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Mackenzie Anderson
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I heard that Professor Anderson was terrible in the previous quarter, but she must have really improved because I actually loved her! Her lectures were generally very easy to follow and she explained things quite thoroughly. She also has an amazing policy where you can ask her a question anytime if she's in her office, even if it's outside of office hours which was very helpful for me since office hours were often packed. Her homework assignments were very fair, one due every week, and entirely based off of lecture. Her exams were also incredibly fair I thought, with all of the problems being the same style as the homework or the practice exams.
I would highly recommend taking this class with Anderson. She certainly makes ochem more approachable despite its stigma.
Overall this class with Anderson is fine and definitely doable even if the prof is fairly middling (tho still genuinely wants to teach). There will be times where you'll have to self-study content because the lecture didn't make sense, but there are a lot of resources given to do that. I personally thought ochem was more fun than genchem.
Grading - she drops two problem sets, one quiz, and one midterm, plus a small extra credit for filling the evaluation. Scale's also adjusted at the end of the quarter if average is low (I think A was at least 92 for our quarter). It's honestly super generous and def saved by grade
Lectures - she uploads slides before lecture and they're specifically made to take notes on, and I think that was a good design decision to follow along during lecture. Her live explanations aren't the best though, and there were points where I simply stopped following along because none of her explanations seemed to be connecting. She uploads her own completed/filled slides, and in general her illustrations and written stuff are clearer than her verbal stuff.
Homework - weekly problem sets are fair in length and content, wouldn't say they're too easy or hard.
Quiz - 2-5 questions for 20-40 minutes; also fair, though the small amoutn of quesions means if u get something wrong it has a big effect on the grade for that particular quiz.
Exams - 2 midterms and final; Pretty much just a bunch of questions in a similar format to the problem sets. Again I would say fair in length and content.
Resources - She does give a lot of other supplementary material for us to practice. DO THE KLEIN PROBLEMS. She also lists a bunch of other textbook problems and online resources.
The workload in this class is very doable. Besides the exams, Professor Anderson assigns 1 problem set each week, and then there are 4 quizzes throughout the entire quarter but the lowest quiz grade gets dropped. The problem sets were a little tricky but the grading was not too harsh. The quizzes were pretty difficult in my opinion and they can definitely hurt your grade if you do not score highly on the top 3 quizzes. The aspect of Professor Anderson's teaching that I disliked most was her lack of clarity when explaining concepts. Her lectures and lecture notes are very unorganized. The best thing you can use for understanding these concepts is the KLEIN book that she refers to at the beginning of the quarter. I wish she would explain all of our class concepts in the way Klein does. She made concepts that are not even that difficult very hard to understand in class. And, in lectures she jumps from one thing to the next without clarity on the previous topics which results in students feeling confused. Her office hours are also so chaotic. She seemed very overwhelmed and not patient when explaining topics, and attending these office hours left me feeling even more stressed. I wish Professor Anderson would explain the concepts in this class as if she was teaching students who did not know anything about organic chemistry yet. Instead, she rushed through the material as if we understood everything right off the bat.
There is a lot of material to cover in CHEM 14C and frankly not a little time. Anderson was not a favorite at all for most students, but I think she really tried to make the class better for us than what is was for the past students.
The first quiz was the most difficult, but after some feedback the rest were all much easier, as long as you pay attention closely. She also stresses the really important things that we'd be likely tested on, and was pretty clear on what kinds of questions will be on the tests, and what concepts will not be on the tests. I'd say at least we knew exactly the type of things we needed to be studying.
The problem sets were a bit stressful but they ultimately reflected what the tests were like, so if you study those, you should do alright on the exams and quizzes.
The drop policies were also very nice, dropping the lowest of two problem sets, one quiz, and an entire midterm. My advice is to really try to get as close to a perfect score on the first midterm. It's much easier than the rest and will give your grade some cushion.
Anderson often had to correct small mistakes in the lecture slides or back-pedal on something she said, but usually she accommodated for it somehow, like giving credit when she normally would not have. And I think she was pretty organized and on schedule. It was only towards the last few weeks of the quarter where things started to get a little much. And she was always having office hours and genuinely cared for our success in the class. But this is a class where you shouldn't depend on the professor too much. READ the David Klein chapters BEFORE lecture, trust me. And really get the most out of your TA in discussion.
This is Professor Anderson's second quarter of teaching and personally, I think she has improved greatly from her first quarter of teaching. That being said there are still things that could be improved on.
Grading: She is a true blessing with her grade scale being that if you tried in the class and got around B and As in the homework and high C's on the exams it is still possible for A-. She drops one midterm, one quiz, and two problem sets. She also curves the class to help you.
