CHEM 1420

She is a really good chemistry teacher. Compared to the program last year, she is really good. Most classes are straight lecture, but she makes the content easy to understand. She is much better than Metcalf. The most homework is one 30 question Sapling learning assignment per chapter. Each midterm has about 1-2 chapters on it. Midterms are pretty difficult and the averages tend to be around a C, but that is for all 3 chem classes. The reading is optional, but is a good way to study. She is a really good chem teacher and I highly suggest taking the class from her. She seems to really care about the students and tries to get student involvement in the 375 student lecture class. If you sit in the first few rows, it doesn't seem like a huge lecture class. She's definitely made chemistry not as scary as it seems.

Lisa's class is really challenging. You have to understand every concept and detail to do well in this class. Definetly my hardest class and lowest grade for the semester. Thought I was pre-health going into college, but this class steered me away from that path. There are 4 midterms, 1 final, clicker questions, and online homework. The online homework was very helpful for the exams. I do not recommend taking this class to knock out a science requirement unless you hate yourself. My biggest regret this semester was this class :)

I'm not sure why Morkowchuk's class is listed under 1420 and not 1410, but this review is for 1410/1610 (the same class - it's just listed under 1410 in the College and 1610 in the Eschool).
I really enjoyed this course, up until the last part of the course. I found the first three midterms to be very manageable and the questions on them to be very fair, based upon the homework and what was presented in lecture (Morkowchuk clearly stated in the beginning of the semester that if it wasn't in the lecture and wasn't in the homework, it wouldn't be on the exam). However, the fourth midterm was RIDICULOUSLY difficult compared to the other three, and we were given no warning about the increased difficulty level. As a consequence, the average of this exam was significantly lower than the other three averages.
A friend of mine talked to another chemistry professor teaching 1610 at the university, and he APOLOGIZED to the student about the difficulty of the exam that Morkowchuk had written for us.
It is unfair to the students to have the last exam of the semester unexpectedly (randomly) be completely different and an inaccurate representation of my knowledge of the material in that unit. I found the final to also be substantially harder. However, Morkowchuk is a fantastic lecturer. I would be able to recommend this course if only the exam difficulty was consistent throughout the semester, or if Morkowchuk could better communicate to her students how to adequately prepare for her exams instead of randomly making them insane.

HONESTLY...
this is probably one of the most difficult classes when it shouldn't even be that hard. It's just so unnecessary. As someone who is pretty confident about chem because I took AP chem in high school and exempted out and also took 1800 series in the fall, ITS JUST SO EXTRA. She's a good person, but horrible teacher. She confuses people, especially people that have never taken chem, doesn't explain what will be on the test, gives out horrible explanations, and puts unfair questions on the test that was not in the homework, textbook, or practice problems. She just doesn't know what she's doing. If you want to learn chem, just read the textbook ( no guarantees you'll do well on her text though because she doesn't say what's going to be on it and expects you to know 1800 material. )

I wound up taking both semester of Chem and Bio during my second year. I had heard bad things about Leung, and was reluctant to take such a tough double. However, Leung no longer teaches, and Morkowchuk was chosen as his replacement. She was a new professor and took some time to adjust, but I recommend her if you need to take Chem! Homework isn't 'easy', but it is fair and allows plenty of attempts and answers (and you can find help online for them). I took her first semester and choose her again in the second semester because I really began to understand what sorts of questions she'd ask on the exams. Lectures aren't mandatory because she usually posts notes online, but there are in-class assignments through iClicker that account for 20% of your grade. Sometimes these are announced, sometimes they're not. All in all, definitely a fair two semesters of intro Chem at the college level and if you have to get out a prereq, I think this is as good a choice as any!

I made the bad decision of staying with this prof the second semester because I was worried about switching. This class does not seem too bad in class and homework, but then she decides to through in questions that have not been taught. This class really pissed me off.

