Natalia White

This professor has taught: CHEM131, CHEM132, CHEM134, CHEM135, CHEM136, CHEM271, CHEM272, CHEM425

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Information	Review
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2024	you will never see her
Natalia White CHEM425 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/13/2024	I think professor White means well, however the class is structured in a way such that you will not be evaluated based on your knowledge, nor your ability to learn or perform labs. Lab partners are chosen during the lab orientation and cannot be changed, unless you wish to write the reports yourself. This sucks for anyone taking a hard semester outside of this class if you have a bad partner because the only alternative is to write the reports individually. To this end, if you are busy and have unknowingly chosen a bad lab partner, assuming that you didn't know anyone in the class, your choices are to shoulder an unreasonable amount of work or let your irresponsible lab partner tank the lab portion of the grade. Regarding the midterms, there are practice exams posted (without an answer key) and the midterms taken during the class never have answer keys. Additionally, wrong answers on the midterms are not marked with the correct answers. This results in not being able to correct conceptual misunderstandings effectively. I think the course policies are set up in a manner that makes students have to work against the class. It's unfortunate that this class is a requirement for majors.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/18/2024	The professor for this class doesn't matter a lot because you won't see them unless you go to office hours. That being said, GO TO OFFICE HOURS. She gives a 45 minute presentation about how to do the lab report during her office hours. She gives you the calculations for the lab report and answers questions. The lab manual is confusing and it is hard to understand what many questions are asking for, but it is much easier when you go to office hours. Also, this class will take a lot more time than a 1 credit class should, but that's the chemistry department's fault.
Natalia White CHEM425 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/16/2024	This lab is not a very hard lab conceptually, but there is a ton of writing. The labs are actually pretty cool if you think about them, but you have a lot of downtime in some of them. You generally have limited interactions with Natalia, but she does grade one of the intro reports and you can ask her questions. She is a very nice professor and will take the time to explain instruments to you since she also teaches this course in the spring. Some wisdom for this course is choose your lab partner carefully since you have to write the reports with them. If for some reason your lab partner doesn't write their parts, Natalia will make you write the reports individually, and that sucks.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	CHEM136 is definitely worth more than 1 credit, but that reflects the course, not the professor. Will you have to put in a lot of effort into the lab reports to do well? Of course. Will the professor and TAs help you? Absolutely! You'll almost never see her in the lab because her TAs run it for her, but my TA, Jonathan was the absolute best and he helped out a lot when I reached out over email, no matter how late I sent the email. I went to the weekly review sessions that she had about each lab, AND THOSE WERE WORTH IT! Go to her in-person review office hours each week and she will basically give you the answers for calculations in the lab. Once you start going every week, she just gets funnier and she's really nice to those who consistently go. The pre-labs are about 5 questions and you have 3 attempts and the highest score is kept, due the night before the lab. A lot of it is either from the lab manual or you can look it up online. Her last review exam was just a bunch of pre-lab questions together and you had two attempts to do it and she opened it for an entire week. I'm giving her a 4 instead of a 5 because the lab manual was poorly worded and even the TAs had trouble figuring stuff out at times. But overall, definitely a good professor for CHEM136 as long as you put in the time and effort for the lab reports!
