Samuel Lascio

This professor has taught: CHEM131, CHEM135

Sort By:

Information	Review
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/22/2025	Lascio is a great, engaging lecturer, but his exams are incredibly difficult and not related to the material covered in lecture at all, which makes his style of teaching relatively unhelpful when preparing for exams. On top of this he's mentioned in lecture that he does not feel it's his job to teach us, which I guess is fair at a college level, but I feel like if I'm paying this much money to go to college I want a professor who wants to help us learn in lecture, not one who just expects us to learn everything on our own. The homework, lecture notes, and practice exams are all significantly easier than what he puts on the actual exams, so its difficult to prepare for them, and he also does not drop questions if the majority of the class gets them wrong. On our second midterm there was a problem that only three people got right in a 260 person lecture, but he did not drop the question or curve the exam. One of the best parts of taking him, however, is the curve at the end of the semester. Like most chem classes, it's based on your peers so it will change year by year, but it allowed me (and many others) to pass the class. He's the kind of prof that I wouldn't recommend, but I also wouldn't break down into tears having, as he's very approachable and responsive. I believe he's moving to a lab coordinator position, which I feel is a better fit for him anyway. Quick helpful tip if you have him for 131! If he teaches you an exception to a rule, write it down because it'll be on the exam almost every time.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/20/2025	This class is super hard and has SO much content, so no matter who your professor is you WILL need to put a lot of time and effort into this class. Great professor, super nice + approachable, great with responding to emails, and pretty accommodating. He also is great at explaining the topics quickly and somewhat clearly. His lectures are okay, he sometimes goes on tangents about stuff you don't need to know for the exam, just because he loves chemistry so much lol. went super slow in the beginning, but this kind of caused my section to end up behind on content so we had to speed through like 5 chapters in the last 2 lectures. (and then those chapters were HEAVILY on the final but whateverrrr) Practice exams are useless as they are WAY too easy in comparison to his actual exams, his exams are pretty similar to Mignerey's, but definitely a little trickier especially the calculation portions. Your best bet for the exams are gonna be the weekly discussion worksheets. Make sure you know how to do EVERY problem on those and try to train your brain to do them intuitively. Overall, shitty course, good professor, TOUGH exams.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/18/2025	He's a pretty good professor. As a Lecturer, he's really good at keeping the class engaged, but the speed that CHEM135 goes at makes sure he's always going really quick through the material, but if you ask him to explain in more detail he'll make sure you'll understand(at the cost of being behind in the curriculum). He's really good at answering emails relatively quickly. His exams are particularly hard compared to the other CHEM135 professors, from what I've heard. Expect to be tested on things that you just finished going over. It's gen chem for engineers, the rush to study feels like you'll need to be working at light speed. If he finishes a chapter on Tuesday, expect to be tested on it on Thursday.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2025	First off, loved his class. He's a great professor and explains things well verbally, but you will have to attend his lectures if you want to get much out of his class. He doesn't post recordings unless he's sick or the lecture was virtual, and there's a lot he elaborates on out loud that you'll miss out on if you only read the lecture notes. His tests are pretty straight-forward, but you can't just memorize equations and expect to pass because he specifically constructs the exams to avoid students doing that. He's willing to do regrades and everyone I know got at least a couple extra points from any regrade request they submitted, and the homework assignments combined are worth as much as a midterm so if you don't do well on those, the homework can boost your grade. He even took an entire chapter off our second exam because people complained it was too hard (we hadn't gotten to the chapter in class, but it'd been posted for over a week at the time). The class is hard, duh, it's gen chem, but he's great. If he ever teaches CHEM131 again he's probably one of the best options, but after our class I don't think he's going to teach it again. I know he'll teach CHEM132 and CHEM135 next semester; can't say much about him as a lab coordinator, but I hear good things about his CHEM135. My only gripe with his whole class was that he waits until a week or so before an exam to give you the practice exam and study guide, so if you have a lot going on at the same time as his exam it's hard to space out preparation.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2025	Lascio is a very engaging lecturer and tries to make his class as interesting as chemistry can be. However, he is a petty guy who will blame the entire class for failing and not anything else 😭. I remember that during an exam review session, he spent the entire time arguing with a student who wrote a genuine email about how they were concerned about the exam. He had this email up on the board and literally said “I’m trying to make eye contact with whoever wrote this,” then proceeded to nitpick everything wrong with it. Other times he’s really nice and will answer your questions without condescension (it’s kinda hard to tell what mood he’s in). He curves your grade at the end, and his exams are VERY difficult. Definitely doable, just a very hard subject.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2025	Dr.Lascio is genuinely a great teacher. His lectures are very informative and he’s very accommodating when it comes to scheduling regrades, office hours, and exam reviews. He replies to emails very quickly and actually cares about the wellbeing of his students. Discussion session is optional but has good resources for exam prep. Study by doing the homework problems until you fully understand them and by reviewing concepts in the lectures slides.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/16/2025	Such a great professor. He explains everything really well, and while his exams are quite tough, if you have any questions he is very good at explaining each concept. Chem135 is known to be a really difficult class, but this is one that with Lascio, you will do very well if you take advantage of his resources
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting an F Anonymous 12/13/2025	lascio is great!!! he's a great prof i'm just failing because i'm bad at chem lol. anyway yeah idk what grade i'll get but we'll see. lascio is great and chill he's funny. 4 stars because for one lecture which was an exam review right before midterm 2 he was just reviewing a student's email and i was like damn...this is lowk unproductive....but yeah he's a chill guy i'd recommend anyway. just because he's cool. just don't be like me and actually lock in lol...i'm so happy i'm not pre-med....
