CHEM 2410

What a class..... For those who took the risk to take Orgo with a Professor Emeritus in the hopes of learning from the famous Sundberg, I would venture to say 99.9% were let down. A caveat to note is that Sundberg is 80 years old and the fact that he is still able to recall concepts from Orgo and made it to every 8 am is impressive within itself. Unfortunately, although he was physically there, he might have been doing nothing - by the end of the semester, I would say maybe 30% attended because 1) the lectures were incredibly dry, 2) he literally stood at the projector and wrote random ideas in sharpie with no direction 3) he would go through a chapter a week and draw random mechanisms with no insight or help. This class might as well have been taught by Yurkanis (the author of the textbook). I came out with a good grade in this class but without my broad orgo class in high school, I would've been lost. The TA's (Serbulea's) saved this course and often complained about how little insight Sundberg gave them. At the end of the semester, the grade distribution was A+ > 95.00; A >93.00; A- >89.00; B+ > 85.0; B > 74.0; C+ > 71.0 ; C > 67.0; C - > 60.00; D > 55.0; D- > 50.00. This results in a distribution of 22% A, 52 % B, 21% C and 4% D. Yes, I know that there is no B-, this was the email he sent us. From an objective standpoint and witnessing others' disappointment and confusion, I am utterly disappointed that UVa let a class like this be taught.

I took this class at 8am because reviews of professor Sundberg seemed to be the best. I now realize those reviews were old and outdated, like him. He's retired and came in to cover for one semester. He rushes through lectures and doesn't stop to make sure everyone understands, often brushing off student's questions so that he can continue with the lecture. Because he was so quick in his lectures, he got ahead of the syllabus making it almost impossible to keep up with the readings and then added on an additional chapter to make up for extra time. He writes his notes on a piece of paper projected on the screen, so it's often not legible or he moves on too quickly. He does then scan these notes and upload them to collab (when the assistant is available because he cannot do it himself). The tests themselves can go either way, but his grading style is harsh.