Natalia White Anonymous 12/08/2023	This professor doesn't like helping students. This professor doesn't like students in general. The labs are poorly designed with unspecific questions. The grading rubric is arbitrary and it is very difficult to be successful in this class. The TAs are given very little instructions and guidance from the professor. This professor has unrealistic expectations for their students and overall is a very poor professor.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/19/2023	So I will say that the reviews stating that you never see the teacher are true, but that is true for any lab, and not indicative of the teacher. However, there are several other reasons that I have decided to score Dr. White low. Firstly, her labs are incredibly poorly worded, both in the instructions, pre-lab, and post-lab questions. However, I think most people’s saving grace was the move of pre-lab questions to a virtual format, which included 30 minutes each attempt and 3 attempts. However, I know several people did not even get full points with this, as these are often her own designed labs, and she expected us to know the right calculations and conclusions to the labs already (which, in my opinion, should be the point of doing the lab in the first place). And the labs themselves were designed poorly, for example, our second lab had us doing analysis, and according to our TA, one of the first things she told them was that everyone who got X chemical would have several lab errors, yet I know she took points off those groups for said errors. In addition, another lab’s post-lab was entirely calculations, which she spelled out everything to do in the instructions. However, the instructions did not align with the rubric and neither aligned with how she phrased certain things. Plus, she was out during this entire week and TAs are not allowed to send out announcements without permission, so anyone unable to go to TA office hours got that wrong. In addition, my TAs sections were told to use a particular number of significant figures, which apparently did not align with the rubric (but how were we supposed to know that?) and so got points of for following our TA and she refused to give points back for that. In addition, in her review session (the day before the final exam), she told us that we needed to memorize the common names, formulas, reactions, colors, smells, etc for every single product and reactant over the course (probably about 50 reactions, although some compounds overlap). Now I would be annoyed but it would be reasonable if she told us this ahead of time. But the day before the final is not the time to do so. The only reason I gave two stars instead of one is that she was occasionally decently helpful when I emailed with questions.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/17/2023	While other people said this professor was a nice person, I think the opposite. She was not accommodating of an exam conflict with an ENES final that a handful of students had, claiming she did not want her (1 credit) class to be treated less than (even though there were make up days). She never finished the material on time, so we always an abundant amount of leftover homework to complete. I'm glad my high school AP Chem curriculum covered all the units well, so I did really well, but for those who barely got to titrations in high school, my condolences. She barely taught anything past titrations. Her electrochemistry lecture barely got to the actual electrochemistry. The homework wasn't extremely difficult, but as someone who liked chemistry in high school, it was not enjoyable at all, especially since it isn't my major. It was on Pearson, which deducts points for incorrect answers. Her exams were also extremely difficult, with extremely low averages, like another student said. Sometimes the problems on the exams were from topics not yet covered in class (how is that fair!). None of the individual exams were curved, but I ended with an A- and it curved to an A+. This course may be the bigger issue. With only 50 minutes a week to learn half of AP Chem, you're not set up for success. Tied in with this professor, good luck!
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/30/2022	I hate chemistry and this class was definitely not worth going to at 8am. The posted powerpoints and homeworks are more than enough to make it through the class if you are just taking 134 to be done with your chem credit. She did curve for those worried about their grade.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2022	Professor White is a nice woman who is clearly very knowledgeable about chemistry. However, Professor White + CHEM134? Every single day I came to class I wished I had studied harder to get a 5 on AP Chem. This is a 3 credit course disguised as a 1 credit course. The content is hard and there is a lot of it to cover, and Professor White's organization of the course is its downfall. How can you expect to cover 60 slides a week with one 50 minute class and no discussion? Every class she would run over time and only cover half of the content. She would frequently push back her schedule or just downright never finish the content in lecture. I stopped going to sleep in and just took the notes on my own time. The homework is a lot of work but nice padding to your grade. The exams were not awful but often included content that we had not even covered yet! And there were no review resources, practice exams, none. Steer clear or buckle up, read the textbook and be ready to study hard.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/18/2022	I'm not sure if my experience with Dr. White was horrible because of her or the class. CHEM134 is only 50 minutes a week and Dr. White went too slow so we ended up only covering 40% of the content, then leaving us to teach ourselves the rest. That's not her issue. Where I have an issue with her is how she fails to answer questions asked, she frequently would chastise the question asker and would never give a clear response. She also just made her exams super hard, with midterm averages of 50%. I strongly disliked this class and Dr. White did not do much to actually teach.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/16/2022	Will do nothing more for you then the university requires her too.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/15/2022	Literally the slowest talker. I appreciated her letting us know what is on the exam and she seems like a nice person. However, we never finish the notes in class, meaning that either she pushes back the homework (leading to 2 homework assignments to start and finish in the last week of class) or you're responsible for finishing them on your own.
