James Farquhar

This professor has taught: GEOL124, GEOL386, GEOL444, GEOL489F, GEOL899

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James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/26/2024	Professor Farquhar is a really nice and very knowledgeable man. Regarding his teaching, it is very very difficult to focus through an entire lecture. He speaks quite quietly and monotone and goes on and on about topics which are hard to follow. Midterm wasn't too bad considering he gave us a practice test that was pretty much exactly like the real exam. I would only recommend this class if you are good at paying attention and are actually interested in this subject (which is mostly not about rocks in case that's what you were expecting).
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2023	Although lectures can be boring, you'll learn a decent amount (mostly about methane) if you pay attention every once in a while. Dr. Farquhar is VERY nice and approachable. Midterm was brutal but he gave us a giant curve, and questions for the final exam were provided beforehand. Take this Carillon course if you want to have a chill time.
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/05/2023	This class may be the most useless class I have ever sat in. I kind of gave up going to lectures because he just talks and talks and its impossible to take notes on everything. The midterm was also extremely difficult and the average grade was like a 65. Just switch to a different carillon thing if you can.
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/05/2023	I love him. He's very knowledgable AND funny. xoxo
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/15/2023	really nice but does not have any notes to follow along with, rambles while lecturing, was not prepared for midterms, the midterm was all fill in the blank and there were 70 phrases/definitions that he didn't even teach. Over half the concepts he did not spend time going over in class. Don't recommend at all
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting an A+ Ovrthegrdnwll 01/18/2023	Although Dr. Farquhar clearly knows what he's talking about, he rambles, and my classmates and I would leave class not having felt that we learned anything. He's a really nice person, but he seems to be an ineffective educator. We had two tests in the entire class and both contained multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank questions that were incredibly specific and definitely not things we would have remembered for class. Luckily, he gave us "study guides" for both exams that were just the exact questions, so definitely use those to study. My class had to complete multiple group projects relating to methane, an abridged paper about methane concentrations around campus that we collected, and group research posters that we presented at a Carillon showcase in early December. These methane-related assignments appeared to detract from the main focus of the class which was how the Earth and life have changed over the course of its lifetime, a topic that was actually quite interesting. I think if Farquhar had gotten rid of the methane stuff (His personal research) and instead focused on the main themes of the class, I would have gotten a lot more out of it.
James Farquhar GEOL124 Anonymous 12/15/2022	Do not take this class if you are accepted into the Carillon community. The course is boring and tedious.
James Farquhar GEOL444 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/11/2021	Farquhar is a really nice professor, and he clearly knows a TON about what he's talking about — he discovered a decent amount of the things we learned about! But as someone with basically no experience with what he was teaching us about, a lot of the class ended up going over my head and was just really hard to absorb. Honestly think the only reason I did well in this class is because our TA was a huge help, Farquhar gave us all 100% for participation, and I think he put a pretty big curve on the final. Be prepared to put a lot of work in outside class!
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2010	Farquhar is a really nice guy, almost too nice. I came into this class expecting a challenging, engaging course on how life evolved on earth from the beginning to its present day form. While we certainly did cover some of this, it seemed that climate change was a bigger topic of discussion than life itself. I can't say that I didn't learn anything, I definitely did. It just wasn't the type of stuff I expected to learn. The class itself was generally boring, although there were a couple topics where the material was interesting and Farquhar gave a good lecture. As for Farquhar himself, like I said he is extremely nice and overly agreeable. He is also the most awkward teacher I have ever had. Half the time it seemed like he was scared to death of public speaking. He wants his students to succeed and do well, but he isn't commanding enough. Farquhar also tends to go off track and talk about his research. I actually didn't mind listening to this though because it tended to be more interesting than the lecture slides. Farquhar knows his stuff but has a hard time of conveying it. The TA, Brian, was very good and explained things well. The discussion sections were a lot lighter and more social. As for the difficulty level of the class, I don't understand how anyone can possibly get less than a B if you go to class even half the time. We had two projects for the class. In one we had to go to the National History museum in DC. The worksheet we had to fill out was dreadful, and it took me about 3 hours to complete. The museum itself is really interesting though. The other project was a group project which was pretty easy. The tests are easy and you get extra credit all over the place. I'm sitting at a 91% for the year and barely did any work. If you spend 1/2 hour studying for the tests and an hour studying for the final you'll get good grades. The class was meh. Not awesome, not terrible. I learned a decent amount and got a good grade with no work.
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/07/2010	This class is DREADFUL!! Yes, the subject has potential to be interesting (which is why i signed up for it) but the teacher just completely killed every ounce of that appeal. He rambles like crazy! I can not even begin to explain how off topic he gets for such extended amounts of time. Also, his planning is awful. The syllabus is pointless because he follows no lesson plan at all. He becomes so completely engrossed in one subject that we would end up spending more than 2 weeks on one graph. He also has a tendency of assuming everyone has an extensive knowledge of every subject in science ever so lectures, on top of being highly disorganized, are impossible to understand. As for course load there were two projects. For one, we had to answer 10 + pages of specific questions pertaining to various exhibits at the Museum of Natural History. It personally took me 5 hours to complete, it was 10% of our grade. The other project was a group project where you had to make a wiki page on a topic concerning global warming/climate change/etc. We had 2 mid-terms, each of which asks very specific questions like what is the energy output of the sun, and the choices varied only in decimal placement. There is also a final which is cumulative. For discussion, life was not so bad. The T.A. is a million times better than the professor and section was kind of interesting. For the whole course, every week you had to read a chapter out of the discussion book and answer a question pertaining to that chapter, very easy. In conclusion, do not take this class. Even though discussion was good, having to deal with the lecture is not worth it.
James Farquhar GEOL124 Expecting a B Anonymous 03/27/2008	awful class. do NOT take this class unless you want to be absolutley bored and angry the whole time. farquhar gets off topic about his field research and science buddies half the time, and then expects you to understand everything he didn't say. even though it says its an easy core science class, STAY AWAY.