We are trying to plan courses in advance of Bama Bound next week. D is considering taking Honors Gen Chem with Professor Street to get into smaller class. She had “good” Chemistry teacher in high school, nothing fantastic. Did not take AP Chem, chose to do other APs instead. Has anyone taken Honors Gen Chem recently? Last posts on CC I can find were from 2012. Pre-med, exempted Biology through AP, planning on taking an advanced biology course.
Are you on the UA parent facebook page. If you aren’t, you should friend it because there were many discussions about Chem 101 on it. My freshman son last year ended up taking regular Chemistry last year but 2nd semester. He read some of the posts on facebook on who to avoid (according to parents whose students had problems the 1st semester) and ended up having a good experience and getting a good grade.
Thank you! I will join that FB page, on the new parent page, but have not joined the regular one.
Shane Street has excellent reviews on RateMyProfessors . . . and I’d trust that. So far, we’ve found it to be pretty accurate.
Which facebook group discusses the Chemistry classes? The University of Alabama Parents 2019, UA Parent Programs or is there another page???
Just my $.02: I really wish relevant advice for UA students was put on CC for all to see, rather than on FB… This CC forum allows you to search very easily for information, often spanning several years’ worth of advice.
There’s a lot of overlap between CC and the larger parents group on FB, but there are also a fair number of families who are only on one or the other.
If you want to cover all your bases, join the larger FB group (“The University of Alabama Parents”) and continue to check these forums. That FB group was founded by CC members and has over 2,000 members now, so you’ll likely get a decent response. (This link should work if you remove all the spaces: www. facebook. com / groups / bamaparents /members / )
Aeromom, I do agree that information should be included on CC, however I don’t know if the parents who could answer about a specific class (honors/non-honors) or teacher are on CC. I just suggested facebook as I know there was a HUGE conversation about Chem 101 on it after first semester which was helpful for my son choosing what he wanted to do with this class for 2nd semester. I believe it was on the Parents page, although it might have been on the Parents of the 2018 class forum (hard to remember). CC and this forum was such a help to me so I still visit it and share information I know for those who are considering UA or already chose it.
If you want to be added to (The University of Alabama Parents) facebook page, send me a PM and I’ll get you added.
As for honors vs non-honors…I would go by the prof.
We are at bama bound and just found out honors chem with sharpe (sp?)full. Any recommendations would be appreciated! My d’s is a ChemE major.
Oops the prof is Street not Sharpe
It may look like that Honors Chem class is full but it’s not. They will open a few seats for it at your BB. Be quick to grab one.
They will open more seats for the Honors section, but especially since this is an Honors BB, they may all get taken as well.
If you want to plan for that scenario, the only other professor I have personal experience with is Nikles. I’m going to be honest: his tests are easy, his lectures are about half boring and half interesting, and he has mandatory clicker attendance. I actually enjoyed that he used the clickers because it really helped keep me accountable and paying attention. Dr. Nikles also has tons of connections with the MINT center and was a great help when I was searching for a research project.
I had Street for Honors first semester and he is an engaging lecturer but I still found myself skipping class sometimes because all the material was review from AP chem and attendance wasn’t mandatory. (I’m just being honest. I had perfect attendance in every other class.)
I also had friends who had Bakker, McDuffie, and Leung and they all had average or above average experiences.