CHEM 2410

This was Professor Hsu's last time teaching this course at UVA, but I think he did a great job and I would have recommended him. He really does try to look out for his students and help them as much as possible. The tests were very long and difficult, as expected for organic chemistry, but the best way to study for them was to do as many practice problems as possible. There is a lot of problem/puzzle solving, so if you can figure out how to do that, you will be okay. Between the test corrections and all the other opportunities/assignments, I came out with a good grade and I am hopefully prepared for Orgo II. #tCFfall22

Hsu is 100% the best professor to take orgo 1 with. As a person, he is such a nice wonderful guy who clearly wants the best for his students and who is a solid lecturer. Exams are of course relatively important to your grade, but there are so many other factors that go into the gradebook that can boost your grade, all of which are pretty much automatic 95+. On a weekly basis, the homework assignments are good practice of the material but they are not ridiculously hard or tedious and do not make you want to throw your laptop into a wall like most online homework. Most of the work you do outside of class is just working from the textbook to get the concepts down and practice them leading up to the exams. Not gonna sugar coat it, the exams are tough. Definitely harder than Samonina and probably harder than Frantz, but the corrections are such a life saver, and the midterms are only worth 15% each. You can and will get half credit back on all the questions you miss (the TA's hold office hours where they go through the exam questions so you will always be able to do all your corrections), and you do not have to justify the corrections like in Frantz. Samonina's exams are definitely easier, but Hsu's class ends up with higher grades every time because he has corrections. The final is also a doozy of a test, but since we can't do corrections he curves it. Overall, you will have a better time week to week with Hsu (no quizzes, reasonable homeworks, good lecturer), and end up with a better grade. Nobody seems to know it quite yet, but to me he is clearly the best option.

Here to put some respect on Hsu's name because these reviews are so outdated. It sounds to me that he changed a lot about his teaching style/course since these evaluations. Honestly, TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HSU. He provides so many opportunities for you to improve your grade. The components of your grade are: going to discussion section (points for attendance), homework assignments, BACON tutorials, pre and post progress evaluations, 3 midterms, and a final. Additionally, we have 2 extra credit opportunities (a mid-semester and final course eval, so extra points for literally just writing your opinion rather than doing challenging problems like Samonina requires). Okay, now, the midterms. They are definitely tough. But, you should know that all of your orgo exams will be extremely tough at UVA no matter the professor. Hsu's exams are doable, but they do require a lot of brain power. As with all orgo classes, the average on the first exam is the highest (it's just reviewing gen chem essentially while learning some basic foundations for drawing/naming molecules). The second exam is the worst one. It's your first taste of what orgo actually is like. The average for the second exam was ~20 points lower than the first. The third exam is on more difficult material, but the average is usually actually a little higher than that of the second one (I'm guessing it's because you know what to prepare yourself for). Don't stress too much about your raw score, though. For each midterm, you get to do test corrections for half of your points back (a 70 becomes an 85, a 60 becomes an 80, etc.). For Hsu's corrections, you just have to go to TA office hours. The TAs will guide you through the problems you missed and you essentially just copy them down. Unlike Frantz, Hsu doesn't require you to provide a detailed explanation with each correction. The final exam is most similar to the third midterm, covering essentially the same material with maybe one or two questions from earlier exams. Because we can't do corrections on the final, Hsu usually curves it. Hsu does not want his students to fail, as is proven by how much he helps out your grade. He's a really nice and approachable professor. My class genuinely really liked Hsu as a person, and I never heard anyone complain about him. The material is definitely difficult, but Hsu is the best person to teach you it!

