Organic Chemistry I With Lab

Actually the worst professor ever. Fails to even teach. Doesn\'t even know chemis

5/9/2026

8-10 hrs/week

I cannot stress this enough, TAKE HEEMSTRA! He is my favorite professor that I’ve had at WashU so far. He is very accessible and responsive to students and you can tell that he is invested in teaching. Though he is fantastic, his exams are much harder than other professors imo. However, he is nice with partial credit, so a good grade is doable if you stay on top of the material. Do as many practice problems as possible, that was the most helpful for me. Lab is actually really fun, and doesn’t feel as intense compared to Gen Chem lab. Overall, I had a good experience and started to like chemistry again.

12/27/2024

10+ hrs/week

Exams were honestly fair and straightforward if you studied and kept up with the course. There was also a midterm drop. There were pretty easy quizzes to test basic understanding but you could drop one as well. Sometimes the textbook had conflicting info with lectures. Like a lot of other courses here, a pretty self-taught course. If she saw that you put in effort like office hours and workshops, you had a chance to ask for a grade round-up. There were also one or two extra credit opportunities. Chen is also very receptive to student feedback and is doing her best to improve her course.

12/27/2024

8-10 hrs/week

LOVE heemstra- he’s a very engaging lecturer even though class was incredibly challenging (brutal exams with case studies) but very rewarding! although his exams are harder than other profs, he is super generous with grading/partial credit so averages are higher. final exam decimated my ass though

12/19/2024

10+ hrs/week

Heemstra is a very good lecturer and although he goes pretty fast, I rewatch the lectures later and re take notes. He's generous with partial points on exams. Class is difficult but if you study regularly you will be okay.

12/19/2024

10+ hrs/week

wasn’t even a good teacher; made the class way more difficult than heemstra’s section. Also touched like 10 different girls?!???

12/18/2024

10+ hrs/week

Be religious with studying. Heemstra and Barnes are incredible. Never fall behind. Made me become a chem major but kicked my butt.

7/6/2024

2-4 hrs/week

the course is run awfully. Chen means well but is just a bad teacher. You would be best served skipping class to read the textbook

5/19/2024

4-6 hrs/week

Aside from it being a difficult course, chen was not a good lecturer. Not sure what other professors/sections were like, but technical issues that she wasn't able to fix interrupted lecture probably once a week. She also just wasn't great at responding to questions during lecture. Lab required much less work than gen chem lab, and was very doable if you completed everything for it. One of the midterms was dropped from the final grade, which was nice

5/18/2024

Avoid her at all costs. Has no idea how to teach, glazes over difficult concepts with no explanation, very confusing lectures. Get ready to learn on your own. Tests are difficult, some close to impossible. Class averages were in the 50-60's, that should tell you something about the her teaching abilities. Take the class with literally anyone else.

5/14/2024

My guy cannot engage with a class. Graded only on exams and lab.

1/15/2024

While I am aware this was Professor Chen's first semester lecturing, lecture was difficult to follow and did not adequately cover topics for exams which almost entirely make up the final grade. I found reading the textbook to be a better alternative to lecture but lead to a lot of time spent reading rather than practicing. Exam avgs were around 50

12/29/2023

Lectures were not useful and it felt as if you had to fuse both professors together to gain some basic understanding of the concepts. Office hours were not helpful as she did not understand what students would ask her or how to explain the concepts clearly. Very frustrating to deal with and did not feel supported by the professors in the course.

12/23/2023

I took Chen's class, but went to Taylor's office hours sometimes. I found him to be quite condescending, and he really doesn't seem to enjoy being around students. Fine at explaining things.

12/22/2023

I was frustrated w/ Chen a lot this semester. This was her first time lecturing, so she deserves some leniency, but some lectures were just inadequate- eg not going into depth on the things students need to know, writing mechanisms in literal silence. OH were occasionally helpful- sometimes she didn't really get what students were trying to ask tho

12/22/2023

What a terrible semester. Prof Chen was as confused as we were. I tried to go to the extra sessions, but those were just as bad. No idea what grades were based on. Just plain frustrating. To go from Chem 111/112 to this felt like false advertising. I was considering Chemistry as a major...not any more.

12/22/2023

She doesn't know how to give clear lectures and would confuse the class and herself. If the average is a less than 50 on the exam for many students than that fault is on the professor not the students regardless of how hard the class is. She doesn't know how to gives lectures.

12/19/2023

Was satisfactory at teaching the material, but could be better at explain concepts for everyone. Lectures were very fast paced but that had more to do with the material rather than her own doing. Was helpful if you went to office hours.

12/9/2023

Boring lectures, inconsistent exams. Lack of useful practice questions. Generally not very helpful. If I hear her say "clearlei" again I\'m gonna explode on the spot.

12/8/2023

Not a good lecturer, very unengaging and not good at explaining concepts apart from surface level. Exams deal with much more complex problems that you could only be prepared for by work outside of class. Poorly structured. If students are averaging Ds on your exams you probably aren't teaching properly.

10/21/2023