CHEM 1411

I didn't enjoy CHEM lab, but most people only take it if they have to. If you have a good lab TA, then that will make a big difference, but most of the work isn't too interesting. It's more work than I think it should be and I thought it was pretty tough to even get an A-.

It really depends on your T.A. If this is not required for your major, please do not take it, unless you love to do a group report and write a 7 page report almost every week. It is very time-consuming and does not really help you with the introductory chemistry class that you are taking it with.

If you get a good TA, you will be alright. If not, you're in for a rough semester. The class makes you "design your own lab" which really just means "look it up on google." Lots opportunities to lose points with silly formatting problems. Grading is pretty tough overall and the lab quizzes are pretty much always a B or below if you miss a single question. Pre-labs have nothing to do with the actual lab and are more coding centered than chemistry centered. Try and just get through it, but know it won't be fun even if you have a deep interest in chemistry. This course isn't about the chemistry, it's all about jumping through institutional hoops.

PLEASE NOTE: the grade scale above is an accumulation of grades since 2009 so it looks like a lot of people gets A's but as of 2013 they changed the curriculum completely. Pretty sure the average is a C+/B- instead. Getting an A in chem lab was sooo rare- maybe one or two students per lab class.
The new change is that they make you write lab reports now which takes a long time to get the hang of. What frustrated me probably the most was getting my format down. For example if I made an excellent point but if I wrote it in the wrong section it doesn't count. I didn't fully understand until the second semester of this class.
I really hope that they'll change it to make it easier again since many students struggled more than they should over this class. But if not my suggestion is go to TA office hours and have them read your lab report so DON'T do this lab report the night before. The only times I got good grades on this report was when I did it over a span of a week or 5 days have having the TAs read portions of it for me.

This class is the worst I have taken at UVA. Horrible TAs, horrible set up... everyone is bullshitting there way through this. Brought down my GPA a lot (got a low grade for things like forgetting to pledge, margins, etc.). Definitely needs to be revamped (again).

Lab is the absolute worst, and I dreaded it every week. Lab consisted of answering planning questions, experimenting, answering conclusion questions, writing lab reports, and presenting. On paper, it seems like a very good way to teach students how to "think like scientists". However, the instructions that were provided were so unclear and the lecture videos were not helpful in teaching us why chemistry works that way. Instead we got lecture videos on how to write lab reports and present our projects (which were essentially the same for each lab group). My TA was Stephanie Lehman, who was an alright TA. She was very evasive and vague when answering questions. I understand TAs are not supposed to give us every answer on how to do our projects, but I think it would be much more beneficial to everyone if she told us we misunderstood the directions or guided us in the right direction once it looked like we knew what we were doing. It's so frustrating when you go ask the TA for help and she responds with an "I don't know". Lab reports were supposed to be max 7 pages, and the grading seemed very ambiguous. There were three mathematica assignments, which honestly had nothing to do with lab and seemed like busy work.

Although Grisham is such a nice professor, he is rarely seen at all and doesn't teach. Everything is "taught" by the TAs, who basically don't do anything but hand you the assignment which tells you to "create a calcium supplement" and will not give you any ideas on how to accomplish the task. The program was poorly thought out, and requires a lot more work than an intro chem lab should. The lab reports are long, and the TAs will take off points and won't tell you how you can improve your paper other than saying "it wasn't good enough." Basically just a frustrating class overall.

grisham and the chem department are probably the worst natural science department at this school. Don't take unless you have to (grad school, med school, etc)