Lectures: I recommend attending the lectures because the bruin cast sometimes lacks audio. The lectures contain the material needed for the exams and homework because there is no set textbook. Still, I would say it is necessary to do some of the recommended reading to understand and get practice in.
Do the Klein book. It fills in the confusion that comes from the lectures because they do go by pretty quickly. She has improved her pacing since last quarter tho but she does rush a little bit. There are often some mistakes in the lectures that she catches later on which she announces on the announcements.
Homework: The practice sets are fair and a good indication of the difficulty of the exams. My problem sets were graded kind of harshly. Do the homework properly and you would be able to do most of the exams without a problem.
Quizzes: They are a coinflip with difficulty, it is often 4 questions with 20 min to do them. It is doable but it is possible that some quizzes will be really easy compared to others.
Exams: The exams are kind of long and when she says that everything is fair game she means it. However, I would say that all of her exams are extremely fair, especially the final.
She tries her best and is willing to change dates for homework and quizzes. There is some miscommunication with her TAs and sometimes the information between the two is not the same.
I feel like a lot of people are being difficult on Anderson. It may be because I was an upperclassman when I took this class so I have had my fair share of difficult classes but this class was easy. If you do all of the problems that Anderson mentions from the klein books, you should understand the concepts well. Although the homeworks can sometimes feel difficult, the finals, midterms, and quizzes are all easier than the homeworks and studying will help you get a good grade.
Anderson can sometimes be disorganized but I found that the slides and lecture videos were all posted when I needed them to be. I have had worse chemistry teachers then anderson and I think the grading scheme was extremely generous.
Coming into this class I was nervous because of the awful reviews from the fall quarter, but overall I liked Dr. Anderson and her class.
The class itself is difficult (it's ochem lol). I personally liked ochem better than gen chem because the problems felt fun to solve once you get good at them, but that's a personal preference. There's a ton of material and it isn't easy to understand right off the bat. The lectures were a little disorganized and sometimes irrelevant to the actual material. It often felt like she was teaching a review class and expected us to already know the basics of the material, so would skip over important basic information. You need to supplement lectures with outside resources-- Organic Chemistry as a Second Language by David Klein is a godsend, and I also searched topics on Youtube for help.
Anderson is actually helpful during office hours. I would recommend going as often as you can and asking questions. Her explanations feel much more clear and more relevant to the problem types you need to know.
The grading scheme is flexible overall and it's possible to do well, especially if you put a good amount of effort into the quizzes, homework (!!!!), and at least one midterm. I got C's on one midterm and the final and still finished with an A.
Anderson herself is a cool person. She's funny and easy to talk to. The class is manageable and if you put the effort in outside of lecture (office hours, finding helpful TAs, practice on your own) you'll do OK.
I feel like the comments are too harsh. I really love her as a professor. I look forward to going to class because of the way she teaches. I wish she was teaching 14D. The first time I went to her class I went to my mom and was like "MOM I FINALLY UNDERSTAND CHEMISTRY"! I love her and I would 110% recommend her!
DO NOT take this class with Anderson. Find another way. If you're like me and got backed into a corner and have no choice but to take this class with her, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do but don't even consider taking another difficult class along with it. I have no idea how much of my difficulty to attribute to her, and how much to the fact that this was her first quarter, but this class was a dumpster fire from beginning to end. We were perpetually behind, to the point where she had to start posting additional recorded lectures we had to watch on our own time because class time wasn't enough. The homework was unreasonably difficult because it was supposed to "foster a spirit of collaboration," which would have been great if our TAs had any idea how to do it either. We finally figured out that what was happening was that she would tell the first lecture something, then tell the second lecture a different way, and then say something completely different in her meetings with the TAs, and then we would all show up to TA office hours and have to fight over how to do it because everyone received a different version of the story. Every single answer key she posted was full of errors, and she finally had to put a cap on regrade requests because everyone kept catching the mistakes and wanted their points back. I finally broke down at the end of the quarter and hired a private tutor (TAs were on strike), who pointed out that the reason I missed one of the homework questions is because Anderson forgot to include the other half of the molecule on the homework document. I emailed her about it, but she elected to ignore that portion of my email and I received no points back. Her tests are unreasonably difficult and are full of curve balls. Do yourself a favor though--buy the Klein books. They are worth it I promise, as I was constantly comparing them to my lecture notes and realizing that they actually contained the correct information. Also Professor Dave Explains on YouTube. I did get a good grade in this class but trust me, I had to fight tooth and nail for it, going to as many office hours a week as possible, constantly emailing her and the TAs, teaching myself, hiring a tutor, you get it. Unquestionably the worst class I have taken here, and considering I had Scerri for both 14A AND 14B, that should really tell you something.