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2025	Dr. Lascio is a really nice guy. He walks through useful example problems in lecture and he explains topics well. He did have to cram a lot of material in at the end but that's not really his fault, there's just a lot of stuff to cover in the class. The exams were pretty hard but manageable. Overall I would say he's one of the better options to take chem135 with.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/12/2025	Great professor, lectures are very engaging and entertaining, considering the difficulty of the course. But the exams were a bit tricky to get through, so you need to study well to pass the course
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/11/2025	Honestly the biggest problem is that the class itself is just hard. I think Lascio does a great job making the content understandable but it seems like we're always behind on something. The course feels rushed but that's just the nature of the course and not Lascio's fault. He does a good job responding to emails despite how many students he has and the exams are always like the practice exams. Currently though, there is no practice final, which is a little disappointing but manageable. Lascio is always working overtime making sure grades are in quickly and lecture slides posted in a timely manner. He goes above the standard so much so that there have been times he's uploaded annotated slides at around 1am
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/09/2025	This class is hard af but Dr. Lascio doesn't really do anything to make it harder than it needs to be. His slides are fun, lectures and discussion are good, and the GSS is pretty helpful. I would give 5 stars but I think the exams are just a little bit too hard. A lot of the questions feel like they're trying to trick you on purpose by asking about super small and insignificant pieces of information, and some of the free response questions are just brutal. I'm pretty sure there was one on our second exam that 3/~500 people got right, so that's about how hard we're dealing with. All that said though, this class is 100% passable since he incorporates a very generous curve at the end where you only need a 50 to get a C and if you pass the final he'll just pass you anyway. Overall, hard class, but Dr. Lascio isn't to blame for that.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/09/2025	I would say Dr. Lascio is very nice, but I’m not sure whether it’s the chemistry curriculum at UMD or his class specifically that is extremely difficult. This is coming from someone who took chemistry in high school and enjoyed it, so I do have some background knowledge in the subject. That being said, even with some foundational knowledge in chemistry, I found this course to be difficult, especially the exams. On our three midterms, the averages were 42, 51, and 43.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2025	Best prof in all STEM
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2025	Dr. Lascio is a solid professor. A lot of people complain that he isn't a good teacher, but I think if you show up to lecture and take notes, he explains everything pretty well. We had 3 midterm exams and the averages were around 50-60% for each. However with his curve for this semester (which is based on the class average), an 80+ is an A and a 70+ is a B. In addition to our midterm grades, we had around 9 homework assignments that added up to be 80 points, the same amount of points as each midterm exam, which really helped people's grades. I'd recommend actually trying to do the homework problems even though they're often way more challenging than the exam questions, because they help you become more familiar with the content. In terms of studying, look through all the slideshows he posts and make sure you can do every single problem he's done in class. He also posts a practice exam for each midterm, which is relatively similar to the real exams, although they seemed to be a little easier. His exams are fair, but for a lot of people time was a challenge. He likes to include trick questions, which can be frustrating, but very simple if you know your stuff. Lastly, he can be a little unhelpful when you ask questions in class, but I truly think he wants all his students to succeed!
