CHEM 1410

I hated chemistry going into this class and I still hate it (it was a required class) BUT I will say as someone who hates the subject, Kevin Welch is a great professor who's really understanding and passionate about what he teaches (+1). Every week there's lecture and expo. Before lectures, you have to complete the weekly textbook reading along with a bunch of questions graded on accuracy and lectures just go over exactly what the textbook reading was about. I never found I was missing out on too much when I didn't go to lecture because I had a solid understanding of the topic as a result of the homework. You better hope your expo group is good though. This is the group you'll be with the entire semester working together during expo to work through problems (based on accuracy!!) and the group you'll be taking the group test with.
#tCFF24

If you put in the work, getting an A should be easy. The grading is fair -- there are 3 exams (each worth 15%) and a final exam (20%). Exams are separated into three parts: MC on-your-own (lecture day), 5 MC hard questions (complete before workshop, same 5 MC (complete at workshop w/ group, one copy submitted). Just hope your expo group is good or else it'll make expo unbearable. Lecture isn't helpful, he focuses on one niche topic from the chapter reading that usually isn't even on the test. You're better off going to office hours. Overall, Welch is a good guy -- he's flexible and easy to talk to, he's not trying to make your life difficult. At the end of the day, its an intro class.

At first, I thought chemistry was my hardest course this semester in the first few weeks; however, that changed after the first few chapters. If you can get through the third of the semester, you'll do great.
Something to note is that the grading is a bit harsh. #tCFF23

This course was set up very well and exceeded my expectations for an introductory chemistry course. This course included an active learning approach where students completed assignments in groups in their once a week workshop ("expo") session. Depending on your group, workshop can be a fun period and a great way to learn the content.

Welch was a great professor. He gave informative lectures that allowed me to better grasp the material. Most importantly, he cared about his students and did his best to accommodate each student in his large class.

#tCFF23

This is definitely one of those courses you need to give the adequate time to in order to get a good grade. Prof. Welch's lectures are good, but they don't cover everything; the rest of the material is taught through a custom-written textbook on a site called Top Hat. This textbook is very expensive, especially considering parts of it are very poorly written, but you need to use it to get a good understanding of the course.

How this course works each week:
Before the day of the lecture, you have to read the Top Hat chapters and answer the questions in them. After the lecture, you answer some more questions to prepare for your discussion section (called Expo). In Expo, you work with your group to answer more questions, and after Expo you answer some more questions about the concepts. Your group will probably make or break your Expo experience—my group was helpful but rushed through the Expo material, which resulted in us forgetting to draw some diagram that we needed to submit later. TAs usually run your Expo section—if you ask them for help, they'll likely lead you to the answer very easily.

There were three midterm exams with three parts each (all open note/Internet, and for Welch, all online/at-home):
Part 1 is individual, and honestly not too hard.
Part 2 has five multiple choice questions, which are extremely hard. Make sure to read through the answer choices thoroughly, and take notes on why you eliminated certain answers. (this part is always 10% of your exam grade)
Part 3 is during Expo, where your group submits answers and explanations to the Part 2 questions.
The first exam's grade is majority Part 3, but as you get to exam 3 the grade distribution becomes majority Part 1.

The final exam (also open note/Internet) was a joke; as long as you have a decent understanding of the material, you'll probably get a decent grade. There is no final project anymore.

My advice: take notes on the Top Hat chapters, and try to understand all the questions in them. If it's very clear from the start that your Expo group isn't going to help at all, ask for a new group (luckily I wasn't in this situation). Each time the Expo material says "draw this diagram to add to your Portfolio", take a picture and immediately send it to your group chat. Each time you see a good diagram or chart in the chapters, screenshot it and put it in a "cheat sheet" doc which will help you a lot for exams. Make sure to attend the TA review sessions in person, or at the very least watch the recordings. Most of all, don't drop the course based on how intimidating the first chapter is—the next few are MUCH easier.

Overall, this course isn't fun and it doesn't make me want to take chem again, but you can get through it with the right amount of work.

#tCFF23

Prof Welch is definitely the best intro chem professor at UVA. He is incredibly reasonable, fair, and overall has a genuine care for his students. His lectures are typically easy to follow if you read the textbook chapter associated with it. A few of the concepts in this class are difficult to grasp, but his office hours are pretty helpful and typically not too crowded. Generally, intro chem at UVA is designed so that everyone has a fair chance of doing well. If you put in the work, getting an A is doable. The exams consist of three parts, one of which is individual and take-home. This portion is always open note and open resource, meaning if you focus on understanding the concepts you should be good to go. I especially appreciated this structure because you don't have to memorize all of the nitty gritty details associated with each topic, the main focus is directed at understanding the concept first. I was worried that the take home portion of the exams would be especially difficult, but for the most part they are straight forward mcq's with a few free responses sprinkled in the mix. Pick Welch for chem 1410!!! you are guarenteed a fair chance at doing well. #tCFF23

Prof Welch is definitely the best intro chem professor at UVA. He is incredibly reasonable, fair, and overall has a genuine care for his students. His lectures are typically easy to follow if you read the textbook chapter associated with it. A few of the concepts in this class are difficult to grasp, but his office hours are pretty helpful and typically not too crowded. Generally, intro chem at UVA is designed so that everyone has a fair chance of doing well. If you put in the work, getting an A is doable. The exams consist of three parts, one of which is individual and take-home. This portion is always open note and open resource, meaning if you focus on understanding the concepts you should be good to go. I especially appreciated this structure because you don't have to memorize all of the nitty gritty details associated with each topic, the main focus is directed at understanding the concept first. I was worried that the take home portion of the exams would be especially difficult, but for the most part they are straight forward mcq's with a few free responses sprinkled in the mix. Pick Welch for chem 1410!!! you are guarenteed a fair chance at doing well.

Professor Welch was one of the best chemistry professors I have had between high school and college combined. He was incredibly patient in answering questions during lecture and office hours, and he always made sure to explain the content in many ways (visually, numerically, and in simpler language than the textbook would sometimes use). Although a difficult gen-ed to take, he makes the course much more interesting and accessible for all, especially with open-note exams. My biggest recommendation is to take notes on the textbook readings and use workshop time to understand the content at a deeper level than what may primarily be taught in lecture, as that is a significant piece of what the CHEM 1410 professors like to test students on. Overall, the course content itself can be incredibly difficult, as it is an introductory STEM class, but taking it with Welch will make it a much more positive experience!

Prof. Welch was overall a very enjoyable professor to have. He made time for everyone's questions at office hours and after lecture, and he was relatively quick to respond to emails. I would definitely aim to have him as your expo instructor as well since he knows what will be on the exams and is sure to emphasize relevant points (which the other expo ta's cannot do). The group portion of the exams can be bit frustrating, but that's really the only complaint I had, and Welch is good about moving people around if you don't like your group.

TAKE THIS CLASS WITH WELCH (thank me later) Seriously such a nice guy who actually cares about his students and is very accommodating to any problems you are having. The class isn't too hard if you put in the work with the readings and actually try to understand the material. Whatever you don't understand, Welch is great at explaining. All exams are open book and open internet as well.

