George Lorimer

This professor has taught: BCHM462, BCHM698, BCHM889A

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George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2013	To do well in his class, need to do his old exams and understand how to answer the questions. He sometimes copy and paste stuff from his old exams, which helps a lot. The curve is also huge, which shows that this class is difficult even though his exams are similar to the past exams. I got a F on the first exam, but ended up with an A, so do not lose hope if you failed the first exam. Also this class is like Organic Chem with all the reactions that you have to memorize.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2013	Prof. Lorimer is a sweet guy. The material is dry but he tries his best to make everyone understand. But good grief his exams are difficult! It is easy to get demoralized especially if you're an average student like me. I took the class hoping he repeat the questions from old exams like others in this thread say but it simply wasn't the case at least until the final. Don't go in unprepared, you actually have to study the material, or you will get blindsided like me on the first exams. It wasn't even funny. Don't take it if you don't have to. Otherwise, I weep for those who have to.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2013	Very hard class but if you have interest in biochemistry and a decent work ethic you should have no trouble doing well! The subject matter is fascinating, if you are interested in medicine or biochem this is all information you will at some point need to master. I have a hard time understanding Dr Lorimer's poor ratings. He comprehensively, clearly, and passionately explained all the material and made many efforts for his students to review the material. He constantly made efforts to make himself available outside of class for struggling students, and made expectations crystal clear. I felt his tests were reasonable given the innate difficulty of the material, and he does provide practice material.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2013	I wanted to review Professor Lorimer months ago, but was afraid of getting ahead of myself in a potentially premature review. There's one reason why-- this is quite possibly the easiest class you will ever take, and for one simple reason. His exams are anywhere from 33% to 90%+ old exam questions stretching from 2010 to 2012. Exam questions he gives you MONTHS in advance. It almost negates the point of even having a class or looking over lecture notes, which is sort of a shame because the material is pretty interesting. Your grade is comprised of 3 exams. That's it. No homework, no projects, no quizzes. The third exam is the "final" but it's not cumulative. Exam 1 was perhaps the hardest with maybe a third of the test being comprised of old questions (and know your fundamental reactions, they'll show up a lot). Exam 2 was almost 60% reused from past exams, INCLUDING a 20 point take-home portion which was almost IDENTICAL to a previous years take home portion... which he provided answers to. Now, I'm reviewing him today. The day of the final exam. A miracle happened. Every. Single. Question. Was. Reused. That's right, among the exams he freely put up on his Biochemistry ELMS-equivalent, the exams he cited in lecture and in review sessions... there was not one single new question on the final that had not been seen previously. Sure, a few of the molecules were marginally different but the means of solving the problems never changed. I have never seen anything like this in a class before, let alone a 400 level course. It's effectively a guaranteed A provided you look over old tests. It's practically cheating. I'd almost say it WERE cheating, but he seems to almost ENCOURAGE this. At a review session, he even essentially told us that a problem on last year's exam would make a reappearance and that we should "remember how to do it." I've been told this class is hard. I was dreading taking it. At the end of the day, taking BCHM462 with Professor Lorimer was perhaps the easiest way to make it through the course and I'm thankful for that. Prof. Lorimer himself is an interesting character. He has a neat accent, a small stutter when starting certain sentences and a can of diet soda always by his side. The man seems genuinely interested in the material and generally pretty knowledgeable... he doesn't appear especially interested in the whole "teaching" part of the class. I don't think he's shown up for an exam once, opting to just send the TA in with a stack of tests instead. So... that's what it comes down to. If you want to do well in BCHM462, take it with Professor Lorimer. You may not feel like you earned your grades at the end of the day, but you'll have a much less stressful semester overall.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Anonymous 12/15/2013	One of the biggest regrets I have in college is choosing the BCHM461/462 classes to fulfill my microbiology major. The main reason: this damn class. I tried. I tried really hard. But the way he grades is so unbelievably unfair, it kills you a bit inside. I wanted to learn the material, and before each exam I thought I understood what was going on. But actually knowing the material doesn't help you take the exams. All the tests either exact copy and paste questions from his old exams, or they are new questions and are infuriatingly difficult and specific. Also, the class is just based off of the three exams, so god forbid you mess one up. The average for each of the exams was about a 60. Who knows how he is going to curve it. I hated this class, I hated hated hated it. Lorimer is so obviously lazy, only there to do research, and doesn't give a half a shit about teaching.