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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM146 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/10/2024 |
Dr. Taylor is an exceptional professor who clearly prioritizes the success and well-being of her students. Her dedication to chem is present through in every class, as she makes a consistent effort to keep us engaged and make learning enjoyable by connecting the material to our lives and her own research. Although lectures aren’t recorded and notes aren’t posted online, I genuinely appreciate her teaching style. Instead of relying on PowerPoint, she uses the chalkboard to carefully explain concepts, creating a more interactive learning environment. Her energy and enthusiasm make every 9 a.m. class interesting and engaging—I’ve never once felt bored or disengaged. The tests are hard but fair, but some questions may come from homework rather than lecture, so paying attention and working through the homework problems is crucial. Also, she teaches from the textbook which is a great resource as well. I highly recommend Dr. Taylor for 146 if you have the chance! |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM146 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/07/2024 |
I really enjoyed this class and was happy with how it was run. I thought the class was well paced, aligned with the textbook, and had a good flow from chapter to chapter. The main thing that made this course great was Dr. Taylor. I absolutely ADORE her teaching style. She writes her own notes from the textbook before class and teaches on the chalkboard from her notes. She uses examples and connects things to what we already know. She is super energetic and will tell us fun stories now and then to keep us engaged as a class and make us feel welcome. She allows for questions to be asked during lecture and calls on students to answer her questions (not in a "I caught you not paying attention" way, but rather in a "I can tell you're watching, and I think you know the answer so let's see what you think" way.) Dr. Taylor made this course absolutely amazing!!! 10/10 recommend this class but especially her as a professor. |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM146 Anonymous 12/06/2024 |
Dr. Taylor is by far the best professor I’ve had at UMD. She makes every lecture engaging and informative. While she doesn't use slides and prefers the chalkboard, and the lectures aren't recorded, attending class is crucial for understanding the material. Fortunately, her notes closely follow the textbook, so if you're ever confused, it's helpful to read the textbook alongside her lectures. The course includes three midterms and one final. (It’s important to review the homework questions in preparation for the exams). For attendance, Dr. Taylor gives completion-graded notecard questions, which offer a nice cushion for your grade. As someone who hasn't taken AP Chemistry, I can confidently say that the class is definitely manageable. Dr. Taylor ensures that you have a solid understanding of the basics, which helps immensely as the material progresses. She explains complex concepts in a way that makes them much easier to grasp. I’m truly grateful for her dedication and the positive, supportive learning environment she fosters. She is genuinely committed to the success of each of her students. If you have the opportunity, TAKE HER CLASS! You won’t regret it. |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM146 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/04/2024 |
You can tell Dr. Taylor has a passion for chemistry, which makes her lectures very engaging. Takes attendance through in-class questions on index cards, but the minimum requirement to get full points on them is pretty lenient. Only gripe with this class is the lack of partial credit on exams, but the written questions are straightforward enough where it's definitely reasonable to get them correct. Overall great professor! |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM146 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/21/2024 |
Dr. Taylor is an overall amazing teacher. You can tell that she is very passionate about what she does and loves when students ask questions. She does write everything on the chalkboard, and does not use slides, but that makes it easier to follow along and understand the topics. Her exams are fair, and they reference everything discussed in class and in the homeworks. She is very nice, and she does a very good job at teaching this course, especially for it being her first time. |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM401 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/10/2023 |
The workload of this class is actually very reasonable. All of the homework is directly related to what was discussed in class. The exams are mostly very fair, although occasionally they can ask about very obscure topics that were only mentioned once or twice. Her pacing is not the best, as there is a lot of time spent either of her looking at her notes trying to figure out what to say next or her re-drawing character tables five times in a given lecture since she just didn't use the projector for the first half of the semester. She would also occasionally have to completely re-lecture a topic the class after it was originally taught, which gets a bit frustrating. The cutoffs for the class are going to be a lot less forgiving than you might expect. Overall, this class was okay. Dr. Taylor is okay and she is very kind, but there are definitely things in her teaching that she needs to iron out as she gets more experience teaching undergrads. |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM401 Expecting an A- florm 05/27/2023 |
Dr. Taylor is awesome!! She's probably the nicest, most relatable and approachable professor in the chem department. Her lecture are very easy to follow, and she does a good job of explaining some of the weirder and less straightforward concepts in inorganic chemistry. A lot of people would go to her office hours, and she'd be very helpful. She's willing to have thorough conversations about the things in the course that aren't very well-defined, or "hand-wavey" as she likes to say. There were four homework assignments which could pretty easily be completed just by looking at your notes, although they were graded for accuracy so you gotta make sure to check through them. And while she did make us buy actual clickers, I think in the future she'll likely transition to the app now that she's more familiar with the technology. Her exams were tough but fair, and had a combination of true/false, multiple choice, and short answer. The questions were never as in-depth as what was on the homeworks, where you might've had to do a bunch of repetitive math for group theory stuff. She usually threw in one or two curveball short answers that were hard, but could be reasonably figured out. You have plenty of time too, the exams never felt rushed. I doubt that there's a professor that could teach inorganic better than Dr. Taylor, so definitely take her if you can. |
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Mercedes Taylor
CHEM401 Anonymous 01/30/2023 |
She makes you buy physical clickers |