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- Randa Reslan
- CHEM 20B
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Reslan is really nice and cares about her students. The pros end there. She is not clear in lecture, and isn't really a good teacher. It's hard to understand what she is teaching and her lectures are very disjointed. To be honest, lecture is a waste of time, and you would be better off learning on your own. Good luck gang.
For students who don't have a strong background in chem, this class can be very difficult. I was only able to follow along in Reslan's lectures because I took AP Chem in high school. The discussions sections were not that helpful especially for the second midterm. The first midterm was pretty fair but the second midterm was unreasonable and almost nobody finished on time. Her TAs and her were never on the same page and would tell us different things about what tests would entail. The tests had a lot more conceptual concepts rather computational questions that are usually on 20 series tests.
I decided to format my reviews a little differently from now on, I’ll have a short summary/justification of the numbers for each of the criteria and below Ill have a more extensive review:
NUMBER SCORES:
EASINESS: 3
-The content is alot more challenging compared to CHEM 20A and its requires alot of practice
CLARITY: 2
-She was not very clear as a professor, it was hard to understand her teaching and when she was teaching it felt as if she was lost while trying to explain everything
WORKLOAD: 5
- She only gives one homework assignment per chapter and they are about 10-14 questions about, you also have alot of time to do them so compared to CHEM 20A the workload is alot less
HELPFULNESS: 5
- She was very helpful, she held alot of office hours and encourages students to come to office hours, she held alot of review sessions for the final and the two midterms.
OVERALL: 4
-She was a really nice professor and tried really hard to help us its just that sometimes her lectures were not clear. It was still one of my favorite classes because I enjoy chemistry but if you don't enjoy chem this class will be your worst nightmare
MORE EXTENSIVE REVIEW:
THE PROFESSOR:
Professor Reslan was a super nice person. She is really funny she tries to be as helpful as possible and wants you to understand the content. However, she is not great at explaining alot of the concepts, she often seems like she is a little lost when she is explaining things. She is very fair and will curve the exams if the class average is not high enough, she will also remove chapters from exams or from the course all together (because of bad time management). She holds alot of review sessions but they are often just a brief skim over the content and extremely long and slow. She does record them so I suggest saving your time and just watching the recording. She expects you to read the textbook before class and usually with most professors even if they say that, its not necessary because they cover the content in class, however with Dr. Reslan, it is absolutely necessary because she often does not explain the concept very well or at all.
THE CLASS:
The class is annoying because there is only 1 grading scheme. I'm not 100% sure about the scheme but if i remember correctly, Homework = 8%, Discussion = 7%, Final = 35%, Midterms= 25% (x2) The discussions had us doing a worksheet during the time and submitting them during the time period, but they were very useless, I could have skipped discussion and felt the same about the content. I was 6 points off on my final from getting an A which was a lesson for me to have prepared more for the midterms because I did not do as well as I could have for the midterms. Since there is no other grading scheme in the class, there is no chance for you to slip up, like me. So for the midterms really study for those and practice because you have such little time. The final was easier than the midterms but the midterms are fair but challenging. The content is pretty cool and overall the class is alright if you like chemistry. However if you don't like chemistry I can see this class being miserable for you.
I often felt bored during lectures (I have AP knowledge), although Professor Reslan's humor helped make them more enjoyable. My main issue was that she tended to spend too much time on basic concepts and rushed through important topics. Exams were not easy, but they were fair. For me, midterm 1 and the final were easy. Although all the concepts for Midterm 2 were covered in class, I believe the time-consuming nature of the questions led to the dissatisfaction of many students.
All in all, I recommend taking this class with Reslan; she was very nice and helpful.
This class is pretty tough, but I think having an AP chemistry background (from what I heard) makes this a lot easier, which is good for those who did it. For people who didn't (like myself), the concepts kind of come at you really fast and there is a lot of information where somtimes you are just writing random stuff down to process later. I definitely think as a paper and pen user myself that this class is structured so that those who have an IPad will flourish a lot better, otherwise you lose out on info. Her review sessions and practice problems are pretty helpful, but you will often encounter stuff in the exam that are WAY harder, though they follow the same concept, or just random problems. The grading is a mixed bag, sometimes it is too harsh and it is fair, but just know curving is highly unlikely. I don't suggest reading the textbook in depth because it is just too much, and focus more on like the homework and get the basics of what she is saying in lectures. Professor Reslan is pretty nice, but this class overall can get difficult.