I don't even know where to begin. Gen chem is taught so awfully here. Starting from the structure to the fact they purposely want you to not succeed since it is a 'weed out' class. I feel you need to have a background in chemistry to do very well in here, I did mid and I did not but spent so much time on outside resources to make up for the lack of efficiency of lecture. Welch is VERYYYYYY overhyped. TAKE IT WITH STAINS. She is much more organized and clear in her lectures, as well as her exams (much clearer, more related to content, etc). I think the biggest issue was truly with the exams. I generally understood the content, but the exam questions were totally unreasonable and were huge stretches from practice problems, reading problems, and TA reviews. Godspeed to all of you who take it. (dont get me wrong welch is such a nice and funny guy, love him, but dont take 1410 with him)

Welch is probably the best introductory chemistry professor at UVA. If you have to take this class, take it with Welch. He is extremely supportive of his students and very willing to work with you. Lectures are only once a week and he tends to work through the main concepts from the chapter. Welch does not have slides for his lectures. He typically draws out different problems and works through topics from the chapter conceptually. It helps with basic understanding of the chapter, however there are usually topics that he doesn't get to because we ran out of time. The only other class meeting during the week is Expo. You are randomly divided into groups of 4-5 to work collaboratively through difficult assignments. I had a really good Expo group last semester and we had to rush to make it through the whole assignment during our class time.

There are four assignments every week that you rotate through:
1. Chapter reading - One chapter per week. This is the longest assignment and usually takes a few hours on the weekend.
2. LBLA (Looking Back, Looking Ahead) - This assignment becomes available after lecture and must be completed before Expo. Typically between 10-15 questions and can be completed in less than an hour.
3. Expo Assignment - You do this with your group. This is the most challenging assignment of the week. Get as much help from the TA's as you need during class time.
4. BIT (Bringing it Together) - This assignment is due Sunday at midnight and wraps up all the chapter material from the week.
There is a constant stream of assignments and it feels like you don't get a break. You just have to keep up or else it will be very hard to catch up if you get behind.

There are three unit exams and one cumulative final exam. The exams have three parts:
1. Individual multiple choice and short answer
2. Individual attempt at 5 long multiple choice questions
3. Group attempt at same 5 multiple choice questions
The exams are pretty difficult but are open resource. Prepare for the individual multiple choice section by putting all your formulas on one sheet to eliminate time searching through your notes. During the group exam you have to write 1-3 paragraphs explaining why you chose your answer. Be prepared to defend your answer.

I found the topics of this course extremely interesting. I took this class in my first semester because I was originally pre-med, but I'm still glad I took it because the content covered changed some of my perspectives on everyday life, things that were not taught in AP Chemistry. However, Professor Welch is not a good professor. Yes he is super nice, but the only way you learn is through reading the textbook (your weekly reading is online and has 25-40 homework questions attached). Personally I don't learn very well through a textbook, but when I would go to lecture he wouldn't even discuss the topic of that weeks reading, Welch would talk about something completely different and I would walk out even more confused. There is a lot of work for this class, you have 3 weekly assignments: Readings, LBLA, and BIT, all done on the same website.

If you thought intro chem is a boring weed-out class, think again. The course itself is pretty low-stress if you are able to keep up with the chapter readings and understand the topics solidly with enough practice. I really enjoyed having Professor Welch for lecture because he actively explains concepts in an easy-to-break-down manner. I just wish he could delegate more time near the end of lecture for the last (and usually most difficult) topic(s) of the chapter.

In addition, the course is structured really well with a hybrid teaching method that makes it really easy for students to reinforce chem topics:

1. Attend lecture with THE Prof. Welch himself after reading a pre-assigned chapter
2. Go to expo and collaborate in small groups to practice and discover important concepts (usually very interactive)
3. Bring it together at the end of the week with a small, personal review assignment

The online textbook is easy to digest and the assignments aren't designed to be hard (TAs and office hours are always available). The few exams over the semester are comprehensive and easy if you've been following along; since it's open notes, make sure your reference sheet is good to go and that you've practiced enough questions. Professor Welch cares a lot about his students and is very approachable, so if you ever have a reasonable problem, he and is team of TAs will be there for you. Intro chem is a delightful road to understanding the world around us, so buckle up and you'll do fine :) #tCFF23

Welch is the best!! He breaks complex chemistry concepts down into ways that are easy to understand. I highly recommend going to his office hours if you're ever confused in the class or just want to talk to him. He's super nice and always understanding towards the fact this is just an intro chem course so he doesn't expect too much out of you #tCFF23

I personally didn't like the way he taught the course. I don't think he spent enough time on the most difficult topics. But a lot of people really liked him.

For a college chemistry course, which is inherently going to be difficult, I thought that this one was well-designed and well-instructed. Each weekend, you will read a chapter from the online textbook and answer practice questions (takes about 3-4 hours if you take notes). This is mostly graded on completion. Then, you will meet for lecture at the beginning of the week and listen to Professor Welch talk about what you just learned. He's a good lecturer and a very understanding instructor (pretty much always willing to give out extensions), but the only reason I didn't give him a 5/5 is that oftentimes during the lectures he'll only go over the very basic material in the chapter and not go into the more complicated content that more people are confused about. I usually had to go to TA help hours to really understand the harder topics. After lecture, you have a couple of days to do the LBLA, which is just a few questions about the content you just learned as well as questions that will prepare you for the second class of the week, the expo session. During expo, you will meet with your group of 4-6 people and work through online activities together. After expo, you have a day to complete the BIT, which is a short activity that sums up everything that you've learned. You also answer questions to put into a portfolio that you turn in before each exam. Not including studying for exams, all of the work for this course comes out to about 6 hours per week, but you quickly find a groove as to when you complete everything. Each exam, including the final, is open note, so they aren't too bad as long as you ensure you understand everything that you do during class. Excluding the final, two parts of each exam are individual and one is done with your expo group. There is also a final project at the end of the course, done with your expo group, but that was cancelled for my class because of the Nov. 13th shooting. All in all, I would recommend Professor Welch to anyone needing to take this course. #tCFfall22

Here’s the deal, Welch is great but he doesn’t go into enough detail in lectures nor does he use power points. He is a great guy and emphasizes that your work shouldn’t fully revolve around Chem (which is a breath of fresh air compared to other teachers) but I didn’t learn well from him in class. I ended up going to Staines lectures and liked her style better. It seems like Welch’s tests are easier though so pick your poison I guess. I ended up with an A- but that was due to an amazing EXPO group and luck. This class is a requirement for a lot of programs, so do your best and whatever the end result be proud for getting through it!

Everyone talks about how bad this class is, but really it is pretty manageable if you are willing to put in the time and effort. If you are going to take chemistry, then I would highly suggest taking it with Welch. He is very easy to work with and generally has higher scores than other professors who teach the course. The course format is pretty different from any other course I have taken. You have one lecture and one expo meeting a week. Expo is where you work in a group setting to solve more interesting and complex questions. Getting a good group is kinda important if you want to do well in the course, as you will see. The course assignments are as follows: weekly chapter readings, two small weekly assignments, expo work, 3 exams, a portfolio, a final project, and a final exam. The exams are structured differently from traditional exams. There are 3 parts: individual, group, and attempting the group questions individually. The way they are weighted for your overall exam score changes with exam, placing more emphasis on the individual portion. The group questions are VERY hard. When you are answering them be sure to write down why you think your answer is right because you will have to write an explanation for each answer your group selects on the exam. Everyone coming in prepared makes the exam go easier and quicker. My group mates never prepared and it always took us right up until time to finish. This course does take a fair amount of time commitment, but once everything starts clicking and coming together the work does start to come easier.

