CHEM 1611

A lot of work for a 1-credit class. Lab reports, mathematica work, and actual labs were all not super fun. If you're reading this, you probably have no choice but to take the class. If you put forth effort you can get an A.

This class is DANGEROUS!!! It operates in this limbo where the workload isn't light enough that you can put it off till the very last minute, but it isn't enough work for you to actually prioritize it and care about it. I did poorly because I missed a lot of deadlines. I know plenty of other people who did fine since the class is not difficult, but the labs are boring to a mind-numbing extent. Just remember to give yourself plenty of time for the assignments since some of them took way longer than anticipated.

This course is unnecessarily difficult and should not be an engineering requirement. Just try to make sure that you complete all parts of the report and listen to your ta's feedback on previous reports

The course was very unstructured and the TAs took off points on the most random things, but the labs/workload was definitely manageable, and most people got As with my TA. I don't actually know what Prof Grisham looks like, since most of the time is spent with graduate TAs, but they were all nice and understanding.

I had a negative experience with this class. You do not interact with Prof. Grisham at all, but rather with your TA. I had a real problem with the way the course is structured. Assignments seemed to be given for no real reason but to trip up students, forcing us to just try and meet guidelines rather than learn chemistry. For example, most lab reports had sections which were not taught in lecture, which resulted in straight Googling. Grading is needlessly picky and especially the engineering lab drags on for far too long (3.5 hours!). The workload was more than what you would expect a 1 credit course to be. Avoid if possible.

This class was pretty bad. You mainly interact with your TA, so depending on that is how your grade will be. The class is more about learning chem techniques and trying to salvage your grade than actually learning chem. Definitely do not take this if you don't have to.

The lab reports are a pain to write and the grading is tough. Not an enjoyable class and significantly more work than its one credit hour suggests.

I would avoid taking this class if at all possible. Unfortunately, it is required as the professor that allowed exemption via lab notebook has retired. It's a class that you forget about until you need to attend it, and even then, it wasn't particularly enjoyable. It is entirely run by the TA's, which can really make or break your grade depending on how strict they are with the rubrics. I'd say just tough it out and hope you come out alright, as some of the material is a bit hard to remember if you are exempt from CHEM 1610 via credit.

Useless course. Do not take it unless you have to.

I hated this class the most. It's true with you hear about Grisham, he is an extremely rude unaccommodating guy. Though you arent going to see him really because you'll be interacting with your TA's instead, there can also be problems there. Your grade is dependent on how your TA's grade, and you can easily get screwed. I hated this class and it really put me off from any chem labs.

Grisham and his staff are on the whole very useless. This class depends completely on the grading of your ta/ if your ta speaks understandable english.

This is a TA run chemistry lab. Basically, if you get a nice, fun, TA you'll have a good time. Some are more strict than others or more difficult to talk to/approach. They all seem relatively fair in grading. Otherwise, you get assigned to a 4 person lab group on the first day of class and that's your group for the semester. The lab write ups can get a bit tricky just because they need to be VERY thorough and follow the instructions exactly. Especially for the first one, try to go to a TA's office hours so they can look over your lab before you have to turn it in. The low grades of the first lab write up really caught a lot of people by surprise.
Oh and Jan is the lady basically in charge of all the labs. She's very strict, and will yell at you if she comes in and sees you not wearing your goggles/lab coat/etc.

Horrible structure for an introductory chemistry class, not to mention horrible requirement for engineers, especially those who have prior chemistry experience. Don't even get me started on the pathetic, ignorant approach to grading, which was consistently altered throughout the course.

I legitimately believe this course undermined my love of chemistry to the point where I do not want to pursue it any longer, despite it being one of my favorite courses in high school. I cannot be any more glad to finally be done with this class. This class makes 9/10 students hate chemistry. It was a failed experiment into "inquiry-based learning" in which students were forced into pointless experiments and then forced to write pointless, comprehensive reports in a narrowly constrained, subjectively graded format.

That being said, I commend the creators of this curriculum for their intent.

Unfortunately, the end product was hundreds of angry students like myself who despised the class.

Solutions: if you're going to do inquiry-based learning, do it right. It takes more than a pointless prompt and a little TA guidance. It requires that the students be interested in what they are doing (nobody cares about accuracy of glassware!) and actively involved in the decision-making process (e.g. coming up with their own projects, free to explore options, etc.). It also means that all students must have the background knowledge and experience to perform laboratory procedures (which most intro chem students don't have!). Lastly, bring back the lab notebook for exemption protocol. There is no point for qualified students to be repeating old labs for credit.

Easy, but terribly boring class. It mostly depends on the TA you get for your section. Some are fair and not too bad, but others are inconsistent and very hard to understand when they speak. Most of the grades you get back seem randomly determined with little explanation. If you have a solid base in chemistry though, all experiments are super easy.

This is literally the worst class in the university. It is one of the most frustrating things you'll ever experience.

The Head TA and subsequent TAs try to take points off of your quizzes, plans, and reports wherever possible. It is a terrible system, incredibly unfair, and you will hate it. Some students received 50% off there grade for not submitting your report in the right place on Collab. Now, you submit your lab report hard copy for actual grading, and submit it online so they can check plagiarism and make sure you used the right formatting. And for not submitting the online one in the right place, half of your grade is gone. You put in a ton of hours into writing the 7 page lab reports, and they will so easily take half of it away.
I don't know these people, but the way their emails sound and by their policies, they seem like they want to inflict pain on students.
I know you probably don't have a choice in the matter, so I'm sorry, but you are going to suffer. I pity you.

I only had to take this because the department changed the lab format this year... I tested out of the lecture and really shouldn't have had to take the lab.

I'm hoping this is just because of the new format, but the lab was horrible. It barely required any chemistry knowledge and focused far more on writing and following the departments silly formatting guidelines than doing real science.The lab prompts are incredibly vague and typically ask a bunch of scattered questions that don't lead you to a real problem to solve. As a result, most of my lab time was spent fumbling with our procedure figuring out what the lab was trying to accomplish.

The TA's will probably slaughter your reports in the name of formatting even if you have solid content. Honestly, you could probably write a paper that follows their formatting rules, mention the lab topic once or twice, and get an A. So for those of you that test out of lecture (because you obviously know far more chemistry than they'll ever want from you), just bite the bullet and suffer through it. Sorry :/