negativity towards Chemistry as a whole.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/15/2021	This is my first time leaving a review, and if that does not tell you something about how bad this professor is then my next paragraph will. Her lectures were extremely disorganized and littered with mistakes in almost every single one, and her practice problems/homeworks/other material were blissfully easy compared to the actual exams she would give, which were often absolutely absurd in difficulty and tested you on your ability to think through her tricks and lack of information rather than the content. She did not offer partial credit, which is insane when you could answer one 8 point question correctly aside from one part yet get no credit for your knowledge. When my friend asked her for help, she told her she was "too busy" and to ask classmates in the Slack chat...the final nail in the coffin was when she had four major typos on her final exam which cost students around 15-20 points, and then blamed students for not checking the Slack chat- when she was the one who wrote a final and didn't bother to look through and check that she made no typos! Aside from that, even the TA could not answer some the questions she asked us on exams, going so far as arguing with students for 30 minutes before later admitting he was wrong. If a graduate TA couldn't solve a problem, then it should not be used to measure the knowledge of undergraduate students. There is probably no curve in the class either, as she doesn't ever own up to her mistakes and realize her teaching style is not effective at relaying and measuring our knowledge. Do not take her if you want to learn and be tested accurately!
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/15/2021	If your goal is to learn chem, don't take this professor. We spent the first 5 minutes of the class talking about astronomy and I successfully learned more fun facts about outer space that I will never use again in my entire life. Additionally, the wealth of knowledge that I learned in the lecture was so tiny that the homework and 5 minutes of astronomy intro every day gave me more information on exams than her actual teaching. Quite impressive how disorganized she was and how often she would backpedal on her own notes due to so many mistakes. I'd rather just have someone read the textbook to me as that would give a stronger understanding of chem than paying attention to the disorganized and unmotivating lecture that she would give weekly. Take anyone else for your own good.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/14/2021	Do not take her please for your mental health. Dr. Dodson is by far the worst professor I have ever had at UMD. My absolute greatest complaint is her lack of partial credit and inability to account for the rampant cheating that is clearly going on. The double standard and hypocrisy in her methods astounds me. Dr. Dodson makes 3-4 mistakes per lecture, the textbook is filled with errors, our final exam had 4 typos, but somehow it's fair that students are heavily penalized for the tiniest mistakes during the exams. Her grading methods are grossly unfair and in no way accurately assess mastery of content. Each question is worth a huge amount of points, and if we make the slightest mistake, we lose a large percent of our grade. If a student presses the wrong button on the calculator for the last step of a complicated math based question that takes multiple steps to solve, they get zero points even if they did everything else correctly. Or if they knew how to solve almost everything but couldn't get to the final answer, they still wouldn't get a single point. These questions can be worth up to 14% of our grade, which significantly impacts our overall grade. Dr. Dodson wouldn't even tell us which questions we got wrong on exam 1 so we couldn't even ask for regrades. She gets defensive when students bring up the issues (and I still can't think of a valid reason for why she didn't release correct answers to exams or why she won't let us scan our work for partial credit - considering many other chem classes online do both of these). Even if you have an excellent understanding of the material she taught in lecture and from the textbook, the exams are all or nothing so the tiniest mistake ruins your grade. Takeaways: grading did not adequately ascertain level of understanding, she wasn't open to suggestions, she didn't address student concerns, and the hypocrisy regarding ability to make mistakes was very unfair.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/14/2021	I am sure that Dr. Dodson is a great researcher and person but her teaching style and course set-up left me incredibly disheartened and discourage. I do not recommend her CHEM 271 at all. Lectures: Her lectures followed the textbook EXACTLY. Therefore, during lectures, all the practice problems are the basic/easy ones that only need one or two equations to solve. The homework and exam problems, where our grades are at stake, are much much MUCH harder. Grading: Her grading was very ambiguous, especially for participation. Since the class did not have many grading opportunities (just homework, exams, and participation), the participation weighed more heavily on everyone's grades. She did not clearly outline how the students can obtain participating points, causing many students to lose out on points that cannot be obtained past a certain time in the class. Exams: Dr. Dodson's exam setup is where I have the most grievance. Her exams were calculation-heavy (nearly 80-90% of each exam) but had no partial credits. She flat out rejected a student's suggestion of allowing students to turning PDFs for partial credits. I lost 14% on an exam because I calculated the last step in a seven-step problem wrong. On Exam 1, she decided to use Mastering Chem as the platform, which glitched like crazy. Then she was forced to accept late responses and granted everyone full credits on a couple of questions. Many students took advantage of this and the academically honest students were unnecessary and unintentionally penalized. In addition, she did not release our grading for the first exam so we could not even ask for regrades. To her credits, she did discontinue using Mastering Chem for exams. Her practice exams were not true reflections of the actual exams and neither were the practice dynamic module that she assigned. Her exam questions were also tricky and did not test students' understanding of chemistry topics. Tl;DR: Horrible lecture style. Horrible calculation-heavy exams that do not have partial credits. 100% DO NOT recommend.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/14/2021	No partial credit for a calculation-heavy course, does not understand difficulty of problems, unorganized TA