Take intro chem with Welch. If you're trying to figure out whether to take Welch or Morkowchuk, go for Welch. If you take 1411, you'll have Morkowchuk as your lab professor, and you will find that she talks really slowly. Welch goes at a relatively fast pace and doesn't necessarily cover everything from the textbook reading. Readings are due before the Mon/Tues class depending on your section, so he knows you all have at least a vague idea of what he will cover. In lecture, he will reintroduce what you've read over the weekend and help through practice examples and problems, especially ones that a lot of students struggled with on the homework. He records the lecture, so rewatch those before exams, or at least parts that you need to brush up on. For Expos, some days you will be able to leave early if your group works fast enough, and other days may feel like a race against the clock. If there is a section on the LBLA on what to do to prepare for Expo, do them and bring them in. It will save time, as long as you double check with your group that you have similar answers. It's also a good idea to them anyway and assume the others in your group won't do it. For exams, try reworking the LBLA problems (especially for math problems) and review concepts. Sometimes the textbook goes into far more detail than what will be on the exams. Exams are three parts, all open-note and open-source. I recommend making a study guide of textbook figures (especially tables) and equations on a Word Doc instead of flipping through the chapters during the exam. The second and third parts of the exam are challenging, but partial credit is offered (on the third part) for correct explanations even if your answer is wrong. Don't be fooled by the small amount of questions, they are hard, and you cannot do the second part last minute. Even if you guess, you will have to debate with your group on why you think your answer is correct. While taking the second part of the exam, write down explanations and your reasoning because if your logic is correct, it will earn you points back on the third part. Also, this man likes to color-code his lecture demos. It might be easy if you have many colored pens or something and follow along.

I liked Welch - he was goofy, hoped that you had a life outside of chemistry, and was open to questions. these lectures are big but there are office hours literally every day but Saturday (or something like that!) so there is always a way for u to get help. Find a TA you like and do the textbook homework with them when you can. Welch and his TAs held review sessions which were super helpful and he would also write an outline for exams which other profs didn't do but I found super helpful. If u don't have Welch, I would still recommend getting in contact with him for questions/outlines/advice/etc. I had morkowchuk for lab and I thought she was really nice and great at lab supervision (not our actual teacher, that was a pHD student) but I'm not sure she provided as many study resources for her lecture students. I do think this class as a whole couldve done better helping students become interested...bc I loved applying what I learned and chemistry in general and I wanted to want to continue but it was super in depth super quick and the textbook was fine it was just that everything was at an atomic/quantum level from the start. I thought I would hate the way exams are structured but it actually ended up helping my grade in the end bc part of the exams were group exams. I'm glad I stuck with this class.

I would highly recommend if you are taking CHEM 1410 and then CHEM 1420 in the spring to take them with Professor Welch. Welch is one of the nicest professors you will come across at UVA! Although his lectures can sometimes be long-winded, he really cares about his students understanding of the concepts that are explored in CHEM 1410 and 1420. Not only is he very approachable, but he also really cares about the overall well-being of his students outside of the classroom. I have seen multiple occasions where he has given students extensions for being sick or just because they had a really stressful week.

I came into this course not having any knowledge of chemistry from a previous institution. I found this course challenging, often frustrating, yet doable. Since there are plenty of solid reviews explaining the structure of the course, so I would like to share only my tips that allowed me to finish with an A-.

TopHat Tips:
- Take thorough notes on the weekly chapter with emphasis of trends and exceptions. They will be helpful in your completion of later assignments within the week.
- Not all chapters are created equally. Some have typos. Some are poorly worded. Some are just bad. There are other more concise recourses to learn course content from before attempting the imbedded questions. I recommend Professor Dave Explains and/or the Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube.

Lecture Tips:
- Usually they upload the lecture slides a few hours before it begins. I would take notes in advance and then take notes only on what he says during lecture. Professor Welch will suddenly switch the camera and starts doing practice problems on paper, and it's best to be fully engaged when he does that.
- They usually contain most of what you need to know, at least in 1410.

Expo Tips:
- You have no control over your group. Hopefully you have a smart person. If not and you're willing to work hard, you will become them.
- Complete your portfolio assignment immediately after Expo. It is less annoying this way, trust me.
- Don't hesitate to ask the TAs questions, and don't worry about sounding stupid. There's a chance they may not understand anything either.

Individual Exam Tips (1):
- Usually several (if not most) of questions stray from the types you will have encountered on weekly assignments. It is imperative that you have a decent conceptual understanding of each topic in order to approach these problems. I would call my parents and give them chemistry lectures without looking at my notes to work towards that. Lame? Perhaps, but it worked for me.

Group Exam Tips (2 and 3):
- :(
- These questions are always outside the scope of the course and do a poor job at assessing knowledge because students are expected to come to multi-step conclusions on concepts that are not covered during lectures or mentioned briefly in TopHat with vague instructions.
- Process of elimination is your friend here, and trust your instincts if you are torn between two choices.
- Getting a 6/10 is perfectly fine! Don't panic!

On Professor Welch:
- I did not directly interact with this semester. I consider him a decent lecturer.
- He is most passionate about inorganic chemistry (observed during color & crystal field theory weeks), and they ended up being the most interesting chapters to me as well (and least difficult exam).

People say Chem is hard but Welch and the UVA chem teachers made it pretty easy to do work/ understand. Expo can be annoying at times but really not that bad considering its group work. Weekly readings can be annoying at times but make sure to understand it well as thats where you will learn most of the content. It will take a good amount of time depending on how fast you read and comprehend things. Overall, if you have to take chem it's not that bad.

I'll start by prefacing that I am not a STEM-major, nor am I by any means a chemistry prodigy. I came in the semester with basic chemistry knowledge from high school and the CHEM 1410 professors made it clear early on that it did not matter what background knowledge you had going in to the semester. While I am not sure how true that statement was, fortunately I did exit CHEM 1410 with a B. The class is split up into three parts: lecture, expo (kind of like a group discussion), and lab. Definitely make sure you attend lecture, whether it be remote or in-person, Professor Welch definitely knows his stuff, and while it does feel easy to feel lost in the crowd, you can message him or the TAs on Microsoft Teams for extra help. As for expo, for your own sake, make sure you end up with a helpful group. You do not have much choice in your group for lab, but expo is 100% self-taught team based, so ensuring that you have a group that either knows their stuff or are hard-working will work to your favor in the long-run. The content of the class is difficult. Chances are you won't understand things the first read-through. That is what lecture and expo are for. If you have meaningful discussions with your expo group, pay attention in lecture, and study, you should be fine.

Welch is a really nice person and he definitely knows his stuff. I only talked to him once but he was super friendly. However, I found that sometimes the lecture didn't pertain to the TopHat readings or were unrelated to anything we'd be tested on. They could be hard to follow sometimes. But he records lectures which is good. He also provides many resources in preparation for the tests, such a chapter review notes and recorded TA review sessions, which I don't think every professor does.

Content-wise, I didn't really enjoy the material, but I'm not a big chemistry person in general so that was probably why. The tests weren't impossible - they're open internet/note so they mostly tested on concept application instead of stuff you could just memorize. They're basically a week-long event though (3 parts over 3 days) which can be a hassle.

You don't get to pick your Expo group but they're really important as you do the group test with them. The expo questions could be difficult sometimes; in the beginning our group would use up almost the whole time to finish them all but we got quicker throughout the semester.

Also if you know you're going to take 1420 the semester after, get the year-long subscription for TopHat because it's used in all of those classes too lol.

Overall take this class if you need to. I don't really see a reason to if you're not interested in chemistry/premed/engineering etc since it's not the most captivating material. However, it's not necessarily as difficult as it is time-consuming.

