<p>I've heard both that it was a joke and that it was difficult...
what is the workload/testing like?</p>
<p>it’s great if you get laude</p>
<p>idk about the other teacher’s cuz i was one of the blessed 500 to get prof laude</p>
<p>Yeah his class was already closed by the time I got to register…does anyone know how good or easy Vandenbout is? The only professors left to choose from are Vandenbout, Cowley, and Mccord, but I’ve heard Cowley & Mccord are hard.</p>
<p>If chemistry’s not your thing you’ll probably have to study quite a bit. Chemistry 301 + 302 were definitely the classes I had to study the most for.</p>
<p>I’ve heard McCord is super hard but teaches you the most. Is that true? Is the extra info worth the tests? I want a really solid foundation in chemistry, but I also want to start off college with a 4.0.</p>
<p>Mccord is the best teacher. Most of the people that get into med, dentistry, and pharm school from UT were taught by Mccord. He prepares his students the best for professional school admissions tests.</p>
<p>McCord is tougher than others, but he curves at the end. His office hours and his TA’s office hours will help. Cowley doesn’t normally teach 301/302, so I don’t know but I’d be leery of a guy stepping teaching a class (even an intro class) for the first time in ??? years. I’ve heard good things about Vanden Bout but don’t know personally.</p>
<p>EDIT: I just checked the Course Instructor Surveys in UT Direct, and I stand corrected – Cowley taught CH 301 in the summer of 2010 with decent reviews (4.3/5), so I wouldn’t be concerned about that.</p>
<p>How hard is it to pull off an A in Mccord’s class? I’d like to have a solid chemistry base for professional school admission tests, but I also cannot afford to earn anything less than an A in that class.</p>
<p>Here are the grade breakdowns for McCord’s chemistry classes according to MyEdu. These are time-averaged over I don’t know how many years, so they may not reflect his most current grading, but it’s all we’ve got:</p>
<p>CH 301: 19% A’s / 32% B’s / 20% C’s / 11% D’s / 8% F’s / 10% Withdrawals<br>
CH 302: 30% A’s / 27% B’s / 21% C’s / 10% D’s / 7% F’s / 6% Withdrawals</p>
<p>The textbook (Zumdahl) is surprisingly readable, but most students never even try. If you read the chapter and go to his office hours or his TA’s office hours when you have questions on the homework, you should be far enough ahead of the curve to get an A. Tests and homework are computer-based using a system called Quest. I kind of hate it myself, but right now there’s no other way in a class of 400+ students, and you’ll get used to it. It has both multiple choice and numeric answers, but if you’ve ever used WebAssign, Quest does not check significant digits on numeric responses the way WebAssign does, so just enter your entire calculator display, because if you round too early the computer can mark it wrong. You’ll also need to buy an iClicker for answering extra credit questions in class. Those are really simple to use, it’s just one more thing to carry around every MWF.</p>
<p>You will not regret taking mccord…just keep in mind that he will have 1100+ students combined every semester in his 3 classes. That just means you are going to have to try a bit harder to get that one on one attention you need.</p>
<p>Well I’ve chatted with several upperclassmen during orientation, and their responses gave me a totally different view of Mccord than what you guys are telling me here on this thread. They told me to avoid him at all costs and that pulling off an A in his class is nearly impossible even while studying alot for every single test. They also told me he was just mean in general, but I took that with a grain of salt because they might’ve just been bitter over the fact that they didn’t do so well in his class.</p>