I heard that Professor Anderson was terrible in the previous quarter, but she must have really improved because I actually loved her! Her lectures were generally very easy to follow and she explained things quite thoroughly. She also has an amazing policy where you can ask her a question anytime if she's in her office, even if it's outside of office hours which was very helpful for me since office hours were often packed. Her homework assignments were very fair, one due every week, and entirely based off of lecture. Her exams were also incredibly fair I thought, with all of the problems being the same style as the homework or the practice exams.
I would highly recommend taking this class with Anderson. She certainly makes ochem more approachable despite its stigma.
Overall this class with Anderson is fine and definitely doable even if the prof is fairly middling (tho still genuinely wants to teach). There will be times where you'll have to self-study content because the lecture didn't make sense, but there are a lot of resources given to do that. I personally thought ochem was more fun than genchem.
Grading - she drops two problem sets, one quiz, and one midterm, plus a small extra credit for filling the evaluation. Scale's also adjusted at the end of the quarter if average is low (I think A was at least 92 for our quarter). It's honestly super generous and def saved by grade
Lectures - she uploads slides before lecture and they're specifically made to take notes on, and I think that was a good design decision to follow along during lecture. Her live explanations aren't the best though, and there were points where I simply stopped following along because none of her explanations seemed to be connecting. She uploads her own completed/filled slides, and in general her illustrations and written stuff are clearer than her verbal stuff.
Homework - weekly problem sets are fair in length and content, wouldn't say they're too easy or hard.
Quiz - 2-5 questions for 20-40 minutes; also fair, though the small amoutn of quesions means if u get something wrong it has a big effect on the grade for that particular quiz.
Exams - 2 midterms and final; Pretty much just a bunch of questions in a similar format to the problem sets. Again I would say fair in length and content.
Resources - She does give a lot of other supplementary material for us to practice. DO THE KLEIN PROBLEMS. She also lists a bunch of other textbook problems and online resources.
The workload in this class is very doable. Besides the exams, Professor Anderson assigns 1 problem set each week, and then there are 4 quizzes throughout the entire quarter but the lowest quiz grade gets dropped. The problem sets were a little tricky but the grading was not too harsh. The quizzes were pretty difficult in my opinion and they can definitely hurt your grade if you do not score highly on the top 3 quizzes. The aspect of Professor Anderson's teaching that I disliked most was her lack of clarity when explaining concepts. Her lectures and lecture notes are very unorganized. The best thing you can use for understanding these concepts is the KLEIN book that she refers to at the beginning of the quarter. I wish she would explain all of our class concepts in the way Klein does. She made concepts that are not even that difficult very hard to understand in class. And, in lectures she jumps from one thing to the next without clarity on the previous topics which results in students feeling confused. Her office hours are also so chaotic. She seemed very overwhelmed and not patient when explaining topics, and attending these office hours left me feeling even more stressed. I wish Professor Anderson would explain the concepts in this class as if she was teaching students who did not know anything about organic chemistry yet. Instead, she rushed through the material as if we understood everything right off the bat.
There is a lot of material to cover in CHEM 14C and frankly not a little time. Anderson was not a favorite at all for most students, but I think she really tried to make the class better for us than what is was for the past students.
The first quiz was the most difficult, but after some feedback the rest were all much easier, as long as you pay attention closely. She also stresses the really important things that we'd be likely tested on, and was pretty clear on what kinds of questions will be on the tests, and what concepts will not be on the tests. I'd say at least we knew exactly the type of things we needed to be studying.
The problem sets were a bit stressful but they ultimately reflected what the tests were like, so if you study those, you should do alright on the exams and quizzes.
The drop policies were also very nice, dropping the lowest of two problem sets, one quiz, and an entire midterm. My advice is to really try to get as close to a perfect score on the first midterm. It's much easier than the rest and will give your grade some cushion.
Anderson often had to correct small mistakes in the lecture slides or back-pedal on something she said, but usually she accommodated for it somehow, like giving credit when she normally would not have. And I think she was pretty organized and on schedule. It was only towards the last few weeks of the quarter where things started to get a little much. And she was always having office hours and genuinely cared for our success in the class. But this is a class where you shouldn't depend on the professor too much. READ the David Klein chapters BEFORE lecture, trust me. And really get the most out of your TA in discussion.
This is Professor Anderson's second quarter of teaching and personally, I think she has improved greatly from her first quarter of teaching. That being said there are still things that could be improved on.
Grading: She is a true blessing with her grade scale being that if you tried in the class and got around B and As in the homework and high C's on the exams it is still possible for A-. She drops one midterm, one quiz, and two problem sets. She also curves the class to help you.