This class requires is a lot of practice and diligence by the students themselves to understand the material. Personally, before each exam I would go through and do all of the practice problems that are spread throughout the chapter to test knowledge of specific concepts as well as the end of chapter problems (assuming he uses Klein again). Since the book doesn't have an answer key, I highly recommend buying the supplemental one off of Amazon, as having the answers, as well as detailed explanations for them, will give you a huge advantage and higher understanding of the material in the textbook. As for Professor Hsu himself, he was one of the nicest people I've ever met. He truly cared about what people thought of the class and how he could help them learn the material better. Because it was his first semester teaching ever, the class was admittedly a little rocky. The first midterm was an easy review of gen chem with the simplest possible questions about new material (even a problem drawn directly from lecture; avg ~ 77). The second midterm was incredibly difficult and many struggled to finish everything (too much difficult material crammed into one exam; avg ~48). The third midterm was only slightly less difficult. It was a lot of material, but easier if you had everything memorized (it was regurgitating everything from the textbook; avg ~ 55). The final was very generous, in that about half was previous exam questions which we had the answer keys to and he gave half credit back as a curve (which he did as test corrections on the midterms). In lecture, he mostly repeated what was in the textbook, and it was sometimes helpful to read before and review in lecture. Discussions were very disorganized and not really structured or helpful in any way, although the TAs realized this and tried new methods for making it more worth our time. TL;DR Overall Hsu is a great guy and obviously very knowledgeable and passionate about Orgo, but because it was his first year teaching, there were some things that needed figuring out (exam difficulty, discussions, etc.).

After completing this course, I feel like Professor Hsu did a good job of teaching the material at hand. He is very approachable, friendly, and engaging. However, he knows how to write extremely difficult midterms. With that being said, I received a grade in the 30s on the second midterm and got an A- in the class. It IS possible! His class has a lot of extra grade boosters that really do help, and, as long as the average on the exams aren’t high, he gives half credit back with corrections! I also enjoyed his small class size at around 90 students. He is new to teaching so he doesn’t have the best grasp on how to be fair (especially on exams!) but it all works out in the end. Good luck in orgo!

On a positive note, Professor Hsu is the nicest, sweetest, and funniest teacher. However, it pains me to say this but, his lectures are extremely boring and useless. He is clearly passionate about what he teaches and teaching us in general , but he isn't effective and sometimes doesn't seem to have the answers to our questions. As for homework, it is very picky and annoying, but it is extremely important. It is worth a lot. We also have other assignments (i.e BACON) that are easy A's. Discussion was also mandatory. Mine was from 7-9 and was very pointless. I learned nothing from it and used it to either do nothing or other work. I would've skipped if not for the clicker questions at the beginning and end of class. Regardless of those things, discussion was also an easy way to get points since you didn't have to answer the clicker questions correctly. Finally, the exams. They are the hardest, longest, and most unfair tests that I have ever taken. People rarely left the test early, and if they did, it was because they gave up and just wanted to go. There are no multiple choice and we are tested on either the most obscure material or on things that we didn't cover well. These exams are dependent on memorization . As a whole, I would love to know Professor Hsu outside of the classroom, however I would not recommend taking this class unless you're confident in your Orgo skills or don't care about your GPA

While I respect Professor Hsu as an adult, I absolutely hated his class with all my heart. There is really no point in showing up to his lectures as his slides are usually ripped off of Frantz's class and/or completely regurgitates what the textbook says. Our homework app Sapling took off petty points for small mistakes when Frantz's class did not, and our tests were unnecessarily difficult and quite frankly, just annoying. He had us write out full mechanisms, SEVERAL OF THEM, on tests and our test average turned out to be abysmally low for midterm grades, even for an orgo class. He changes the syllabus on his own whenever he pleases as well, which screwed his students over quite a few times as well. Our exams were always short answer (no multiple choice ever unlike Frantz), and while the undergrad TAs were really great about making up office hours, the head graduate TA and professor Hsu don't seem to be very responsive or as caring about their students. Discussion time was also a waste of two hours and many students just sit there and do other work or just zone out. Really, spare yourself the time and just read the textbook on your own and take someone else's class. Our class put in many times the effort than Frantz's classes, but still ended up with lower grade averages. Don't risk it like we did for this review lol. TAKE SOMEONE ELSE'S CLASS