Class set up is- 5% portfolio grade (completion), 15% each exam (open notes and split between individual and group), 20% final (open notes and super easy), 5% final project (group project), and 25% split between the tophat activities and expo portion. The group portion of the tests are super hard and should not even be legal. I hear Welch is the best professor but honestly, even he is not that good. Ended with a B (86.7, which they don't round to the nearest whole number, or I would have a B+) in the class, which I am not proud of, but I feel like if you study hard and try your best you should do decent and at least get a B-. Also, lectures are dry and are honestly useless.

Welch is a great lecturer and super understanding. He always responds on teams to your questions. There is a lot of reading that is often hard to teach yourself, but usually it all makes enough sense by the time he lectures. Expo is the most chaotic time of your week. You kinda just get set free, but generally no one totally knows what is happening. The questions are great for reviewing for tests but really hard without a ton of help sometimes. Do the portfolio every week, it’s easier to manage that way (and it’s a great review). Review the test your understanding portions of the readings and BITs/LBLAs for tests. The material can be really confusing but if you plug away at it you will understand it.

Professor Welch is a good lecturer and does many examples in class, so I would recommend taking this course with him if you can. For some reason this course has a reputation for being difficult, but I did not find that to be the case. It may not be mind-numbingly easy, but as long as you keep up with all the assignments each week, it's not bad. Each week looks like this: reading the chapter before lecture, lecture at the beginning of the week, small assignment between lecture and expo meeting, expo meeting later in the week, small assignment due by Sunday night. In expo, you are assigned to a group of about 4 or 5 students, and you do practice problems together each week during class. I liked the format of the class, except for the readings at the beginning of the week. The readings are confusing and much more in-depth than you need to know for the exams, so the reading assignments were more stressful than they were helpful.

Tbh, I came into this class a little bit intimidated, as I had only taken honors chemistry in high school and while I passed with a 98, I feel like I did not learn anything. However, after going through this class, I can confidently say I learned a lot, and I mean a lot about general chemistry, and I loved the class. I will not sugarcoat this class, as I got a 93% this semester (an A), but I had to put in a decent amount of time studying. Do not be intimidated though, as all of our exams were open note and online (including the final, which was also only multiple choice!), so as long as you are prepared, this class is a great class to take. And in my opinion, I loved professor Welch. From my experience in lecture, he explains this well, and does not just regurgitate what you read in the textbook (which can be very confusing with big terms and run-on sentences some times). Overall, if you want/need to take Chem 1410, please take it with Welch.

Welch is a decent prof. Class was structured where you read the chapter and the embedded questions are due 11:59 PM day before lecture. In lecture he goes over what he believes is important from the chapter. I found the lectures not super helpful but sometimes they could be, especially if people ask good questions. Then theres LBLA (looking back looking ahead) due before expo- more questions. Then you have expo on the other day where you do group work, usually not too bad. Then you have BIT due sunday 11:59. 3 exams, all open note, resource, internet, take them where you want (alone). A final project and a final. Final is all mc or like enter a number as your answer and is also open note, resource, internet. Welch wasn't too bad. I think the class was only okay because it was open resource. Exams (except final) have 3 parts, individual, individual, and group. They also change how much each part is worth, first exam its, 20%,10%,70%, second is 45%,10%,45%, and last is 70%,10%,20%. #tCFfall2021

Kevin Welch is a pretty good professor compared to the other professors that my friends had from what I've heard. However, the class is honestly mostly self-taught from the online assignments. I stopped going to lectures after the first few weeks because it was just a review of the readings.

It's decently easy to get an A if you put in some work. You just need to make sure you understand the readings and ace the LBLA, BIT, and EXPO. The tests are open-note so they're not too bad. Group work is pretty important so hope you get group members that will also put in some work. Also, on the group exam, online research is your friend. Some of the answers to questions were special cases that were not covered in the readings and were completely opposite to the trends/concepts that you have learned.

I did get an A in this course, but I would say it is difficult to do. I separated my review into the course itself and the professor.

Professor:
He is an absolute joy of a professor. He is accommodating and always willing to work with you. I would highly recommend taking Chem 1410 with Welch. He is very good at conveying the concepts in a basic manner. Professor Welch genuinely wants every single student to succeed. It is in your best interest to have a meeting with him early if you are at all struggling.

Course:
The exams are application based and sometimes there are questions that in order for you to get them correct you would need to understand virtually everything. Still, there is a good amount of buffer assignments in this course. The Tophat assignments are the key to success. You must take the extra effort to check answers on the Tophat weekly readings, LBLA questions, EXPO, and BIT questions. I know it is a bit unreasonable that you are expected to do well your first time sitting with the material, but its important to do well on this assignments. After all, they make up 25% of the grade.

This class is a really good intro to chem class. Professor Welch is really good at keeping lectures interactive and working individually with students to create a positive learning environment. He is very accommodating towards any extensions and is also more then willing to give extra help for understanding. I would 100% recommend him.

I thought Welch was a really great professor. Basically every gen chem class is structured the same way, so you're not going to have a super unique experience no matter which professor you take, procedurally speaking. I often found the readings to be quite hard to understand, but Kevin's explanations in lecture really cleared things up. This is not a chill class to fulfill a STEM requirement, but if you're one of the thousands taking chem for your major, I'd recommend this prof

If you're going to take CHEM 1410, take it with Welch. I was scared going into his class with how he had the biggest lectures, but he is genuinely there to help. The format of the course does involve a good amount of outside work, but it is all work that better helps you to understand the material. There is the chapter reading due midnight the night before your lecture, then the LBLA is due one hour before your Expo section (aka workshop/discussion section,) the Expo work is due the night of your Expo section but it can usually get done in class, and then the BIT was due Sunday at 11:59pm for my class (I had lecture on Tuesday and Expo on Thursday.) I consider myself someone who is not that great at science, but I found myself succeeding in this class beyond my expectations. The chapter readings are dense, as people have said, but I found rewriting them in my own document helped me to better read through without the interruptions of the questions throughout. The chapters that did seem confusing often made more sense when I reread the chapter in my own document before the test. I recommend reading the chapters at least a day before they're due so you're not cramming and can actually understand, and ATTEND LECTURE. Welch does a lot of drawings during lecture so I recommend having a notebook or tablet you can draw on. These help a lot if you're a visual learner as well. Doing the LBLA right after lecture and the BIT right after Expo can help you get in a great routine.
Like I said, I always thought I was bad at science before this class, but I still managed to get the grade I wanted. Expo is a great time to ask your Expo group for help if you're confused because then it can be explained in a more understandable way since they're your peer and not a textbook, but TAs and Welch are also extremely helpful during Expo. If your Expo group is bad, it does cast a bit of a downfall on that aspect of the course, but I really liked Expo overall because it dulled my fear of the big lectures preventing me from better understanding chemistry.
TL;DR. Take this class with Welch. Get in a routine with all of the outside assignments. Take notes and draw during lecture. Take advantage of the help that you can get in Expo.

Welch is an amazing professor. He is extremely kind and really fast at responding to questions on Teams. I'm a CS major and this made me so much more interested in chemistry than I was before. The course wasn't difficult, but it was a lot more reading than I expected. I suggest taking detailed notes on the readings. The lectures aren't always that helpful but it's worth going to/watching them because Professor Welch says some important info that isn't in the reading but is covered on exams. I'm really glad I took this course and I might take CHEM 1420 later on because of it!!

