CHEM 1411

Directions can be a bit vague but if you just ask, then everything falls into place rather easily. Each assignment was graded pass/fail which meant that they were all very fast since you would just have to put forth enough effort for a pass and not an A. A few assignments outside of the lab time, but everything was quick, with a good group you should never spend more than half the allocated time in class.

I mean it's a pass/fail class so as long as you do the work, you'll get a good grade. The work is sometimes kind of tedious and mind-numbing but it's fine. Designing and performing your own experiments is pretty cool though (there's just too much writing).
#tCFF24

Randomly assigned groups of ~4 on the first day. Either have someone in your group carry or be the one to carry. If not, diffusion of responsibility will lead to a bad time.

New students, DO NOT get the lab book from the bookstore. Through the whole course, I would estimate only TWELVE pages are used. Honestly its best if only two people in your group have a lab book. To get one, just ask any upperclassmen student and you can use the countless empty pages in theirs. You do not need a fresh lab book, just empty pages. The bookstore is just trying to take your money.

Grading scheme is confusing, but if you actually miss something, just email with a believable sob story and they will be nice.

Easy class, you'll never actually see Professor Morkowchuk but you will interact with your TAs a ton. Most of the work is super easy and if you go to TA help hours which are held pretty much everyday all day you can get your the answer. Hopefully you get a good group because if you do most times you can leave lab early and not have to do much outside of class.

Also pray you get a good TA because if so you'll have an A, if not you'll have to work a bit more.

Do not miss class because attendance goes towards your grade and from what I've heard it is a hassle to try and make up.

Easy class, don't stress.

This class can be really good and really bad at the same time. Like any lab class, you will rarely see the professor and instead will work with a TA, and like everyone says, getting a good group (randomly assigned) and a good TA (also randomly assigned) is necessary. Since both of these are RNG, it really depends on your luck if you have a good time in this class. Class consists of back and forth workshop and lab, which aren't that long. There is always a bi-weekly post lab and pre lab, and the post lab can feel like a ton of work. Overall, the content in this class is fun, but depending on the TA, and the long post labs, it can make it grueling.

Like everyone else says, it entirely depends on your TA and lab group. I had a fairly nice TA, but unfortunately she was super quiet so hearing instructions was hard with the loud lab ventilation. I only saw Prof. Morkowchuk once throughout the entire semester, and you don't interact with her much at all.
As for the course content, it's pretty fun. You do some basic science experiments and have to document it all, which is pretty tedious but not too bad. If you have a competent lab group (which I luckily did) it's pretty evenly distributed. My only real complaint is that the grading system makes little sense, and it's hard to tell where you are throughout the semester. You also have a really tough margin to make for the prelab quizzes, where missing an 80% on two will make it impossible to get a full A. I didn't do well on the first prelab, so I had to do well on all of the rest to get an A, which was annoying since there was no retake option available. Also, the course materials (Labflow, lab coat + goggles) costing so much money for only one credit kind of sucks.

Pure suffering and pain. Weird grading system, but quite easy to get an A, just really tedious and a lot of work for a 1 credit class. My TAs were nice and made it manageable. Morkowchuk was maybe there twice the entire semester. Try to stay on decent terms with your teammates as there are team evaluations throughout the semester.

While the professor is very kind and approachable, the course itself is poorly structured. Because it is required for many majors, there is no way to avoid it, which makes the issues more frustrating.

A major problem with this class is that your grade depends heavily on your TA, and grading standards vary significantly. The specs-based grading system is confusing, and feedback is often unclear or delayed. In my experience, grades were entered without notification, and there was only a short window to resubmit assignments to meet specs. If you were not constantly checking LabFlow, it was easy to miss the chance to revise.

I lost full credit on multiple post-lab assignments by missing specs by one point, and because the final grade is based on the lowest category you score highest in, this capped my maximum grade early in the semester.

Compared to other sections, my TA graded much more strictly and was difficult to communicate with, which added unnecessary stress. Several issues had to be escalated directly to the professor.

Although this is only a one-credit course, expect a workload far heavier than typical. Overall, the professor is nice, but the grading system and TA inconsistency make this class much harder than it needs to be.

This course is easy and very straightforward. You meet once a week, alternating between a 50-minute pre-lab or a 3-hour lab. Both are manageable, and as long as you have a competent TA, the class is pretty hard to mess up.

Grades are either a 0 or a 100 for each assignment, and you get six “tokens” to redo or extend deadlines. Because of this, earning a 100 on every single assignment is as simple as remembering to turn things in and check grades every week. Given the very limited number of assignments in the class (there are only 5 labs total), it would be really hard to run out of tokens. I personally only used one token, and that was because I completely forgot to do a pre-lab one week.

Work outside of class is minimal, usually about an hour a week, and labs are mildly interesting but not super memorable.
TL;DR: Very low difficulty, low time commitment, and easy to get an A, especially if you have a decent TA.

If you get lucky with a good TA like I did the class is a breeze but this depends on luck. Content is easy, I mean the first experiment is a water measuring lab and it doesn't get much harder from there especially if you took AP chem or even just remember general chem. Watch out for the random busy work assignments but you usually get an email the week they're due. Head professor is elusive, don't think I talked to her at all, so you depend on TAs a lot. Go to the help hours, the TAs helped me check my work so I made it a habit. Kind of heavy workload for a 1 credit course, about 2 hours average per week