CHEM 3420

This class is no joke. Avoid it if you can as it is generally for Chem or Chem Eng majors. The topic of physically chemistry is no joke. The math is high level including diff eq and linear algebra so having Calc 3 is very helpful. I took the class without having calc 3 and I STRUGGLED with the math. The homeworks are not easy and very time consuming. Sometimes the questions will be examples or problems from the textbook or other physical chemistry textbooks thus the solution manual and the internet are key to solving the problem sets. The take home exams will take many many hours so be prepared to spend the week just working on the problem set. The inclass exams are stupid hard. It feels like any amount of studying is worthless.

Metcalf as a lecturer is not terrible as he tries to be enthusiastic but does not seem to grasp the material well and can have you leaving class more confused than when you got there.

GOOD LUCK!

Read the book
it is great.
Get in a group
it helps.
Life
lessons.

Metcalf is bad.

Keys to success: read the book. Watch Khan Academy videos. Consider not going to class or else risk being confused when Metcalf confuses himself. Have a good problem set group. Consider not taking this class.

Similar to his teaching style in Quantum, Metcalf was pretty organized in his lecture. It would immensely help to read the Mcquarrie and Simon before class. The book is not as good as teaching thermo as it was teaching quantum, but still does the job. I would still highly recommend Metcalf as the professor because he covered the material to its full length. He even emailed the list of potential topics that would be covered on the exam, nothing outside of those listed topics would be on the exam, albeit it was an extremely long and detailed list. So there was no confusion on what would be on the test. However, like his Quantum teaching style, his exams were only 4-5 questions long and covered 10-15% of the material. Pretty tough to study, but teh grade only reflects your performance on such a small amount of questions and topics.

Overall, still thought Metcalf was a good professor to take this class. I took it over the summer. Metcalf taught half the course, and Fred Richardson taught the other half of the course. Ended up with an A-