CHEM 3420

Metcalf had taught two weeks of this class over the summer, and Richardson taught the other half. Richardson is a delightful elderly man. He was so happy to teach, and he was willing to get to know students by name. He posted all of his lecture notes online, and he had really neat handwriting. Metcalf had also posted his notes online, but since his writing was so messy, it was practically pointless. But Richardson's were really straight forward!

Richardson does tend to go off on tangents and random material though. So there were a couple classes that were just complete review or that wouldn't be on the test. His lectures weren't as methodical as Metcalf's. Most of the learning came from working out his problem sets. Unlike Metcalf's 5-8 question problem sets, which were very thought-heavy at first, Richardson's problem sets were 8-10 questions, calculuation-based. They were more tricky in my opinion because there were certain wording that would affect the conditions of the question, but that was thermodynamics in general. Also in this class, I didn't know when I got an answer wrong. The answers all looked right to me when I completed it. In quantum, I could feel when I ended up with wrong answers.

Richardson's test was very comprehensive of all the material. He did suggest in class that his tests were very much like the questions from the back of the Mcquarrie and Simon, so I had religiously poured through those questions. That helped me immensely in that final because Richardson asked questions from a little bit of everything, rather than Metcalf's little coverage of material. Richardson's test were 20-30 questions , calculations-based, iwth some conceptual-based questions. I think I do prefer Richardson's test to Metcalf's.

Ended up with an A- in the class. Really liked Richardson as the professor, but I know he doesn't teach much as he is retired.