Natalia White CHEM134 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2022	I'm sure the professor is passionate about chemistry, but the way the class was structured was horrible. Even though most of this class should be review (as most people taking it have taken AP Chem or an equivalent) it was unfair that she put material on the exams that she hadn't even covered in lecture yet which she then proceeded to teach after the exam. Communication is decent but she doesn't give much info about what's on the exams and usually posts review guides extremely close to exam dates. The exam difficulty is fair in my opinion, although there are no practice exams given to help you prepare. The one nice thing about this class is there's a lot of free points from the homeworks (about 30% of the final grade) and the homeworks are really forgiving so you should average 90%+ on them.
Natalia White CHEM131 Expecting a B Anonymous 07/10/2022	To be honest there is no cons with this teacher. She teaches nicely. She lets you know what will be on the exam. She responds to emails. She had a 10-point curve which was really nice. And we had a nice TA. It is chemistry so of course it will be hard. But if you score above average on every exam then you should be fine. The average in this class is probably a B because of her nice curve. I only give her a 4 out of 5 stars because I am an above average student, and I should have gotten an A. I'm the smartest person I know.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2022	There is not much you can do to make sure you do well in this class except try your best and remember it is a one credit class. The instructor is pretty nice in office hours but your TA may be a problem. You will spend hours on lab reports just to get low grades because things are unclear but if you stay ahead and go to office hours before a report is due they are very helpful in answering questions and clearing up confusion. The curve is great, I went from a 77 to an A-. Try and stay above average on everything and double check your submissions and make sure not to submit at 11:59 pm the day it is due because they do not give you anything if your submission is wrong or late.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/23/2022	Prof. White takes a hands-off approach to running the lab. She implemented Friday review sessions that were phenomenal; I finally began to understand the experiments. She is a great teacher, so attend her office hours and review sessions. Exams are extremely difficult. Reports are graded harshly. However, the course is curved 8-10%.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2021	There are no good professors for CHEM136 that I am aware of, so take this review with a grain of salt. Dr. White is clearly passionate about Chemistry and is knowledgeable on the subject. BUT... she is not an understanding professor and does not care about her students, making this class very unfair. I spend more time doing work for this class than CHEM135 (I ended CHEM135 with a 95% and CHEM136 with a 82%... make that make sense). The labs are extremely stressful because they don't make sense and the TA's have zero clue what's going on. Also, before each lab, you have to take a short "pre-lab quiz", for which they pull questions out of thin air and slap them onto a piece of paper (you'll be happy to get a 6 out of 10). Then comes the lab report. It's a living hell trying to figure out what the questions are asking, especially if you haven't taken AP Chem in high school. Each lab report takes me a minimum of 5 or 6 hours to complete (I once spent a good 8 hours on one and many tears were shed). Then comes the grades. The rubric for our lab reports is out of this world ridiculous. She takes off points if you don't draw the axis of your graphs with a ruler!!! And I got a 9 points off on a lab report which was 100% correct... all because I used 3 sig figs instead of 2 for my final answer calculations! And if this wasn't enough, you have a midterm and a final which are more of a guessing game than an actual test on knowledge (average lies around a 60%). Moving on... the only way you will manage to pass this class is if you go to her office hours and ask her as many questions about the lab as you can possible think of. I almost forgot to mention that because the grades are so bad in this class, she rounds the highest person up to an A+ and everyone else accordingly. Good luck and remember that C's get degrees :)
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/18/2021	You will never see her in any of the labs. I saw her once on the very first day and then the TA's just run the rest. Also when the labs are going on and the TA doesn't know something they can't even get ahold of her. Then when it comes to the material it doesn't align with CHEM 135 and she assumes that it does so she thinks that we know how to do the math and understand the material when most of us don't. Then when it comes to the pre-labs they are a joke and most of the time they don't even match what was written in the background etc so most of the time you just have to guess unless you have prior knowledge from previous chem classes. This class causes a lot more stress than there should be for a one credit class.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/15/2018	Not sure if professor or course, but chem lab stressed me out a lot. Some of the questions on prelabs and tests seem like complete non-sequiturs. Kinda frustrating because CHEM135 lecture didn't align with lab, so I always had to teach myself the concepts for lab before learning them in lecture. But, if you go to office hours and the review sessions, she will basically give you the answers to the lab report / upcoming test, so I managed a good grade.
