CHEM 1821

This course is hard. The class is broken into lecture and lab. In the lectures, she uses the same iClicker program, so attendance is mandatory every week. And, just like in the 1820 course, her lectures are horrendously boring. She spends 15 minutes describing the purpose of a beaker, then glosses over the reaction mechanism you need to understand perfectly.

The lab itself is rather enjoyable. As a prospective chemistry major, I had much fun in the lab, learning techniques and using different reagents and getting products in the end. Its very entertaining and it is all individual, so you really get to understand the techniques well. Make sure you are comfortable with the theory and execution of each separation and analysis technique, as they will be used in the later labs and later courses.

The worst part of the course are the lab reports. You are expected to write a full 4-5 page lab report every week for every experiment. This is not too hard on its own. If you have good work ethic, you can knock it out in 3-4 hours. However, it is the grading of the lab reports that is horrible. Firstly, you are not given a rubric of any kind. You are given 3/4 things you must discuss within it and expected to write a full 5 pages. As for formatting help, all you are given is 2 example articles that are real published articles. They are somewhat helpful, not too much. While you do not have a rubric, the TAs who grade it do. They have a checklist of things you need to include in each report, and take off points for each thing that is not done properly. As a rule of thumb, always include percent yield calculations explicitly shown, but there are dozens of other little things that they will take points off for unless they are explicitly mentioned, and no one will ever tell you this unless you ask a TA directly in office hours, or when you see the comments on the lab report and why you got points taken off.

I think this style of teaching is horrible, not giving you any information and only revealing it once you get points off for it. You really have to find things out on your own, not even collaborating with classmates is very helpful. In all, the lab report grading is horribly designed and the worst part about this course.

This course also has a final exam, which is rare for a lab course. It covers the the theory behind each technique as well as designing some experimental procedures. It is not too hard, similar to the 1820 exams, and a little studying will get you good results.

The only good thing about this course is that the TAs are awesome and super helpful. They are there to help you, so reach out whenever you need anything. They are the bridge between you and the professor, and most of the time they are on your side. Lastly, try to enroll in a lab section that has few people (usually the Friday section has very few people) as it makes for a much nicer experience than working in a fully crowded lab.