Lectures: I recommend attending the lectures because the bruin cast sometimes lacks audio. The lectures contain the material needed for the exams and homework because there is no set textbook. Still, I would say it is necessary to do some of the recommended reading to understand and get practice in.
Do the Klein book. It fills in the confusion that comes from the lectures because they do go by pretty quickly. She has improved her pacing since last quarter tho but she does rush a little bit. There are often some mistakes in the lectures that she catches later on which she announces on the announcements.
Homework: The practice sets are fair and a good indication of the difficulty of the exams. My problem sets were graded kind of harshly. Do the homework properly and you would be able to do most of the exams without a problem.
Quizzes: They are a coinflip with difficulty, it is often 4 questions with 20 min to do them. It is doable but it is possible that some quizzes will be really easy compared to others.
Exams: The exams are kind of long and when she says that everything is fair game she means it. However, I would say that all of her exams are extremely fair, especially the final.
She tries her best and is willing to change dates for homework and quizzes. There is some miscommunication with her TAs and sometimes the information between the two is not the same.
I feel like a lot of people are being difficult on Anderson. It may be because I was an upperclassman when I took this class so I have had my fair share of difficult classes but this class was easy. If you do all of the problems that Anderson mentions from the klein books, you should understand the concepts well. Although the homeworks can sometimes feel difficult, the finals, midterms, and quizzes are all easier than the homeworks and studying will help you get a good grade.
Anderson can sometimes be disorganized but I found that the slides and lecture videos were all posted when I needed them to be. I have had worse chemistry teachers then anderson and I think the grading scheme was extremely generous.
Coming into this class I was nervous because of the awful reviews from the fall quarter, but overall I liked Dr. Anderson and her class.
The class itself is difficult (it's ochem lol). I personally liked ochem better than gen chem because the problems felt fun to solve once you get good at them, but that's a personal preference. There's a ton of material and it isn't easy to understand right off the bat. The lectures were a little disorganized and sometimes irrelevant to the actual material. It often felt like she was teaching a review class and expected us to already know the basics of the material, so would skip over important basic information. You need to supplement lectures with outside resources-- Organic Chemistry as a Second Language by David Klein is a godsend, and I also searched topics on Youtube for help.
Anderson is actually helpful during office hours. I would recommend going as often as you can and asking questions. Her explanations feel much more clear and more relevant to the problem types you need to know.
The grading scheme is flexible overall and it's possible to do well, especially if you put a good amount of effort into the quizzes, homework (!!!!), and at least one midterm. I got C's on one midterm and the final and still finished with an A.
Anderson herself is a cool person. She's funny and easy to talk to. The class is manageable and if you put the effort in outside of lecture (office hours, finding helpful TAs, practice on your own) you'll do OK.
I feel like the comments are too harsh. I really love her as a professor. I look forward to going to class because of the way she teaches. I wish she was teaching 14D. The first time I went to her class I went to my mom and was like "MOM I FINALLY UNDERSTAND CHEMISTRY"! I love her and I would 110% recommend her!
DO NOT take this class with Anderson. Find another way. If you're like me and got backed into a corner and have no choice but to take this class with her, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do but don't even consider taking another difficult class along with it. I have no idea how much of my difficulty to attribute to her, and how much to the fact that this was her first quarter, but this class was a dumpster fire from beginning to end. We were perpetually behind, to the point where she had to start posting additional recorded lectures we had to watch on our own time because class time wasn't enough. The homework was unreasonably difficult because it was supposed to "foster a spirit of collaboration," which would have been great if our TAs had any idea how to do it either. We finally figured out that what was happening was that she would tell the first lecture something, then tell the second lecture a different way, and then say something completely different in her meetings with the TAs, and then we would all show up to TA office hours and have to fight over how to do it because everyone received a different version of the story. Every single answer key she posted was full of errors, and she finally had to put a cap on regrade requests because everyone kept catching the mistakes and wanted their points back. I finally broke down at the end of the quarter and hired a private tutor (TAs were on strike), who pointed out that the reason I missed one of the homework questions is because Anderson forgot to include the other half of the molecule on the homework document. I emailed her about it, but she elected to ignore that portion of my email and I received no points back. Her tests are unreasonably difficult and are full of curve balls. Do yourself a favor though--buy the Klein books. They are worth it I promise, as I was constantly comparing them to my lecture notes and realizing that they actually contained the correct information. Also Professor Dave Explains on YouTube. I did get a good grade in this class but trust me, I had to fight tooth and nail for it, going to as many office hours a week as possible, constantly emailing her and the TAs, teaching myself, hiring a tutor, you get it. Unquestionably the worst class I have taken here, and considering I had Scerri for both 14A AND 14B, that should really tell you something.