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A+ typicalterp 05/19/2013	Very hard class. Exams that really challenge you and require you to know what's going on, at the atomic level. Review past exams!!! Study the mechanisms very well and go to class, because I thought that the readings were not too useful for doing well in the exams. Lorimer's exams are notorious and infamous, so don't feel bad if you don't do too well in the beginning. I found his accent understandable but he covers a lot of material in one class. Yes, it is like drinking out of a fire hose, as someone else mentioned. Don't take this class just for "fun", or as an elective, unless you are a biochem whiz. It is intended for majors and requires a lot of effort to do well.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2013	Dr. Lorimer's exams are 10 questions. 7 of the questions are from previous semester's exams. Learning is memorization. I went to all Lorimer's lectures as an introduction for the material. Each class on average he gives one lecture, with 60 slides on the presentation. All of the lecture slides are posted of the website for the course along with old exams. More exams are on the same website and can be found by going to the previous semesters section. If you go to class the professor will emphasize which slides he fells are important.And which are just examples. Professor Lorimer really likes to ask questions that ask you to locate specific atoms through a metabolic pathway. The atoms are tracked with isotopes. Know the 7 Fundamental Biochemical Mechanisms. It is really sad that people do not do well in this course. The only way I can explain not doing well is by not studying the old exams and understanding why the answers are as they are. He gives the questions of the exams months in advance. How can one possibly complain?
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/20/2013	I did well in this class and cannot even feel proud of it. I'm okay with professors that are a little stern with students, but Professor Lorimer is counterproductive. I do not attribute my good grades to his teaching. I attended two, maybe three lectures, outside of exams. According to his syllabus, Dr. Lorimer wants to "distinguish those students who have made the effort to master the material from..........the biochemically challenged" (directly copied and pasted, ellipses included). I don't feel distinguished or proud, because his lazy methods don't match his harsh demands. Dr. Lorimer uploads most of his old exams and their answer keys to his website as study guides. Then, he recycles his questions VERBATIM, 100% COMPLETELY WORD-FOR-WORD onto his new exams. Sometimes you can even see the old number next to the question because he copy-pasted the question as an image into the new exam. When I took the new exams, and started writing all the old answers that Dr. Lorimer had given us on his website, it FELT like cheating, except it was completely authorized by the professor, since he had PUT the answers on his website. I think most people who ended up with B's probably tried to study the lecture notes and powerpoint slides. I feel bad that they got B's, because they probably studied the material better than I did. He thinks his system distinguishes me and others as biochemically talented, and that gives him a right to treat the rest of his students poorly. I have little respect for this professor's pretentious manners, and absolutely none at all for his ineffective teaching methods.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting a B- Anonymous515 05/21/2011	He absolutely does not care about teaching this class or any students. He in fact gloated over how he was failing like 30% of his class, which considering that this is a 400 level class is completely wrong, since the majority of the students have already passed all other classes to get here. His teaching style is all over the place, he does not focus well on a subject and mostly it is just blatant memorization, which considering it is chemical structures and processes is extremely difficult. His exam key demands for you to have correct wording that he has in his slides and if you have anything other than that you get points off. In short if you have any other choice but him take that professor instead.
George Lorimer BCHM462 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2011	I cannot believe that noone has negatively reviewed Professor Lorimer yet. He is blatantly purely here for research and obviously thinks student are below him. He tells you on the syllabus he plans on giving the class 60% of the class C's and below. The averages on the exams are around a 50/100. He emphasizes chemistry rather than biology for biochemistry so all you do is memorize mechanisms and have terrible flashbacks to orgo. DO NOT TAKE HIM IF YOU CAN HELP IT. Even other professors describe his teaching style as "trying to drink out of a fire hose"...literally just blasts information at you. Also has a scottish accent and you can't understand anything he says.