This class was very hard and is even harder when you don't have a good background with chemistry or never took chemistry before coming here. Her notes are all on her ipad which makes it hard to take notes if you don't have one since she has them half complete then adds a lot of important information. Note taking was really hard for me personally having to try to take them on paper. She does a lot of review sessions which are helpful. Her office hours were always directly after class. There is weekly homework assignments. Her grading scheme is horrible. The two midterms together are 25% of your grade, the final is 35%, and the hw and discussion assignments are the rest. She is strongly against rounding and curving.
Dr.Resland is a good professor, her lectures are helpful. If she ended up not being clear on some topics (or unable to finish it) she'll exempt it from the exams. Although she tells you what will be on her exams, her exams are still hard (72/100 for my second mid term), so don't be too excited ig for this class... Chem 20B is similar to the second half of AP Chemistry so this class should be easy if you had ap chem before. However, many materials goes beyond what we learned from AP (using calculus for example: w = -∫P dV, Δs = ∫dq/T). So this class would definitely be a nightmare for people who doesn't have prior experience with chem or being bad at math.
Personally, I hate Chemistry, with a burning passion. I did not have chemistry at my high school, so I came in with no experience. So, if you are similar to me in that aspect, I wish you the best of luck. However, I adore Dr. Reslan, she is an amazing lecturer and professor, I do not blame her for my grade, it is genuinely just me trying to learn chemistry for the first time, which is why it has been so hard. Reslan CARES about her students, she curved a midterm because a lot of students did poorly on it. She is extremely fair and genuinely funny. I really enjoyed Reslan as a professor, I just loathe the subject. You get 10 tries per question on the homework ( on OWL ) and she often extends the homework due date, I believe there was only two instances where she did not extend the homework deadline. She has many reviews for her midterms and finals and wants the class to do well. This class is easier if you have taken AP chemistry in high school. If you have no chemsitry experience... Good Luck, Charlie.
Professor Reslan is a great professor. She is someone who really cares about the students. She always asks if we understand and encourages us to seek help during office hours as class is only 50 minutes. Whenever I asked her questions, she answered them with care and without judgement. She makes funny jokes in class but gets distracted by the laughter which adds to her charm. Our class had just under 500 people which must have been overwhelming for her but she did so well with communicating and making sure the majority of the class was on track and understood the material. She held so many review sessions for a professor. Amazing professor! Highly recommend!
I really enjoyed this class! I'm very glad to have gotten off the waitlist. Dr. Reslan is very helpful and wants to support her students as much as possible.
A 5 on AP chemistry should really let you skip the entire Chem 20 series, because I really didn't learn too much that AP didn't cover. Every unit added 10% new material compared to AP, but most of the time I was bored and it was difficult to remain engaged because Dr. Reslan did a great job of catering to the lowest denominator. Every lecture had lots of practice problems and she devoted lots of time outside of lecture to supporting her students, especially considering that she had to teach 2 lectures and held 6-8 hours of office hours per week. I found discussion rather useless and often did the assignment beforehand to avoid attending. It was especially frustrating because the most challenging problems were often not covered.
I loved Dr. Reslan's lecturing styles, especially compared to other professors. She did all of her work and derivations life on screen which made it very easy to follow. She also had a great attitude, was enjoyable to listen to, and made up laugh often. My only gripe is that I knew everything - I wish she could teach me a brand new class. The pacing and syllabus presented a minor challenge, as assigning the whole chapter was a waste of my time for reading when we really only focused on some portions. I thankfully built up some intuition on what kinds of topics to take notes on, but it would be a huge help for future classes to limit which textbook sections need to be reviewed. I also know that between COVID and missed classes it was difficult to stay on pace with the syllabus and content, so that's definitely an area of improvement for the next class.
Overall, everything went pretty smoothly on this class. Nothing was too hard, the homeworks helped explain how to do problems, the exams were mostly fair and curved generously, and Reslan and her TAs were genuinely interested in my success. I'd take a class with her again if I could.