First of all, I would like to say that Prof. Welch is probably the best professor I've had since I've been here and his lectures make everything make complete sense. This class does have hard concepts which the textbook is terrible at simplifying. However, in lecture Welch is very good at explaining these difficult topics. He also puts himself out there to help as much as he can, which is nice.

I was really nervous to take this since the last time I'd taken chemistry was a regular chem course in 9th grade. Even then, I'm on track to get an A in the class. This class is structured to give you a lot of work for only 1 chapter a week. You have textbook reading/homework, then questions to answer before, during, and after Expo. This might feel like a lot, but usually it was well balanced and really helped me in the long run- I've never retained so much material throughout the semester for any other class.
The reading's dense (and just god-awful), so I'd recommend just skimming and highlighting key terms and statements, anything that you need to answer the homework. Usually, Welch does a good job of summarizing the reading and making it easier to understand, but his lectures are pretty surface-level. Honestly, the rest is up to you and your expo group, and your ability to connect different concepts. My expo group was great this semester and is probably a big reason why I was successful in this course.
Overall, this class isn't bad unless your expo sucks. Welch is super approachable and caring, and the material itself isn't too difficult. The exams, for me, were pretty fair.

Prof Welch is probably one of the most easy going yet incredibly disorganized people I've ever met. His lectures are a little discombobulating, but he's always happy to help after class and during office hours. That being said, go to office hours! I learned most of the material by talking with him in office hours and really going through the material. Welch will be super understanding and he's always open to giving extensions on almost any assignment except for the exams (if you don't have a valid excuse). Speaking of exams, there are two big things: 1. Don't throw away your Part 2 (individual for group work); even though it's only 10% of your total exam grade, it makes a difference! and 2. always look over your exam immediately after it's returned and get those regrades -- Welch and the TAs don't do an awesome job of making sure Gradescope grades correctly, so get as many of those points as you can :)
#tCFfall2021

I love Kevin Welch. I took AP Chem in high school, but with this course it's really not needed all that much. The most difficult thing about this course was quantum numbers (which was in the beginning), but once you find a routine of balancing TopHat (the resource used for reading/homework/group work) readings/homework and real time lecture the class begins to make sense. Welch really wants students to understand the course content and succeed, but you need to pay attention in lecture to do so!!! Expo was not great but bearable. Honestly the TAs in Expo were not much help when my group didn't understand the chapter and apparently Welch was present in other Expo sections but not the one I was in. Your success in Expo is very greatly dependent on your knowledge of course material, how well you work with others, and the people in your group. I highly recommend taking this course with Kevin Welch!

Professor Welch was a fantastic professor for my first semester of college level chemistry. He made lectures pretty entertaining as far as chem lectures go which is no easy task. That being said, I didn't love the format of the flipped classroom with the TopHat textbook readings/questions, and the readings themselves were extremely over complicated and ambiguous. The expo session of this class was a little tiring but it was definitely helpful in reinforcing my understanding of the material. This class also had the most outside work out of all my classes this semester. If I was reading the chapter very thoroughly and taking good notes, it could take me anywhere from 1-3 hours. The LBLA and BIT got more routine and easier to complete for me throughout the semester. If I had to give a word of advice it would be to utilize the help of your professors and TA's! They are there to help. Lastly- the exams each had three parts to them, and took up basically and entire week each. These were definitely stressful, but if you know the material you will do well on at least the 1st and 3rd (group) portions. Good luck!

Professor Welch is a very nice guy who genuinely wants you to do well in his course and understand the material. Chemistry is hard, but he tries to communicate the information as clear as possible. There is a LOT of course work each week and you will be spending a lot of time on this class. Exams are extremely difficult and structured very uniquely. Chapter readings are due each Sunday in which you basically teach yourself the material and have to answer questions on it for a grade even though you're "not expected to have a full grasp on the material before it is taught". Along with lecture, there is lab, workshop, and expo for this class, which all adds up to a lot of work. It is manageable though if you work hard in this class. Go to lecture and take detailed notes. STUDY FOR EXAMS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE OPEN NOTE AND OPEN RESOURCE!!! #tCFfall2021

This course review comes to you in three parts.

PART ONE: COURSE STRUCTURE

This course features a weekly lecture followed by an expo section a few days later. Prior to the lecture you complete a reading assignment in TopHat, which I will address shortly. I didn't always find the lecture 100% useful and ultimately stopped attending after about a month in favor of watching the lecture videos in the library afterwards. Between lecture and expo you complete an LBLA assignment which usually helps to prepare you for what happens in expo.

Expo was extremely challenging for me at first, largely influenced by the fact that I had a terrible group. Fortunately, I was able to switch. When Prof. Welch says to reach out to him with any concerns you have, he truly means it! During Expo you work on a series of challenging problems with your group. I strongly suggest buying some good whiteboard markers. After expo you complete the BIT assignment which includes work for your portfolio and questions to summarize that week's material.

PART TWO: COURSEWORK AND EXAMS

I'm going to be honest, the reading sections of this course are awful. The book does not explain the material well and the only way I managed to get through it was having someone else that could explain the concepts to me. I would suggest finding a YouTube channel you jive with to help understand the material. The LBLA assignments are extremely fair, make sure you do the work it tells you to do before expo, usually drawing structures or whatnot. BIT assignments are usually harder than the LBLA assignments but are extremely reasonable if you took your time on the content during the week. I strongly recommend keeping up with your portfolio each week, I waited until the last minute each time which was a mistake.

Now onto the exams. This course is unique in that it features group exams, which I also hated at first but grew to appreciate.

Part one of the exam usually had 8-10 questions (which wound up being around 25 questions when accounting for multiple parts). These questions are very similar to the questions asked in the BIT assignments during the week. The best piece of advice I can offer for preparing for part one of the exam is to go back through every single question in both TopHat sections and make sure that you understand how to do the problem, and why the answer is correct. Part one contains a mix of multiple choice, short answer, and explanation questions so being able to explain the concepts is crucial.

Part two of the exam consists of 5 multiple choice questions that are extremely long, difficult, and detailed. I'm not exactly sure what the best way to study for this part of the exam would be aside from making sure you have a firm grasp of the material. What I personally did for this section of the exam was export each question into Goodnotes on my iPad and go through the wording of each answer choice extremely carefully. I would highlight and annotate individual parts of answer choices to explain my reasoning for eliminating them. It is very important that you are able to defend your answer choice because of the structure of part three. Overall, I would suggest taking your time on these questions and allow yourself the time to pick apart the nuance in each answer choice.

Part three of the exam has you revisit the questions from part two with your expo group. As a group you decide on a first choice answer, a second choice answer, and an explanation for each of your first-choice answer choices. It is vital that you bring notes from part two of the exam to help write explanations for each of your group's answer choices. I suggest making an Excel sheet at the beginning of the expo block to aggregate your group's answers before you start working through them together.

PART THREE: THE INSTRUCTOR

Prof. Welch, while he has is flaws, is absolutely wonderful. I suffered a personal loss during the semester and he was very generous with extensions and giving me the opportunity to catch up. In terms of expo, go to him if you have a problem with your group. I had problems with my first group and he was kind enough to switch me to a different expo group. In terms of his lectures, I often had a hard time following them and would get frustrated by his tangents. Take advantage of the review sheets he posts. He didn't always do the best job of explaining certain topics or contextualizing them, so I usually turned to outside materials. Ultimately, Prof. Welch is an extremely kind, caring, and fair professor who wants to see his students succeed, you just need to put in the work.

