CHEM 1410

Dr. Stains is a really good professor! She has notes on her slides which is usually helpful when studying for tests. The only thing I would note is Part 2 of the exams because it is usually pretty difficult but I wouldn't let it discourage you. Additionally, pay attention to expo concepts as they usually show up on exams.

Professor Stains is a great professor in my opinion, and Chem 1410 was well structured. The work was consistent every week as you had the same 4-5 assignments to do, Tophat readings were annoying and fairly difficult to get done but the other work was not bad. The lectures helped clarify a lot of the material for me, Stains was a pretty good lecturer and the slides contained all the important material and concepts. She is a very kind and sweet professor and will always help to give students the best understanding of the material. but means business at the end of the day. Exams are not too difficult if you keep up with the readings and homework problems and understand the problems in the lbla and bit. Expo was great as well, but that can depend on if you have a good group or not, the TAs and professor stains are helpful explaining the concepts so don't be afraid to ask questions.

This class gets a lot of mixed reviews, but I don't think this class is as bad as some people make it out to be, especially if you take it with Dr. Stains. Her lectures are useful and easy to follow along, and she is very open to feedback. She started explaining commonly missed questions on the previous week's chapter readings in her lectures, which I found really helpful. Not to mention they're also recorded for students to look back on. The course material has challenging concepts, but as someone who only took honors chemistry in high school they weren't too hard to grasp with effort. One issue with the material was that the textbook would sometimes gloss over topics or not mention others that came up in the expos (they are more useful than you think). As long as you listen to lectures, take notes, and do the assigned questions each week, you can succeed in the class.
#tCFF23

I could rant on and on about how poorly structured this course is, but regarding the professor, Stains does a great job of explaining material and she clearly seems to care about her students. #tCFFF24

Not too much to say about this class except that there’s a lot of weekly reading through Tophat. Dr. Stains is very nice and approachable when you need concepts explained. During my semester, someone was caught cheating, which led to the final exam being proctored online via Zoom with our cameras on. While the cheating incident, specifically someone uploading the test to Chegg was the real issue, this solution didn’t address the root problem. Additionally, while other classes were given the full three hours to complete the exam, Dr. Stains’s class wasn’t informed beforehand about the time limit. We only found out on the Zoom call moments before starting the final. Overall, the class isn’t too hard and is a very well-curated introduction to the subject.

Great professor, her lectures were helpful and honestly this class was not crazy difficult because of the way things are laid out for grading. I literally failed 2/3 of the individual portions of exams and still ended with an A-. All exams were open note/textbook/libretexts which made it very doable, just take your time and don't make dumb mistakes and you'll be fine. She was a really understanding person and if you had questions she was happy to help.

Textbook reading can take a while and the first one is very intimidating, but don't be fazed. Make sure to at least complete all reading questions/BITs/LBLAs because you get points just for answering, and be very on top of when everything is due because sometimes it is a little confusing.

Main thing I'd recommend is going over your exam after they come out because on literally every single one she had misgraded a question or two and she was always nice about fixing her mistakes or explaining why you got a question wrong (definitely go over the questions you missed)