CHEM 1611

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 :/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.