And as a bonus I've included the grade breakdown:

5% | Portfolio completed during the semester
10% | TopHat Reading Sections
15% | TopHat Expo/LBLA/BIT Sections
45% | Three midterm exams each worth 15%
5%| Final Project
20% | Final Exam

Group Exam Breakdown:

Exam 1: 20% Part 1, 10% Part 2, 70% Part 3
Exam 2: 45% Part 1, 10% Part 2, 45% Part 3
Exam 3: 70% Part 1, 10% Part 2, 20% Part 3

If I did not have to take this course, I wouldn't have. Though Welch was an enthusiastic teacher and seemed very knowledgeable and approachable, I retained minimal information. Many questions were often answered with an, "I don't know," or, "You don't need to understand the reasoning behind the concept for this course," which I did not find to be helpful. I understand that it is difficult to teach such large groups of students (hundreds in the lecture and at least 70+ in workshops) and make sure everyone is understanding the material but most of the learning was incredibly individual. Taking AP Chemistry in high school may have helped, but with only having experience in pre-Chemistry in 10th grade, this course did not seem intro-level whatsoever.

I thought this class was pretty straightforward, although it took a few weeks to get used to the Expo/Lecture strucutre, I thought it ended up working pretty well. However, if your expo group is bad, that could screw you over since all three tests have parts where you work in your expo group. I liked my group, and the content wasn't too bad as long as you read the textbook. Honestly, other than the last unit, the lectures and textbook cover the same thing, so as long as you go to one you should be fine. (textbook is a lil better in my opinion) Welch is a good professor who is good at explaining abstract concepts. Overall, good class.

Amazing teacher! Made great study guides for each exam and held a review session during the last lecture before exam three. When talking to my peers he is arguably the best chem teacher and is very easy to reach out to about questions/concerns. Hard part about this course is that the Textbook is written in a way that is very difficult to understand, but all of the professors use it so there is no way around it. #tCFfall2021

Lectures are fun and super helpful! If you skip lectures and only read the textbook, you won't pass. TAs are great too. Practices and Textbooks are on TopHat. Weekly readings and expo questions consume time and energy. Start them as soon as possible is my advice. Good Luck!

I did not like this class. Professor Welch is a nice guy but a lousy teacher. Granted, I took this class during Covid times so it may be different for future students. Yes, he did lecture, and his lectures were good. However, he did not lecture enough. We were expected to teach ourselves chemistry using an online textbook that the intro chem teachers wrote for us. It has some typos and a lot of the content is not written with expectations that students have to teach themselves. I would spend 6-10 hours every weekend reading the textbook, taking notes on it, answering the TopHat questions (30-40 questions), watching his lecture, taking notes on that, and answering lecture questions. There are also textbook assignments throughout the week to do. I was so burnt out by the end of the fall and spring semesters solely because of the unnecessary workload of this class. My AP Chem knowledge definitely helped get me through this class.

I got an A in this class but it required too much time and energy. Take three sets of notes: one for the textbook, one for his lecture, and combine those two and make a study guide for the exam. These study guides will be what you study for the final. Redo all textbook, expo, and lecture questions in preparation for exams. I went to all TA reviews and actively participated in them. If they continue to run these, I would definitely make use of them and ask any questions you may have. The individual parts of the exams (Part 1) are usually pretty straightforward and doable, but the second and third parts are what will ruin your grade. I would spend hours working on the 5 MCQ part of the exam (Part 2) and still get a D on it, so don't waste your time trying to search the depths of the Internet for help on this part. Make sure that your expo group is smart because the third part of the exam revisits those 5 MCQ and your group has to answer those questions together.

If you're trying to choose between Welch and other teachers, I'd probably go with Welch because he is the kindest of the options. Even though his email communication is really slow and sometimes nonexistent, he's pretty understanding if you can't make a deadline or something. Make sure to have a group chat or some friends to check work/ask questions with since the class is heavily reliant on teaching yourself.

No matter which professor you have, college chemistry is not going to be an easy A class. That being said, professor Welch is more than accommodating for anyone who reaches out for extra help and genuinely wants to help his students succeed. The course is very TopHat heavy and Expo is kinda annoying, but you'll run into those problems no matter which professor you get. I did chem online (Fall 2020) so we had to watch lectures from all the different chemistry 1410 professors, and personally, I found Welch's to be the most engaging, albeit a bit surface level of the material. He's genuinely a nice and approachable guy who will answer any and all questions you have without making you feel like a nuisance, which is hard to come by with college professors. All in all, I really like professor Welch and took him again for chem 1420.

Now, this is one of those classes that really depends on you. Welch is the better professor of them all because he does genuinely try to help you in any way he can and is very kind. However, you'll quickly realize that collaboration (AKA group chats) is key to this class. The material can be confusing at times so it is a massive help to be able to verify with other classmates. Youtube, Chemlibre, and the Organic Chemistry Tutor will also become your saviors. Overall, it is a lot of work and portals, but it can definitely be done and you can finesse a good grade. #tCFspring2021

Professor Welch is GREAT!!! In my experience a lot of STEM professors can be intense and intimidating but Welch is super friendly and approachable. He is extremely understanding so if you forget to turn in an assignment or make some other small mistake he is usually ready and willing to give you an extension or work with you to come up with a solution (given that you have a semi-decent explanation). He's also very accessible and responsive - he even replies to emails faster than TAs a lot of the time (usually I'd get a response in between 5 and 50 minutes). Welch goes out of his way to provide help for students, so if you're struggling in chem, there are always ways to get help (whether it be through office hours - his or the TAs -, out-of-class problem session, or even just email). He's also very understanding if you are struggling for some reason that isn't directly chem-related and will probably begin the year by emphasizing that there are many things in the world that are more important than first year intro chem, adding that if you're having problems with mental health or anything of the sort he'd be happy to help you out in any way possible. So, yea, Welch is a great person but he's also really good at teaching chemistry in my opinion. He was able to explain/clarify so many concepts that went over my head in high school chem and I left the course feeling that I had a really solid understanding of the foundations taught in this course. In terms of difficulty, the class was very doable in my opinion, though there is a fair amount of work. I'd advise you to find a couple people in your class to work/talk through concepts/study with. If you stay on top of things and address problem areas when they come up (take advantage of OHs, etc!!!), you should be just fine. My biggest tip would be to stay organized and make an assignment schedule: there are about 4 assignments due weekly and it can be easy to miss one if you're not keeping track of due dates.

I loved this class. If you actually study and go to TA hours you'll be fine. I'm pretty sure TopHat is written by the professors and it sucks at delivering the content we need to learn for this class. I would recommend doing your own in-depth research on things that you do not understand. It not that hard to get an A if you take the time to review and understand the content.
TIPS:
- I would also recommend taking DETAILED notes on the chapter notes, it comes in handy for the midterms and final exam so you don't have to reread the chapter books all over again.
- After reading the chapter notes, go to TA's office hours and try to clear up anything that you don't understand. The earlier the better.
- Our exams are split into 3 parts (1st individual portion (20-30 questions), 2nd individual portion with only 6 questions or so, group exam). Through the semester these three parts are weighed differently. The first exam will be weighted (20%, 10%, 70%) and fluctuates throughout the semester. I recommend that since your group portion is weighed heavily (on the first exam) if you do not like your group, please change. Your group should not be determining if you pass or fail the class, welch will understand.

If your wondering about exam distribution:

The second part of the exam is weighted at 10% in all the exams because it is the hardest part, we usually average on the lower scale.

