Richard Greene

This professor has taught: PHYS104, PHYS174, PHYS272, PHYS272H, PHYS838C

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Richard Greene PHYS272 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/23/2024	Dr. Greene is one of the best professors I ever had. I walked into that class with no knowledge on E&M, and walked out with a deep and conceptual understanding of all the concepts. Dr. Greene makes his class interesting and engaging with demos. He also cares about his students success more than grades. He wants you to learn the material, so he gives very conceptual questions and extra time on all his exams because he wants to test your physics knowledge not formula regurgitation. There are weekly quizzes, which make sure that you stay on top of the material and understand what will be put on the exams. Overall, I highly recommend you take Dr. Greene for any physics class especially PHYS272 if you get the chance.
Richard Greene PHYS272 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/14/2024	Professor Greene is my favorite teacher at UMD so far! He makes the classes fun and engaging, and he does a lot of cool demos. I can see that he cares about his students, and wants to see them learn and improve at physics. Professor Greene is kind, intelligent, and funny. He is always willing to help you as long as you are willing to ask questions, and he explains topics in an easy-to-understand way. In terms of the class (PHYS272): The structure is flipped, so most of the learning is done outside of class, and then the class itself is about reinforcing topics and solving problems. Whether a flipped format is good or not is a matter of personal preference. The workload is relatively substantial, but this is necessary given the difficulty of the topics; the best way to learn physics is to practice. There are weekly quizzes on the same day that the weekly homework is due, but both the homework and quizzes aren't worth that much in terms of your final grade (and he even drops your 2 lowest quizzes). The tests are what's important, but a lot of the questions are similar to what you have already seen through practice questions/practice tests he provided (though they are not nearly as easy as the quizzes). The grading for the class is lenient as Professor Greene is understanding and there is a substantial curve (the total class average is curved to a B-). He will even give you extra time on tests if you need it, because he wants to assess your knowledge of physics and does not want to make the tests a question of speed. Overall, this class was very useful and I am so grateful to have had Professor Greene as my teacher for it. Do not hesitate to choose him as your professor!
Richard Greene Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/30/2023	Dr. Greene is an awesome professor — he’s a great teacher, he will always encourage you to ask questions, and his in-class demos keep the class time interesting. (He likes explosions.) He’s a tough but fair grader, and the workload is very reasonable, at least for 272. Would absolutely recommend taking physics 272 with him!
Richard Greene PHYS272 Expecting an A czanike1 11/29/2023	Whoop whoop! Dr. Greene is amazing! We do so many demonstrations which ranged from launching soda cans to microwaving light bulbs and CDs. The exams aren't always super easy, but they're very fair, and there's adequate study material to prepare with. People like Dr. Greene justify my love for physics, and I'm very grateful to have been in his class. If anyone's on the fence about what professor to take a class with and Dr. Greene is an option, choose Dr. Greene. The homework can take a bit of time, but it's really not bad at all--especially for a physics class.
Richard Greene PHYS272 Expecting a B- umdstudent420 12/16/2020	Probably the first teacher to make super complicated ideas seem so simple and then make them really hard on the test again if you do not study properly. Otherwise he is an amazing professor that makes the subject actually interesting!
Richard Greene PHYS272 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2019	Amazing professor! He made a hard class easy to understand, and covered topics in a way that kept me constantly engaged.
Richard Greene Expecting a B Anonymous 05/13/2012	I'd like to preface this review by saying that I'm an english major, and that I can't handle basic math and the concept of physics blows my mind in general. That being said, Professor Greene made physics one of my easier classes of my semester. He's extremely helpful in class as long as you ask questions (he can't read minds), and even if you don't particularly understand lecture he always does demonstrations of the concepts he's going over which REALLY help, especially like me if you're more of a visual and hands-on learner. Homework grades are based on effort rather than whether you're right or wrong (occasionally I wrote a paragraph of straight gibberish because I had no idea what the answer was and still got full credit). There's a quiz every week on the homework, but it's only 3 multiple choice questions and you get 1 point for just taking the quiz. He takes the quiz grades for each student and adds them all up at the end of the semester and puts a giant curve on them, so getting a 1/4 doesn't hurt you. The average is usually a 2/4 or so which ends up being around a B at the end of the semester. Everyone fails the exams, but some exam questions are the same as the ones he puts on the quizzes so those are free points, plus he has a review session before the exams where he'll hint at things that'll be on the exam that he doesn't mention in class, so go to those. Like the person below me said, the exams get a HUGE curve because as I said everyone fails. The average on our final was a 20/35 which ended up being around an 85% or so. Basically, if you're going to take any non-lab for CORE, take this class with Greene. It was the only class I didn't skip all semester because I actually enjoyed it.
Richard Greene Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/03/2012	Great class; great teacher,if you put in 40 minutes a week doing your homework assignment you will get an A. You will need yo attend class 75% of the time.
Richard Greene Expecting an A- motariq1991 05/21/2011	Professor Greene is an amazing professor and he really makes the class engaging through his demonstrations. One demonstration I still remember was when he accidentally or purposefully exploded a thick pipe by exposing it to liquid nitrogen. The entire class jumped. Lol. Another one was when he popped a hydrogen balloon. All in all, this class is pretty easy as long as you attend the discussions, pay attention in class and read the book. The homework were an easy give-away points. He graded those based on completion. Quizzes and exams were tough but he followed it up by giving a massive curve in the class. I don't know how big the curve was but he said that average for exams and quizzes counted as a B+ even though if the average was in 40s or 50s. So, just hope to do better than the class average and you should walk away with an A. I definitely recommend everyone to take this class with Professor Greene.