Professor
Mackenzie Anderson
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Grading as follow: 4 quizzes (20%, lowest dropped) 10 Problem sets (15%, lowest 2 dropped) 2 midterms (35%, lowest dropped) Final (30%) Considering F22 was Anderson’s first quarter teaching such a big class such as 14C, I can definitely see her improvement over the course of the quarter. She was very nervous and unclear during lecture in the first few weeks which made learning hard, but she definitely got way better by the time the quarter was over. She sometimes would make mistakes and have to go back over something or fix the slides which was a bit confusing at times. The weekly homeworks in this class were really hard but I do ultimately think they helped me learn better. However, they were graded solely on correctness and I wish they graded more on completion. Two homework get dropped so that helped a bit if you bombed a couple of them but honestly the harsh grading of the homeworks hurt my grade the most. The group me was helpful for the homework as people would share answers, so get on it! The 4 quizzes throughout the quarter were also pretty easy. You get to drop one quiz so when I bombed one of them but got 100s on the other 3 it definitely was a relief. The quizzes were meant to be in person during discussion but only the first quiz was in person for us due to circumstances such as holidays and the TA strike. The two midterms I felt were very fair. The first midterm I thought was really easy and was very fair covering what we learned in lecture. The second was a bit harder because the content got more difficult, but it wasn’t horrible and I felt the content was fair. The questions were really clear and not confusing to answer. I also felt the final was pretty fair, the only problem was that we hadn’t gotten our midterm 2 grade back so it was hard to get a gauge when you were studying if you really knew the material or not. Ultimately, I don’t think Anderson is that bad and everyone is gonna have to take 14C with her for the foreseeable future. This definitely was a learning quarter for her so I think she will be much better in later quarters as she gains more experience. She is also a very kind professor and wants to help you. My biggest suggestion for this class is finding a copy of “Organic Chemistry as a Second Language” by David Klein. Doing the problems associated with lecture was extremely helpful in learning the material since there was never enough time to truly grasp the concepts in a 50 minute lecture. Ochem is all about practice and I think this book was 1000% more helpful than the textbook and sometimes the lecture slides. On another note, do not be like me and take chem 14C and CL and the same time. It says they can be coreqs, but we learned spectroscopy way early in the quarter in CL and way late in C. You’ll end up having to do a lot of learning outside of class and also have to catch up learning nomenclature and functional groups really fast too as professor Anderson doesn’t really go over those either. It was doable but not an enjoyable experience so save yourself the frustration unless you really don't have a choice.
Fall 2022 - Grading as follow: 4 quizzes (20%, lowest dropped) 10 Problem sets (15%, lowest 2 dropped) 2 midterms (35%, lowest dropped) Final (30%) Considering F22 was Anderson’s first quarter teaching such a big class such as 14C, I can definitely see her improvement over the course of the quarter. She was very nervous and unclear during lecture in the first few weeks which made learning hard, but she definitely got way better by the time the quarter was over. She sometimes would make mistakes and have to go back over something or fix the slides which was a bit confusing at times. The weekly homeworks in this class were really hard but I do ultimately think they helped me learn better. However, they were graded solely on correctness and I wish they graded more on completion. Two homework get dropped so that helped a bit if you bombed a couple of them but honestly the harsh grading of the homeworks hurt my grade the most. The group me was helpful for the homework as people would share answers, so get on it! The 4 quizzes throughout the quarter were also pretty easy. You get to drop one quiz so when I bombed one of them but got 100s on the other 3 it definitely was a relief. The quizzes were meant to be in person during discussion but only the first quiz was in person for us due to circumstances such as holidays and the TA strike. The two midterms I felt were very fair. The first midterm I thought was really easy and was very fair covering what we learned in lecture. The second was a bit harder because the content got more difficult, but it wasn’t horrible and I felt the content was fair. The questions were really clear and not confusing to answer. I also felt the final was pretty fair, the only problem was that we hadn’t gotten our midterm 2 grade back so it was hard to get a gauge when you were studying if you really knew the material or not. Ultimately, I don’t think Anderson is that bad and everyone is gonna have to take 14C with her for the foreseeable future. This definitely was a learning quarter for her so I think she will be much better in later quarters as she gains more experience. She is also a very kind professor and wants to help you. My biggest suggestion for this class is finding a copy of “Organic Chemistry as a Second Language” by David Klein. Doing the problems associated with lecture was extremely helpful in learning the material since there was never enough time to truly grasp the concepts in a 50 minute lecture. Ochem is all about practice and I think this book was 1000% more helpful than the textbook and sometimes the lecture slides. On another note, do not be like me and take chem 14C and CL and the same time. It says they can be coreqs, but we learned spectroscopy way early in the quarter in CL and way late in C. You’ll end up having to do a lot of learning outside of class and also have to catch up learning nomenclature and functional groups really fast too as professor Anderson doesn’t really go over those either. It was doable but not an enjoyable experience so save yourself the frustration unless you really don't have a choice.
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