Michelle Girvan

This professor has taught: CHPH709B, CMSC828O, PHYS165, PHYS260, PHYS260H, PHYS272, PHYS272H, PHYS615, PHYS709, PHYS780, PHYS781, PHYS782, PHYS798D, PHYS798N, PHYS798T, PHYS798U, PHYS798Z, PHYS899

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Michelle Girvan PHYS260 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/09/2024	She is one of the better professors I have had here. She is super accommodating of students and will extend assignments deadlines for the entire class if a couple students need extra time. She was very understanding and supportive of my ADS accommodations as well and she really tried to remember who I was which I thought was impressive considering there's like 100 people in my lecture section and my attendance wasn't the best. While ExpertTA sucks, she acknowledged its limitations, didn't penalize feedback on the homework attempts, and I felt that she really worked with the students to make it a better learning experience by giving a breakdown of what we could expect from each problem on the homework. She emphasized conceptual problems on the quizzes (which are open note) and equation derivations during lecture which really helped reinforce the core concepts. Lectures are confusing sometimes if you don't do any sort of prep ahead of time but literally just take 5 minutes to skim through the textbook synopsis at the end of each chapter before lecture and you'll be fine. The great thing about how she has the class set up is that if you miss a couple lectures, you won't get hopelessly lost as long as you attend office hours, review the slides, and actually read the textbook explanation after. Her exams are also not abnormally difficult considering it's physics. You just have to be smart about how you prepare your equation sheet and what you practice. If you put 3-4 hours of extra practice in before your exam and review the practice exam in office hours/tutoring, you'll be fine, especially because she is very generous with curving. Like, I passed the 2nd midterm (which is the harder one) and I straight up didn't study for it or attend lecture for a while leading up to the exam (would NOT recommend doing this, I was just out sick). Overall, she's a very informative and kind/helpful professor teaching a course that covers a lot of concepts that aren't particularly intuitive. Take her score here with a massive grain of salt and keep in mind that her PHYS260 class has like 200 students between both sections and very few of them actually leave reviews, even if they have good experiences.
Michelle Girvan PHYS260 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/05/2024	Exams are long if not also difficult but you get a note sheet and a curve. So study hard and go to office/tutor hours. There’s weekly HW and Quizzes that can be tricky if you don’t study or go too fast. Professor Girvan seems to really care about making sure things are in detail and took a lot of time this semester to listen to students. I struggled the most with connecting lecture to online work to exams, but overall solid Physics III class
Michelle Girvan PHYS260 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/21/2024	Solid professor; takes time helping students when needed. Exams (note sheets are allowed) are difficult but a curve is given (~anywhere from 0-15% depending on average score). Homework and quizzes are not terrible but can take up time. Make sure to practice problems and visit office hours to get a passing grade.
Michelle Girvan PHYS260 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/13/2024	The exams are tough, but at least for my time, Girvan seems to really care about her students and ensuring that they understand the material. If you take this class, go to office hours and discussions, and really put in effort, you'll be alright. Also give yourself a full week to study before exams.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Anonymous 01/28/2024	I don’t recommend taking this professor. Lots of stressful weeks taking tough quizzes that were hard to fully study for. Exams were really hard and not really curved. So many hours went into studying for this class. If you have a busy workload try and take this class with a different professor if you can
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/12/2024	She is by far the worst teacher I have ever had the displeasure of enduring for an entire semester. The lectures give no real value other than copied textbook passages, she never uses the chalkboard, she is always drinking a redbull throughout class which feels very unprofessional and seems like she doesnt care at all about the lectures. She promised a class curve that would be around 3% which by itself is low (The other professor teaching the same physics course during this semester curved by over 10% and taught better) but then she only curved 0.5%. She put an impossible to solve integral on an exam. She has tough quizzes and while she claims to want to challenge her students, thats ALL she does when she should also want them to succeed instead.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/12/2024	Navigating through this physics course feels like trying to find dark matter with a flashlight – elusive and leaving me in the dark! If only our professor's explanations were as illuminating as a glow-in-the-dark supernova, we might all become physics wizards instead of feeling like we're lost in a black hole of confusion!