Exam one ( 20%, 10%, 70%)
Exam two (45%, 10%, 45%) i think
Exam three (70%, 10%, 20%)

This is a difficult course that heavily relies on an online textbook TopHat, and weekly group work during expo sessions. I know most people would disagree, but I found TopHat pretty useful in teaching the information. The reading was easy enough to understand and the TopHat questions tested my knowledge on the reading. That being said, TopHat did not help in teaching me how to apply the stuff we learned, which was basically asked on all of the exams. Expo was really based on your group. If you had a good group, you could actually learn from each other and teach each other about the difficult concepts, which is incredibly important for the exams, as they all have a group portion, except for the final exam. I thought Welch was a great professor! He goes over frequently missed TopHat questions and answers any questions during lecture. I wish I attended them more, they are pretty useful. I would recommend taking this class with Welch because he is extremely nice, attainable, and helpful. You don't need to have prior chemistry knowledge before taking this class, but it really helps if you do. The first real chapter hit like a truck and everything just built on top of that, so keep up with the readings and all the TopHat questions! Also, don't forget to do the Gradescope quizzes. I took this class as a premed requirement and I wouldn't recommend taking it unless you have to. #tCF2020

Welch is a great professor. He explains concepts well and is a nice guy. I had experience with HL IB Chemistry. Overall the content is pretty easy except for a few difficult chapters and subsections. This class has a really weird format, and you ALWAYS have work to do. A lot of it is group work, so keep up with your group. You can boost your grade with the TopHat and Gradescope work, so I recommend you do all of those too. #tCF2020

Since this course was online this semester, the structure was a little different from the listed times. I had asynchronous/ pre-recorded lectures on Sunday (rotated between the four different professors each week), an optional Monday lecture, and a problem-session "Expo" on Thursdays. The Monday and Thursday classes were the ones listed in SIS, but it was a lot more work than I expected. Welch is a great lecturer and pretty fun. #tCF2020

If you don't need to take this class, don't. But, if you do, 100% take it with Professor Welch. He is, by far, the best and nicest professor who teaches this course. This class started off very difficult, but it gets much easier as the semester progresses. It is very confusing at the beginning because the professors use so many different platforms for grades, assignments, and lecture videos (multiple Microsoft Teams channels, TopHat, Gradescope, Collab, etc). Once you get through the first few weeks, the class isn't as bad. The tests are fairly difficult. Each test is 3 parts, so it feels super drawn out and takes up so much of your week. The first part, in my opinion, was very easy. The second and third parts are the same questions, but you have to do it first individually and then with a group. These parts are very difficult. However, with enough Googling, you can figure out all of the answers.

My biggest tip: go to a bunch of TA office hours at the beginning of the semester and find out who is more willing to give you help. Keep going to their office hours throughout the semester, and they might even help you with some of the harder test questions for part 2 and part 3 (they don't have a time limit).

If you've taken AP Chemistry, this class won't be too difficult since a lot of the material overlaps. The hardest content is at the beginning of the semester and I recommend watching Khan Academy and the Organic Chemistry Tutor videos to help.

I got an A in this class but I don't think Welch had anything to do with my success. I knew a lot of the material coming in because of AP Chem (didn't take the exam nor do I think I would have gotten a 4/5). This class is heavily self-taught through a really crappy online textbook called TopHat that is ridiculed with grammar mistakes, typos, and is overall just a pain to use. The class itself isn't too hard if you read the book and try to answer the questions in the chapters and assignments to the best of your ability. I would suggest taking detailed chapter notes because lecture is very pointless. I don't think I learned a single thing via Welch instead the textbook was sadly the main teacher. Expo is dumb but it's a relatively easier format I've heard than Morkowchuck's traditional but I think starting Fall 2020 it's all Expo style. The first 3 exams aren't too difficult but the final is a lot more challenging. I averaged a 95% on the first 3 exams and got a 78% on the final. There are a good amount of grade buffers with participation and writing to learn. Overall stay ahead of the readings and prep well for the final and you should be good! Good Luck!

Enjoyed the class. Had no prior experience in chemistry and barely ended the class with an A-. The textbook is online which was a little frustrating for me. This class is more conceptual than the second semester. Welch is a fun and engaging professor. However, I like having three days of lecture with Morkowchuck in the spring because it kept me engaged. However, if you are very self-motivated, you will do fine.

I took this course with Prof. Welch as a prerequisite for a bio major. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the class, but that's partly just because I don't like chemistry and mostly because I hated the Tophat textbook format. Professor Welch is probably the best intro chem prof there is - his lectures are very engaging and he really communicates the subject matter well. He's also really nice and easy to approach if you need clarification. However, he's using the Tophat Expo format, which I'd say is a downside. Tophat is a textbook platform you have to subscribe to, only to access extremely long, typo- and error-ridden chapters that don't always help you learn the material. Instead of having lectures twice a week, you have lectures on Tuesday and expo on Thursday (a sort of group-work on Tophat day which is supposed to make you think more deeply about the subject to better understand it. Honestly, I didn't get anything out of expo). However, between all the tophat assignments for the chapter, expo, and weekly assignments, you do get a bit of a grade buffer. The exams take place over three days; the first part is an individual in-class exam, usually pretty straightforward. The second part is an online, open-book exam, which sounds good until you've spent hours on five questions (they make them very detailed and you have to have minute understandings to answer). The third part is reconvening with your expo group to re-answer the questions from the second part as a group. The final was harder than I'd expected but not ridiculous. Overall, this class was a bit tedious, but it's required for many, and Prof Welch makes it a lot better than it would be with only Tophat. I'd definitely recommend taking this class with Prof Welch.

I agree with everyone else below, Welch is an amazing professor because he is an amazing PERSON, however, I don't really like his teaching. He taught very surface level which was frustrating because every lecture he never got to the most difficult parts of the required TopHat readings. He did though, explain the surface level concepts very well... Overall, I did not like the TopHat format. The TopHat readings were often difficult to digest and read, and it doesn't help that Welch doesn't thoroughly go through the more difficult parts of the readings. I also did not like the EXPO format. They say group work helped the TAs a lot, but I honestly think they're bluffing. All anyone wants to do in EXPO is to hurry up, finish and LEAVE. (EXPO is basically discussion for chemistry done on TopHat)

On your busiest WEEK, you will be required to do TopHat readings and questions, Writing to Learns (basically a two-page essay about chemistry concepts you probably don't understand and find 25 other students in the same TA office hours trying to also figure them out), Individual Exam Questions (which I promise you are the most difficult out of textbook questions I've ever taken), Group Exam Questions (which you take your individual exam answers and bring them to EXPO and agree on one answer, this was a huge grade booster and I was hard carried by my group lol), and the actual in-class exam that is somewhat doable - did I mention you do this all in one week, three times?

However, as a professor, he is the most approachable, easy-going professor I had. You can feel it during his lectures that he's a pretty nice dude. Also, if you miss a TopHat assignment he's more than happy to open it up for you again on the spot. I don't think he even asked me for an excuse, which I thought was nice. This review was mostly for the style of the class. If what I mentioned above is not the type of style you prefer than I would not pick Welch just because of his better rating. I am currently taking Morcowchuk for CHEM 1420 and it is a style I much prefer. She's also not as bad as everyone said she was, she's also nice as anyone else. I think there were a lot of negative things said about her and negative reviews, but I believe that she has gotten better. It's more traditional but straightforward. Three lectures (50 Min.), Mastering Chem HW questions (MAX 3 Hours (which is the same amount of time you would combine EXPO and TopHat homework, etc.)), and Exams. Nothing else.