I took the first half of Intro Chem with Lisa and this semester was far worse than the last. Like last semester, the format of lectures is pretty standard and really the only reason I stayed in her section. I think Lisa is nice during office hours, but her exams are really where the class falls short. The exams have few questions, so even the smallest mistake can cost you a letter grade. Finally, the Mastering homework is awful -- it's time consuming and doesn't help at all.

I feel like Prof Morkowchuk gets more hate than deserved simply because this is a different course. I feel like she makes an effort to be available most hours of the day, even outside her prescribed office hours. She is very approachable and accommodating with various conflicts that may come up, and will work with you to get the best outcome. The examples she uses in class are tangible and easy to grasp-- few examples are abstract conceptual-type stuff that is harder to make sense of. That said, this is an extremely difficult course (made no easier by taking it over the summer) and it is especially hard to get all the material in, so a lot of the material is gone over in class, then it is up to you to practice with the problems assigned. I believe she assigns so many problems as a way to get you in the habit of exposing yourself to different types of problems, but I think she should maybe do that in the beginning, then leave it more to the students to learn and practice in the way they prefer.

Keep in mind that I had Professor Morkowchuk for Chem 1420 during the covid-19 pandemic, so my experience with the class is not quite the norm. I think Morkowchuk is a good lecture and goes over material well. There were a few classes when we were still on grounds, however, where she did not finish all the slides or the problems were rushed. I think the class would do well to be extended by 5 or 10 minutes, which would not be a big deal since it's only a 50 minute class. A major chunk of the work for the class is the Mastering Chemistry problems. I think doing as many practice problems as possible is the best way to succeed in the class, but the Mastering Chemistry set up needs a lot of work. There were a number of problems that were extremely difficult and when I went to office hours the TAs struggled with them as well. Many times I saw the TAs using chegg & they told me she would not ask questions like that on an exam. Another problem with Mastering Chemistry is that the system is very picky. Your set up for the problems could be right, but you had to use more than 5 or more significant figures in your calculations to get the right answer. The best thing though is that the problem sets were "due" each week, but there was full credit for late work, so if you had a really busy week you could get away with putting things off for a little. Make sure you check this though because that may change in the future. For the tests, you need to understand the concepts and then be comfortable with doing a lot of math. She has a no curve policy so make sure you prepare well and watch out for the final exam. All in all, I would not recommend this section of Chemistry 1420. There is an excessive amount of outside work & everything is very math heavy. If you need to take this class, go with Welch. His setup is more conceptual based and has group exams, which, if chem is not your thing, but you need to take this class, seems to work better for people. It's not impossible to get a decent grade (which think of as a B to an A), but you'll need to do a lot of practice problems.

I feel like Lisa gets so much hate that she doesn't deserve. She really cares about her students and truly wants them to succeed; she's very accommodating and will help you as long as you take it upon yourself to get help!! I feel like so many students struggle but don't utilize her as a resource, but if you go to her she will 100% try to help you. The other option for 1420 was Welch, and I had him for 1410 and HATED IT. He was so disorganized and would go off on tangents in lecture that were boring and unrelated to chemistry, which made me more confused about what we needed to know for the exams. He was also hard to get a hold of. I made the decision to switch to Lisa for 1420 and was pretty nervous about it in the beginning, but I couldn't have made a better decision. Lisa's class was SO STRUCTURED and her expectations were incredibly clear. Regarding homework, all Lisa assigned was reading textbook chapters (were very short and you didn't really have to read them unless you needed to) and doing a Mastering Chemistry problem set due every Friday. Mastering was great practice for the exam!! Her exams were not super hard, but definitely not easy either (it's chemistry what do you expect), but if you put in the work by doing problems on Mastering and reviewing her lecture notes then it's possible to get an A. Take Lisa if you like structured lectures and straightforward exams. I always felt like Welch was trying to trick us on both the individual and group tests. Chemistry's difficult, but Lisa makes it doable.