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/06/2024	The reviews and rating speak for themselves.. but to put it simply, I truly do not recommend taking this professor. I will admit a large portion of our class had taken it before, which made it extra difficult for those who hadn’t, but unless you have a very strong foundation of the material covered in the class, do yourself a favor and don’t take this class. It has put me through more stress than any other class I’ve ever taken.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/28/2023	Dr. Girvan puts makes it seem like she really cares, but as the year went on I came to realize this isn’t really true. It seems like she really wants to fail us, and I myself thought I was gonna fail the class at multiple points. I truly don’t recommend taking her. This class was torture. Do yourself a favor and take a different professor, and if you can’t take this class a different semester.
Michelle Girvan Anonymous 12/18/2023	By far the worst class I've ever taken. Girvan claims to care for her students and wants to challenge them, but in practice everything she does ranges from "not caring" to downright sadistic. The tests are impossible (It would actually be easier to go outside in a thunderstorm and try to dodge rain), homeworks take hours to complete and require you go to tutoring, and quizzes are also insanely difficult (and weekly), and there's also no formula sheets allowed for quizzes for reasons only the lord himself knows. The lectures are completely incomprehensible. The entire class is her making derivations and substitutions without explaining what she's doing and skipping multiple steps. You're better off watching YouTube videos on the subjects. I wouldn't even be this upset if she didn't claim to curve tests and then just decided not to curve one of our midterms To summarize: For the good of your sanity and enjoyment of life, do not take this class. And if you do, buckle in, because this ride only stops in the case of an emergency, and crying is not an emergency.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2023	If you put time into studying the class should be a breeze. The expectations she has are very reasonable and she gives you all the resources you need to succeed however, it can be up to you to learn for yourself. I find that her lectures are ok but I do the majority of learning on my own. The quizzes are problems from the homework, some of the exam problems are directly from the lecture, and the weekly homework takes about 3 hours. I will say that If you are having so much trouble with this rudimentary course, you might want to consider switching out of a physics major.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	Albeit I haven't taken the final, I feel professor Girvan did a sufficient job teaching the material and going over core concepts. People seem to be complaining because its a hard class and they want to blame professor Girvan but I mean physics is one of the hardest majors for a reason and its not because of the professors... If you go into the class expecting the professor to do everything for you then good luck buddy, but if you put in the extra work outside of class you'll be fine. Also, I 100% support the harder exams this class isn't supposed to be a cakewalk it should test your knowledge on the material that is taught and that can't be done with easy exams. She also responds well to emails and is very caring for her students. I would recommend taking Girvan for this class if you know how to study and you can get over the fact that she doesn't work out problems in person (she has arthritis).
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/12/2023	God cannot help you. You should register for other professor, delay this class, or time travel back to high school and take ap physics. In short, Girvan purposely makes everything harder than what is supposed to be. Quiz may be similar setup as one of hw question, but derived more parts that are hard and few are unsolvabley hard. Girvan ensures all exam average to be strictly below 80 by purposely making irrationally hard exam, including but may not limiting to a question end up at a integral unable to solve. This indeed happened on one of the midterms. That is, if there exist people taken ap physics and you have not, then you certainly is the lower quartile. There may exist a curve, but this semester only one of two midterms is curved. Do not trust it at all. As previously stated, Girvan ensures exam average is strictly below 80 (even if after curve). Girvan does know how to do things, and she can work out a understandable process if you go to office hours and ask for it. However, Girvan clearly expects significantly more than a 200 level 3 credit stem class should (both time commitment and self study ability). And lecture slides is almost a mess. Some have equation list, but not all equations needed. One will have to dig into messy sketchs to find the useful thing. Agreed with previous, "homework may go up to part m", and this is not rare occation at all. It is taking equvalent (and may be more) time than a 400 level math. I took it only because schedule and cannot delay. I can pass this class because and only because Girvan has a very good TA. The TA does teaching much better and comprehensible, even if it is merely over email.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Anonymous 12/12/2023	This has been by far the worst course I've taken at UMD. The exams are nearly impossible, and the professor wants nothing but the worst for her students. She said word for word that she gives hard exams and that she shows no mercy. She essentially caters this course towards people who have already taken an E & M course and doesn't care about the students who are struggling to keep up. The lectures were very hard to follow, and often there would be mistakes on the slides. No extra credit, and she only drops one quiz. We were not allowed a formula sheet or index card on the quizzes, which I could understand, but it's not consistent with the course when we're given a formula sheet on exams. And to the person who gave her a five-star review, maybe I don't want impossible exams because I'd like to not go insane. This class nearly made me drop my major because of how bad my mental health got from the stress of it. It's physically impossible to be successful in this class when the professor wants the absolute worst for you. I studied for HOURS for the second exam to find out that she wasn't going to curve the exam because the average was where she wanted it. That's only because the people who already took E & M are carrying the class average, and if you're below the average, you're screwed because it's nearly impossible to keep up with the course. This professor would be better suited for graduate-level classes, but not for a lower-level physics course. I'd honestly learn a lot more from just teaching myself the textbook. The TA carried this course so hard, someone give him a raise.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/05/2023	All I have to say is don’t take her. This class is way too hard, way too stressful, and 1000% not worth it. Weekly expert ta assignments, weekly quizzes, and quizzes and exams are really hard. Please do yourself a favor and do not take this class..