Natalia White CHEM135 Anonymous 12/14/2014	Not a good teacher. Reads directly from powerpoint. Puts questions on tests and homeworks that the TAs have never seen before, let alone the students. Often will put things on tests that were not mentioned in review. Most tests, the average was very low, below B- and not lenient on grading. Overall, read the book and powerpoint slides (she posts them online) on your own and you will do just as good as if you went to class.
Natalia White Anonymous 08/25/2014	She may seem a bit awkward, but she's really nice. She helped me a lot during the office hours. Even when i just stopped by her office after the class (which was much earlier than the regular office hours), she was nice and helped me. That being said, she's quite disorganized. She prepared a lot for the lecture, but made a lot of mistakes on the board and sorta "rushed through". CAUTION: Do not underestimate. It's definitely easier than Orgo, because you learned some things in Gen Chem. It, however, gets more difficult very soon. Read the book, go to the discussion, and you'll be okay. Posted book problems are nothing like what's on the exam. For the exam, you have to know the concept and be able to apply it. P.S. Curve is HUGE! so don't stress out too much.
Natalia White CHEM425 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/19/2013	CHEM 425 is the most difficult class at the University of Maryland period. Mrs. White is the lab coordinator for this course, which has 10, 12+ instrument printouts page lab report due every week on a new laboratory instrument. There are prelabs every week. The biggest problem I had with Mrs. White was that the answers for the prelabs were not given. This is a problem because you have to write a 12+ page lab report on the topic of the prelab. The grading of the lab reports is very strict, when I was in this class I spent approximately 40 hours a week doing work for the laboratory portion of the course. There is also a lecture portion of top of the lab. The course is not curved. This class was extremely helpful in teaching me how to write lab reports. For that I am very thankful. If you are not an expert scientific writer go to the writing center every week! Read scientific papers to see how it is done. Grading is tough.
Natalia White CHEM131 Expecting an A kalama 08/21/2012	Really fun, vibrant, kind respectful professor. Gives extracredit which come in handy 30+ credit. 2 really fair exams 100ea, final exam 200 pts. 5 easy quizzes, 20 pts each. Out of 500 pts.. loved the class, learned a lot,, super impressed..
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2011	One of the most disorganized courses i have ever taken. prelabs were near impossible to get 10's on cause some of them had questions about sigfigs and others had q's tht had no answers just clickable buttons and u had to just guess what was being asked. The grading rubric for labs asked for parts in answers that was required by the actual question so you lost points for really stupid crap. Overall idk if this was the professor or the course but it was awful. I know friends in 132 did not have the same issues with prelabs as we did. DO THE EXTRA CREDIT ON BLACKBOARD IF U WANT TO GET AN A.
Natalia White CHEM136 Expecting an A zhangsta 12/23/2010	You don't really get to see much of her as she only comes in to explain the concept behind the experiment you'll be performing for 10-15 minutes. For the most part, you'll see your TA for most of the lab. Lab reports tended to be between 6-8 pages long. Lab midterms weren't so bad, but you have to watch out for sig figs because there will be answers on the midterm that will essentially be the same. For example, it could be 29.05g, 29.051g, or 29.0510g.