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2025	GOAT. I had a C in Chemistry when I was in 9th grade, and never learned it since then. I really hated this subject until I took his course. Frankly, it's a difficult and challenging class. The pace is really fast, but Prof Lascio always show the class how to solve test-level problems step by step. Also, he doesn't record his classes, which makes the attendance rate much higher than my other STEM classes, and it actually compel me to attend lessons everytime. The practice exams he gave were basically having the same structure and difficulty as the actual ones, which is great if you simply do it before the test.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/08/2025	He’s a great professor. He’s super approachable and friendly and definitely recommend him out of all the other professors in the chem department. Just a chill causal guy. Plus his blazers over his graphic tee shirts that he’d wear is actually so fire: Chemistry is just extremely difficult but he does his best to help you and is a very understanding guy. The curve is pretty big so you’ll probably be okay but go to the gss sessions and his office hours! Going to these and showing up to the lectures will save you. The textbook also helps. There’s only 5 grades this whole semester so everything counts. He also responds to emails really quickly which is absolutely amazing shout out to him. And the memes he puts on the slides are actually funny and up to date. That’s not that important but a great plus. The practice midterm is decently similar to the real midterm but things change so you actually have to go over all the slides and notes because there may be things on there that actually wasn’t on the practice exam. That caught me off on the first exam. The midterms in general are actually awful. But that’s in every class with any professor. Chemistry is just hard, but he really made it bearable.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/07/2025	I honestly don't know how Dr. Lascio is getting five star ratings. Although he is a decently nice person and does try to answer questions as best he can, my experience in his class has not been great. Every single exam has had a failing score as the class average. I personally believe that this is a reflection of Dr. Lascio's teaching, as I have heard other chem131 sections having average test scores of at least 70-75%. The only reason I am expecting a C+ is because of the hopes I have that he will curve this class. Also, a girl in my class emailed him about her concerns about our second midterm because everyone did so bad on the first one (average of a 52%), and he pulled up her email in front of the entire lecture hall and picked it apart for a good 25-30 minutes. He claimed she gave him permission but I still found it a little off-putting that he did that and it also wasted time in the class that could have been used for reviewing material for the second exam. He also says that if we pass the final exam, he will automatically pass us with a C-, which infers the final is basically going to be impossible. I study for every exam for at least a week before, and I have only passed one. Praying that I can pass this class.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/07/2025	The fact that this man has a five star review from this semester is absolutely insane to me, and inspired me to write this. Sure, he's an alright guy, one might even argue he's pretty nice outside of grading. I don't view him in that way though, as he spent an entire lecture explaining to us how it isn't his job to teach. I understand reviewing and studying on our own is important, but for someone who's just trying to pass gen chem and is not pre med, the amount of work needed to even pass this class, let alone do well, is unacceptable. The class average is failing, and the most common score on the first exam was a 20/80, and all of the averages so far have been failing and typically around 50%. None of us know if we will pass or fail because he doesn't have a curve built in (which is something many chem professors do). His tests are much harder than the practice problems and practice tests he provides, so it's nearly impossible to do well on the actual exams, which make up around 80 percent of our grades. He might have been a good TA, but compared to other professors he has no idea how to run a class, which is intensified by this being an introductory class that should not be this insanely difficult to pass.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/02/2025	he's honestly a really great professor and a very chill, down to earth guy. the class is just soooo hard but I think I would be doing just as bad with any professor LOL. super hard class but def a great professor. he also responds to emails really quick and thoroughly which is nice.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A abadar 02/16/2024	Prof Lascio was both the TA and the professor for this course. Despite, this he did very well in replying to emails quickly and doing his best to answer student's questions. We went over example questions often and he posted example problem coursework on ELMS. Once in a while he will go off on tangents and talk about random fun-facts. GET THIS MAN SOME HELP, he needs a TA!
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/07/2024	This class is very fast. There’s a lot of content but Professor Lascio is very nice and tries to make things really easy to understand. Very easy to talk to, responds to emails fast, and tends to push back hw deadlines if you ask. He is also a good lecturer. However, the homework takes forever. Weekly homeworks took like 6-7 hours usually so don’t procrastinate. Tests are very difficult, the averages were like 30-60%. Final curve was pretty heavy tho like 20%. Good professor, hard class.
Samuel Lascio CHEM135 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2023	Really good professor who goes above and beyond to accommodate students. Extended hw several times, and hosted extra review sessions.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2023	Was my TA for CHEM131 and is the goat. Explained the material very well. Mignerey, the professor, made everything very confusing but Sam was able to make everything a lot clearer. Very passionate about the material, and is always there to answer questions in person and over email about anything you're confused about. Would 100% recommend.
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2021	great Professor and he cares a lot about his students and whether or not they understand the material (which can be hard to do in such a big class).
Samuel Lascio CHEM131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2020	Lascio really tries his best to make sure students understand the course material despite it being challenging, he's a great guy! He sometimes puts out-of-touch memes all over the place, but he genuinely wants his students to succeed and make sure they understand the subject matter. He's a very approachable guy and a good professor.