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/05/2023	Realistically you should do everything that you can to avoid taking this class. Dr. Girvan cares about her students, but that's about where the positives end. She does not write on the board at all, she teaches from slides made by pearson and skips steps throughout. She goes way way too fast, and her homework assignments on expert ta take several hours. There is a quiz every friday on the homework material, and these quizzes are literally horrible. She also promises curves that never really happen, and overall seems like she wants her students to fail. It really makes no sense to me why a professor would make quizzes and exams difficult to this extent. She told us from the very first day that her exams are very hard, and she did not lie. Even if you have to take this class in a different semester, it is worth putting off. You should do anything that you possibly can to take a different professor.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Anonymous 11/27/2023	God help you. Professor Girvan cares a lot for her students. She is a very nice person. She is very talented. She will want to help her students succeed, and she will smile as her class beats you into the dirt like a sledgehammer. The homeworks are 10 questions that can go up to part m. They are so unimaginably difficult that many graduate students cannot solve them. I've been to tutoring, and it has taken people in doctorate programs days to solve them. It will take at the very least 4 hours to do a single homework. The quizzes are from the homework questions, and are almost always the hardest and most impossible of the already difficult homeworks. They're every week, and there's no formula sheets allowed (for some reason). Only a single homework/quiz is dropped, compared to Multi-Variable Calculus which drops 3. The lectures range from ok (I guess?) to completely incomprehensible. Problems are gone through in minutes on the slides, and she spends time on bizarre substitutions and derivations for the entire class before chucking you into the deep end. Problems and variables are substituted so much that if you look back at the slides you won't be able to even see what happened. Nothing is explained in a legible or understandable way, important and critical steps and explanations are skipped with the assumption you can just figure it out, and you often leave the class in a daze trying desperately to figure out what just happened. The tests are impossible. Literally, she said she designs them to be ridiculously hard. The only silver lining is they're based on the slides. She says "Oh don't worry guys there's a big curve!", which ranges from either half-true to a downright lie. Some tests do indeed have a curve, a curve so small it barely changes anything. Some she just won't curve at all. This is the worst class I've ever taken. No class has made me feel worse, even Math141 seems like a gen-ed compared to this. 95% of the energy you spend in your semester will be on this class. If you ever have the misfortune of being forced to take this teacher, all I can tell you is this. God save you, for no one else can.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/09/2023	I really like how she teaches. She simplifies the textbook material and includes a few practical problems in every class. She's also caring and good at answering questions. She gives tough exams and tells us she's aiming for a 70% average, but she'll curve them. I actually prefer the harder exams. Some people may not like them being tough, but I don't get why. We're paying a lot for our UMD courses, and it's important for us to be held responsible for learning the material.
Michelle Girvan PHYS272 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/29/2023	Every lecture is the same. She goes through 40+ lecture slides without working through a single problem on the chalkboard. And because there are so many slides, she moves far too fast to be able to take adequate notes within the class period
Michelle Girvan PHYS260 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2018	She's kind of hard to follow when doing examples since her writing is kind of small and disorganized. She also hands out pretty hard exams. That said, she's pretty nice and cares for her students.