Reslan is really nice and cares about her students. The pros end there. She is not clear in lecture, and isn't really a good teacher. It's hard to understand what she is teaching and her lectures are very disjointed. To be honest, lecture is a waste of time, and you would be better off learning on your own. Good luck gang.
For students who don't have a strong background in chem, this class can be very difficult. I was only able to follow along in Reslan's lectures because I took AP Chem in high school. The discussions sections were not that helpful especially for the second midterm. The first midterm was pretty fair but the second midterm was unreasonable and almost nobody finished on time. Her TAs and her were never on the same page and would tell us different things about what tests would entail. The tests had a lot more conceptual concepts rather computational questions that are usually on 20 series tests.
I decided to format my reviews a little differently from now on, I’ll have a short summary/justification of the numbers for each of the criteria and below Ill have a more extensive review:
NUMBER SCORES:
EASINESS: 3
-The content is alot more challenging compared to CHEM 20A and its requires alot of practice
CLARITY: 2
-She was not very clear as a professor, it was hard to understand her teaching and when she was teaching it felt as if she was lost while trying to explain everything
WORKLOAD: 5
- She only gives one homework assignment per chapter and they are about 10-14 questions about, you also have alot of time to do them so compared to CHEM 20A the workload is alot less
HELPFULNESS: 5
- She was very helpful, she held alot of office hours and encourages students to come to office hours, she held alot of review sessions for the final and the two midterms.
OVERALL: 4
-She was a really nice professor and tried really hard to help us its just that sometimes her lectures were not clear. It was still one of my favorite classes because I enjoy chemistry but if you don't enjoy chem this class will be your worst nightmare
MORE EXTENSIVE REVIEW:
THE PROFESSOR:
Professor Reslan was a super nice person. She is really funny she tries to be as helpful as possible and wants you to understand the content. However, she is not great at explaining alot of the concepts, she often seems like she is a little lost when she is explaining things. She is very fair and will curve the exams if the class average is not high enough, she will also remove chapters from exams or from the course all together (because of bad time management). She holds alot of review sessions but they are often just a brief skim over the content and extremely long and slow. She does record them so I suggest saving your time and just watching the recording. She expects you to read the textbook before class and usually with most professors even if they say that, its not necessary because they cover the content in class, however with Dr. Reslan, it is absolutely necessary because she often does not explain the concept very well or at all.
THE CLASS:
The class is annoying because there is only 1 grading scheme. I'm not 100% sure about the scheme but if i remember correctly, Homework = 8%, Discussion = 7%, Final = 35%, Midterms= 25% (x2) The discussions had us doing a worksheet during the time and submitting them during the time period, but they were very useless, I could have skipped discussion and felt the same about the content. I was 6 points off on my final from getting an A which was a lesson for me to have prepared more for the midterms because I did not do as well as I could have for the midterms. Since there is no other grading scheme in the class, there is no chance for you to slip up, like me. So for the midterms really study for those and practice because you have such little time. The final was easier than the midterms but the midterms are fair but challenging. The content is pretty cool and overall the class is alright if you like chemistry. However if you don't like chemistry I can see this class being miserable for you.
I often felt bored during lectures (I have AP knowledge), although Professor Reslan's humor helped make them more enjoyable. My main issue was that she tended to spend too much time on basic concepts and rushed through important topics. Exams were not easy, but they were fair. For me, midterm 1 and the final were easy. Although all the concepts for Midterm 2 were covered in class, I believe the time-consuming nature of the questions led to the dissatisfaction of many students.
All in all, I recommend taking this class with Reslan; she was very nice and helpful.
This class is pretty tough, but I think having an AP chemistry background (from what I heard) makes this a lot easier, which is good for those who did it. For people who didn't (like myself), the concepts kind of come at you really fast and there is a lot of information where somtimes you are just writing random stuff down to process later. I definitely think as a paper and pen user myself that this class is structured so that those who have an IPad will flourish a lot better, otherwise you lose out on info. Her review sessions and practice problems are pretty helpful, but you will often encounter stuff in the exam that are WAY harder, though they follow the same concept, or just random problems. The grading is a mixed bag, sometimes it is too harsh and it is fair, but just know curving is highly unlikely. I don't suggest reading the textbook in depth because it is just too much, and focus more on like the homework and get the basics of what she is saying in lectures. Professor Reslan is pretty nice, but this class overall can get difficult.