I remember talking to Welch after the first semester was over to ask if there was any way I could join his class (it was full after the first two days of enrollment, rough time for a first-year like me). He said he couldn't do anything about the limited capacity and admitted that Morkowchuk's exam scores are better than his that semester. Take that as whatever you want it too.

In conclusion, choose the professor for the style you most fit!!! Not the actual professor!!! Chemistry concepts will always be hard to understand without your individual hard work and ALL the professors and TAs are resources to help you understand! Good luck.

Welch is the fucking man. He's easily one of my favorite professors at UVa. He is incredibly approachable if you have any questions, and is impossibly intelligent on his course content. Seriously, you can ask him anything about chemistry and he'll give you an actual MEANINGFUL answer (not just one where professors dodge around the question and completely fail to answer the question in the slightest). His grading is more than fair, and his exams were challenging, but not impossible. This class takes effort and persistence, but once you understand the base concepts (which can be very intimidating), doing the actual chemistry is very straight forward. Welch curved all of our exams (which were take-home/online) so myself and most of my friends did really well in the class. His lectures are designed pretty strategically. Basically you do the reading on TopHat and answer the online homework questions BEFORE you go to lecture that week, then during lecture he goes over all the material to solidify what we read. This class is heavily independent and it is important to try to understand the TopHat readings as much as you can before going to lecture, so everything welch discusses is just gravy on top to cement the content. He's understanding and knows that the content can be challenging, but from my experience, I felt like the content wasn't necessarily challenging, but just very intimidating at first glance.

Overall, Welch is an amazing professor and everyone should try to enroll in his classes. He's incredibly intelligent, passionate, approachable, and fair. Don't get me wrong- you can easily fail this class if you don't try your ass off, but its not impossible like a lot of people make it sound.

Welch has been my favorite professor at UVA. He's an engaging and funny lecturer, and makes seemingly dull topics interesting. If you read the textbook and pay attention in lecture you'll do just fine.

Let me tell you how much I LOVED this class. I was terrified of taking college level chemistry but Kevin Welch totally turned that around. Lectures were informational, coherent, and even fun. Clicker questions aren't graded, and he never made anyone feel bad about asking stupid questions. Exams were extremely fair, and he only asked about things we explicitly covered in class. Concepts are tough, but you can absolutely be successful in Welch's gen chem 1 if you're willing to put in some effort.

I struggled with this class, it is one of my more difficult classes and first semester of my first year. I have no prior experience with AP chemistry, and I took chemistry in high school my sophomore year, much of which I didn't remember at all. Welch is a good professor to take Intro Chem. He made the room feel smaller in his entertaining lectures. Clicker questions were used for attendance and often I didn't attend lectures and didn't feel too left behind thanks to slides being posted and pretty predictable. Grades consisted of Weekly Questions, Participation, Mastering Chemistry, and Tests/Exams. Welch is a good teacher and gives out amazing slides that look really good, but he sometimes would go on tangents which often confused me. His lectures were interesting however I felt I wasn't prepared fully for the tests with lectures and classwork alone. Readings are crucial, especially for understanding the math behind many of the problems, due to only broad concepts being covered in class. (meaning I used an of Organic Chemistry Tutor youtube videos to understand concepts fully) (really recommend his hybridization video because Welch explained it horribly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otYj92d7rB0) Mastering Chemistry was often frustrating with the lack of help from the book and class. Thankfully Mastering Chemistry wasn't due until the end of the semester (in December) so we didn't have to worry much about getting that done by the end of the week. Weekly Questions acted as a quizlike grade, open book, and open note, and open friends. However, questions were extremely difficult. I would recommend getting friends to work on them together with to get them done. Tests were quite difficult and often tests far beyond the concepts taught, asking students to know things beyond class concepts. I would recommend studying the Mastering Chemistry and grey areas in the margins of the book. I also strongly recommend checking back on the tests and requestion resubmissions, which I found out about late in the game, due to many errors on the test and errors in grading. I didn't find the TA's discussion times especially helpful, due to silly busywork and it is a waste of my time often. At each discussion, you could get a half point extra for your final grade for participating and filling out a card. I didn't receive my full credit I guess due to errors in the collection about it, whatever. I won't be taking with Welch again because I didn't like how he left out the math part of chemistry and I have heard a lot of amazing things about Linda Columbus and her much higher averages, so we shall see.

I succeeded in AP chemistry in highschool, but decided to take this course instead of 1810. I personally thought AP was MUCH harder than this course with Welch. I barely studied and only missed points for significant figures on each of the exams. All of my friends in Morkowchuk and Metcaf suffered so much in this course, while everyone in Welch had a pretty good experience. I like chemistry a lot so I though all of the lectures were pretty interesting, sparsely boring. This year, Welch's exam averages were around 84 each exam, Morkowchuk 78, and Metcaf 70, to give you a little insight on the discrepancies of the classes. Take chem with Welch if you can!!!! PS here's a tip for the discussions: they're extremely boring and they take attendance at the end, so I would show up 45 minutes late every week just in time to write my name down to get those extra credit points ;)

Kevin was by far my favorite professor this semester. If you are not taking Chemistry with him I'm not sure what you're thinking unless theres an EXTREME schedule conflict. Vey knowledgeable about the material and he is very fair knowing how difficult chem can be.

Welch is by far the best teacher for Chem 1410. He's a really goofy guy and makes lectures fun. If you put time into weekly questions and mastering chem and pay attention in class, you should be successful on the tests. I've gotten As on every test and and ending with an A in the course.

Welch is the best CHEM 1410 professor. Hands down. Highest averages among Lisa and Metcalf. He covers mainly class material on the exams and is a pretty good lecturer. He will help you understand the material a lot more if you go to his office hours. So if you have trouble, try and meet with him. He's a pretty funny guy and is real understanding. If you are going to take Chem I, he's pretty much the way to go. Exam averages speak for themselves to be honest.

Welch is my man! He's really good at explaining complex concepts and he'd always answering questions at the end of his lectures. 10/10 would recommend. His lecture is very high in demand, so sign up as soon as possible!

He was a very good teacher and explained what was going to be on the tests there was reading quizzes each week which we sort of a pain in the butt to do but would aid in your understanding of the material. All i did to study for tests was review his lectures and a couple of the saplinglearning problems and got an A- in the class. Also he would usually have a review day the day of the exam since you take the exam during your discussion time which was very helpful since he would review what you specifically needed to know for the exam. I had a lot better experience with him than my friends did with the other chem teachers.

Welch is an incredible professor!! He explains the concepts in a manner that is clear and engaging. His tests are very fair in that they cover the important concepts, their exceptions, and of course the application of them. There are 4 tests that make up 45% of your grade but the lowest score only counts as 6% whereas your other three count for 13% each. There are weekly reading quizzes composed of 5 questions which can be challenging at times when you fall behind. The sapling problem sets are also weekly and these may take anywhere from an hour to 3+ hours if your understanding of the topic is rough and you take the time to fully grasp the material. Clicker questions are basically in class participation which is only 5% of your grade. If you answer at least 90% of your clicker questions tho, then you get the whole 5%. The final is also very fair and if you go over the past exams, reading quizzes, problem sets, and lecture notes you will ace it.

I would suggest doing the readings before lecture (they are usually just 3-4 pages) and taking diligent notes during lecture. I found the sapling problem sets to be one of the best resources for solidifying your understanding of the material.

Gen Chem is a very difficult course for many, but with Welch and very hard work on your part, you can achieve the grade you desire and learn a lot.