Granted it's a difficult subject to make interesting, but Bryant should be able to do a better job at it as a UVA professor. Comparing his teaching style to Dean Harman in Chem 281, Bryant overemphasizes the math behind the chemistry, and the result is an infinitely less engaging teaching experience. I stopped going after the second week because I became tired of watching Bryant fill up the whole board with derivatives. He's a smart guy, but he failed to engage me in the subject.
CHEM 3410
Physical Chemistry - Quantum TheoryTotal Hours / Week
Grade Distribution
16 Reviews
Difficult class, and Bryant uses Calculus all the time. However, his quizzes and exams are very fair, and it's not hard to get 100% on the quizzes because he uses questions from the problem sets.
Extremely difficult class. Try to learn the concepts rather than just memorizing the equations. Make sure you do the homework, because the bi-weekly quizzes are literally the same as the homework problem that he assigns (numbers may be different). Like the others have said here, the tests are open book, but are still difficult. 1st test doesn't count as much, so don't sweat if you didn't do so well on it. Just make sure you pull yourself together for the later tests including the final.
Totally uninteresting. Not worth going to class. Tests are open book but still very hard. Weekly quizzes are easy if you study, but overall the class is awful and worthless.
You have problem sets every week that aren't graded, but quizzes that are largely based of the problem sets every 2 weeks or so. Most of the time the quiz is an exact problem from the homework. He posts the answers to the problem sets online along with his lecture notes. Bryant is an extraordinarily intelligent fellow. The material is pretty difficult. However, Bryant does a good job testing reasonably and curves at the end of the year.
Prof Bryant is really pretty helpful in office hours and the disc sections. Pchem isn't easy to teach sometimes, and he makes it pretty interesting. He's a brilliant chemist.
Professor Bryant does his best to make a very dry subject somewhat interesting and is willing to help and answer any questions you have.
Dr. Bryant could make this class crap hard but he does not. Biweekly quizzes are straightforward and exams can be done if your understanding goes beyond equation memorization, especially since all exams are open book. Many stumble over the basic math (e.g. dx/x = dlnx)and unit conversions (e.g. R in Latm/molK versus J/molK), but this is not the professor's fault by one's third or fourth year in college. Dr. Bryant is approachable and helpful in the office, besides being on the most brilliant chemists I have ever seen.
I took this class because it is required for a chemistry minor, but I wouldn't recommend it. Bryant's lectures are pretty dry.
Very difficult class, but it is hard to make P. Chem easy. Bryant does a decent job, gets frustrated when the class doesn't know complex material off the top of their head. The exams were very difficult, and the take-home was just about impossible.