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/14/2021	Horrible lecture style, tricky exams that are made to test random skills rather than chemistry. No partial credit on anything, and a lack of understanding. Her final had 4 typos worth 20% of the exam. What's funny is that she explicitly stated to NOT be online other than ELMS during an exam, yet posts typo corrections on SLACK and expects students to be avid enough to check slack about important announcements like test typos. Her homeworks are incredibly easy to do, but her exams are terrible. Her "review" with practice problems solve to give you a false sense of security before aggressively pulling the rug beneath you during the exam and exposing the obvious lapses in her teaching. Additionally, the TA didn't understand half the material, and once argued for over half the discussion about a test problem where he was incorrect. Imagine that, a TA, who has the answer key, spends over half the discussion on defending the incorrect answer only to then backpedal and waste everyone's time. An absolute mess of a semester online, and I would recommend Dr. Dodson to seriously reconsider her teaching style and reevaluate if teaching is something she wants to pursue, as it is obvious her pedagogy ability has not been sharpened at all throughout her academic career in undergrad or graduate school.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/14/2021	A person who's speciality is astronomy should not be teaching General Chemistry II. The homework honestly taught me more than anything the professor did in this class.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/11/2021	TA for discussion was lost in the material, unhelpful, and his "practice exams" were as far removed from the material as possible. Every exam seemed to not have any correlation to what is shown in class or from what was presented. Homeworks were easy, yet gave no actual practice as their difficulty in comparison to the final exam was completely different. The textbook and khan academy is your best resource, but the material presented in class is really easy, yet the teacher somehow manages to make each problem hard, confusing, and are written to be tricky rather than test student knowledge. Lastly, the lecture was unclear, useless, and a waste of time. We would spend over 10 minutes on one question during lecture, over 20 minutes for one question for discussion, yet are expected to do even harder questions on an exam with half the time. Do yourself a favor and take any other professor.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/10/2021	Dr. Dodson's CHEM271 class was an absolute mess. The first exam she administered had countless issues with it (once you answered a question, it locked and you could not change it, the program glitched and time was cut short for some students, the exam was insanely long etc.). To "fix" the particular issue of the exam locking out before time was up, she allowed students to turn in answers to the exam up to a week after the exam was administered. It was widely known that some students may have taken advantage of this system for the benefit of their own grades (Dr. Dodson acknowledged this as well), but she basically told her students that nothing could be done about the dishonestly. She did discontinue the use of that exam platform, but people who were academically honest really got the short end of the stick. Besides this first exam fiasco, other notable issues included a disorganized discussion, unhelpful "practice exams", and participation points that seemed impossible to accrue. I genuinely learned everything for this class from Dr. Schech's CHEM272 lab and the book. I believe Dr. Dodson is knowledgeable in her field and is a great scientist, but her teaching style was not the best and she really made this class something to worry about for a lot of students.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 05/04/2021	If there is another professor, take them instead. I had her during an online setting and found her lectures boring and not helpful. Her lectures did not reflect the exams and homework given. She does not provide adequate practice examples and her exams were on elms with no partial credit so if you got a question wrong you were automatically down 6 percent.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/26/2021	The material in this course is the easiest material that you will have in a chemistry class, yet somehow she still made it confusing. I learned everything I know from the lab 272. She didn't give any partial credit for a course that is nearly entirely math, she wasn't very available via email, and she just wasn't receptive to students' needs. Also, the material taught in class was directly out of the book and super simple, yet the questions on exams were much more difficult. She is a nice lady and I wish her the best but do not take her if there are other options, the other teachers will be better.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 04/22/2021	HORRIBLE. Do not take this professor.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/21/2021	horrible professor, probably handled the online environment worst out of anybody i've ever taken.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 04/21/2021	Honestly, she is a very nice and respectable person, BUT she is EXTREMELY confusing. What we learn in class and the activities we do outside of class are COMPLETELY different from what is presented on her exams. Majority of the time, the lectures and homework are very easy and you will need to resort to reading the textbook to learn what she wants.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 04/21/2021	I went from getting A's in my previous two semesters of chemistry to hoping to pass this one. Honestly, I did not know what to expect coming into this semester since it's her first time teaching this class but my experience has not been good at all. The exams are brutal and the HWs and the practice material is not reflective of what's being tested.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 04/21/2021	In my opinion, I don't recommend this professor. Classes I've taken related to chemistry have been pretty straight forward, providing practice problems, reasonable help, and practice exams that relate to the exams you take. However, being in lecture we learn the most basic ways to solve problems but the exams don't reflect what we've learned in class to the same degree. After attending lectures, reading the textbooks, and redoing all the hws, I opened the practice exam and it had ridiculously complex problems with what some material that seems irrelevant to this course. She expects you to have knowledge that was not taught in lecture or covered in the textbook. I wish discussion would have been taught better (the TA also admitted to needing help from the professor to do specific problems). She's probably a great scientist and researcher but is obviously lost in delivering material in a reasonable way to students. In addition to this, her syllabus states "18 points will be counted through regular participation in AT LEAST ONE or more of the following: (i) Zoom class meetings, (ii) Slack discussions, or (iii) instructor office hours." However, after attending all of the lectures, which satisfies the requirement, I did not receive full credit. I'm really trying my best in this course but when I receive grades back from my exams I get so discouraged.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2021	so trash.... doesn't provide practice problems, her practice exams are horrible, lectures completely unstructured. i've gotten A's in every other chem class without needing to touch the textbook but its a must with her. her class is awful.
Leah Dodson CHEM271 Anonymous 04/19/2021	She is one of the most confusing professors I have ever taken, doesn't provide practice problems, and her exams do not reflect the material she teaches. Any practice problems that she does provide are significantly easier than those on the exam, which sets you up to fail. I highly recommend you do not take this professor. She doesn't answer questions will and is often confused herself.