This class was very hard and is even harder when you don't have a good background with chemistry or never took chemistry before coming here. Her notes are all on her ipad which makes it hard to take notes if you don't have one since she has them half complete then adds a lot of important information. Note taking was really hard for me personally having to try to take them on paper. She does a lot of review sessions which are helpful. Her office hours were always directly after class. There is weekly homework assignments. Her grading scheme is horrible. The two midterms together are 25% of your grade, the final is 35%, and the hw and discussion assignments are the rest. She is strongly against rounding and curving.
Dr.Resland is a good professor, her lectures are helpful. If she ended up not being clear on some topics (or unable to finish it) she'll exempt it from the exams. Although she tells you what will be on her exams, her exams are still hard (72/100 for my second mid term), so don't be too excited ig for this class... Chem 20B is similar to the second half of AP Chemistry so this class should be easy if you had ap chem before. However, many materials goes beyond what we learned from AP (using calculus for example: w = -∫P dV, Δs = ∫dq/T). So this class would definitely be a nightmare for people who doesn't have prior experience with chem or being bad at math.
Personally, I hate Chemistry, with a burning passion. I did not have chemistry at my high school, so I came in with no experience. So, if you are similar to me in that aspect, I wish you the best of luck. However, I adore Dr. Reslan, she is an amazing lecturer and professor, I do not blame her for my grade, it is genuinely just me trying to learn chemistry for the first time, which is why it has been so hard. Reslan CARES about her students, she curved a midterm because a lot of students did poorly on it. She is extremely fair and genuinely funny. I really enjoyed Reslan as a professor, I just loathe the subject. You get 10 tries per question on the homework ( on OWL ) and she often extends the homework due date, I believe there was only two instances where she did not extend the homework deadline. She has many reviews for her midterms and finals and wants the class to do well. This class is easier if you have taken AP chemistry in high school. If you have no chemsitry experience... Good Luck, Charlie.
Professor Reslan is a great professor. She is someone who really cares about the students. She always asks if we understand and encourages us to seek help during office hours as class is only 50 minutes. Whenever I asked her questions, she answered them with care and without judgement. She makes funny jokes in class but gets distracted by the laughter which adds to her charm. Our class had just under 500 people which must have been overwhelming for her but she did so well with communicating and making sure the majority of the class was on track and understood the material. She held so many review sessions for a professor. Amazing professor! Highly recommend!
I really enjoyed this class! I'm very glad to have gotten off the waitlist. Dr. Reslan is very helpful and wants to support her students as much as possible.
A 5 on AP chemistry should really let you skip the entire Chem 20 series, because I really didn't learn too much that AP didn't cover. Every unit added 10% new material compared to AP, but most of the time I was bored and it was difficult to remain engaged because Dr. Reslan did a great job of catering to the lowest denominator. Every lecture had lots of practice problems and she devoted lots of time outside of lecture to supporting her students, especially considering that she had to teach 2 lectures and held 6-8 hours of office hours per week. I found discussion rather useless and often did the assignment beforehand to avoid attending. It was especially frustrating because the most challenging problems were often not covered.
I loved Dr. Reslan's lecturing styles, especially compared to other professors. She did all of her work and derivations life on screen which made it very easy to follow. She also had a great attitude, was enjoyable to listen to, and made up laugh often. My only gripe is that I knew everything - I wish she could teach me a brand new class. The pacing and syllabus presented a minor challenge, as assigning the whole chapter was a waste of my time for reading when we really only focused on some portions. I thankfully built up some intuition on what kinds of topics to take notes on, but it would be a huge help for future classes to limit which textbook sections need to be reviewed. I also know that between COVID and missed classes it was difficult to stay on pace with the syllabus and content, so that's definitely an area of improvement for the next class.
Overall, everything went pretty smoothly on this class. Nothing was too hard, the homeworks helped explain how to do problems, the exams were mostly fair and curved generously, and Reslan and her TAs were genuinely interested in my success. I'd take a class with her again if I could.
Based on 29 Users
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