To start off, please do not listen to the older reviews saying she grades things based on mastery etc. That is ONLY for the lab (1411/1421) now. Apparently she used to do that with her lecture work too, but she no longer does anymore. In fact, every single chemistry teacher (for general chemistry) has the same layout. Each teacher uses TopHat where you will access the chapter readings/content for the lecture part and the workshop part as well. So same setup as 1410 if you took that in the fall. I will definitely say chem 1420 is more challenging than 1410. 1420 is more math heavy, which isn't fun (in my opinion). On the contrary, you will always hear everyone say "take it with Welch!", but I do not think he is what everyone hypes him up to be. I had him for 1410 and I stopped attending his lectures halfway through the semester as they became unuseful. He mostly just goes on tangents and doesn't really go over the topics in the chapter. It's so scattered and overall not great. On the other hand, Lisa will take notes with you through out lecture as she feels it's best to take notes with her students rather than her students rushing to get everything down, go over any problems that WERE IN THE CHAPTER READING, and have "Big Ideas," which is what is considered the main focus of specific topics. She even posts all the slides and notes afterwards. Welch did none of that. Overall, I liked how Lisa lectured more than Welch and I would recommend her for 1420 since there are only two professors who teach it anyways! Hope this helps.

I took Chem 1 with Welch and Chem 2 with Morkowchuk. I personally enjoyed the class better with Morkowchuk. They're both great professors, but I found her lectures to be much more helpful and engaging. If you take good enough notes on the readings/lectures, you don't really have to study for the exams bc they're open notes. I recommend taking a later expo section, so you have more time to complete assignments. If your expo group sucks, you're gonna have a hard time. Luckily, after each exam, you complete a survey on your group, and she gives you the option to switch groups. This isn't the easiest class in the world, but, if you put in effort, it's really not that hard.

I took the first semester of chem with Welch, and the second with Morkowchuk, and thought both were good. Personally, I found the second semester concepts to be more difficult than 1410. I didn't study much in 1410 and did well, but struggled a bit in 1420 and had to study more. 1420 is the same structure as 1410, with tophat assignments, group exams, and expos.

Chem 1420 was a lot harder than chem 1410. In 1420, the chapters you read before hand don't really make sense, and even sometimes the lectures don't clear up the confusion. The tests also get a lot harder, especially part 2 so be prepared. I recommend taking the class with Lisa because I found that she made the lectures enjoyable. There are sometimes when she just does textbook problems the entire lecture, and it just makes you wonder why she would assign these graded questions before class when she's just gonna spend all lecture doing them because everyone got them wrong. My main advice I have for you during the textbook chapters is always write down units because for some reason the textbook chapters love to make you convert units like 5 times. #tCFspring2022

After taking this course with both Kevin and Lisa, I can honestly say that I think she is overall a better teacher of the material. I agree that Welch is often more friendly and entertaining during lectures, but Lisa dives deeper into the material. One thing I find really helpful is that she goes over examples in lectures and reviews challenging topics. This is definitely not an easy class, as with any chem class, but it is doable if you try your best with the TopHat problems and don't lose silly points. No matter what professor you take this class with, this course involves a lot of self-teaching, so be prepared to spend 3-4 hours a week learning new chemistry material. Use the expo portion to your advantage and ask TAs an annoying amount of questions to help you out. Overall, you just have to take this course for what it is and do your best!

This course was exactly the same as CHEM 1410 but with different information. I enjoyed this course more than 1410, though, because the information was more interesting to me. The TopHat readings were annoying, and the lecture videos were much more helpful for our learning (as always). Expo was fine, and it really helps to have a good group of people to work with. The exams were the same format as those in 1410 too. Take this if you need it as a prerequisite or a gen ed, but if you don't need it, don't take it.
#tCFspring2021

Like a few have said, Morkowchuk gets a lot of undeserved flack. I thought she was a quality professor. She goes pretty in depth when speaking in lectures and cares about your grade. The number thing you need to do to succeed in this class is to simply do the work (ON TIME). I made this mistake and I ended up with a lower grade than expected. Really, if you go to office hours and do all the work and mini-quizzes, you should be fine.

I enjoyed Lisa more than Welch, but this course does not have group exams. I think that I better understood Chem 2 because I took it with Lisa rather than Welch. I ended with an A- in both CHEM 1 (with Welch) and this course. I came in with zero chemistry knowledge, so it is completely doable. This class is more lecture structured than Welch which I appreciated. Also, mastering chemistry was easier to work with than Top Hat. It tells you when you got an answer right as soon as you submit it, unlike TopHat (welch's software) where you receive the answers at the end of the week.

I feel like Lisa gets so much hate that she doesn't deserve. She really cares about her students and truly wants them to succeed; she's very accommodating and will help you as long as you take it upon yourself to get help!! I feel like so many students struggle but don't utilize her as a resource, but if you go to her she will 100% try to help you. The other option for 1420 was Welch, and I had him for 1410 and HATED IT. He was so disorganized and would go off on tangents in lecture that were boring and unrelated to chemistry, which made me more confused about what we needed to know for the exams. He was also hard to get a hold of. I made the decision to switch to Lisa for 1420 and was pretty nervous about it in the beginning, but I couldn't have made a better decision. Lisa's class was SO STRUCTURED and her expectations were incredibly clear. Regarding homework, all Lisa assigned was reading textbook chapters (were very short and you didn't really have to read them unless you needed to) and doing a Mastering Chemistry problem set due every Friday. Mastering was great practice for the exam!! Her exams were not super hard, but definitely not easy either (it's chemistry what do you expect), but if you put in the work by doing problems on Mastering and reviewing her lecture notes then it's possible to get an A. Take Lisa if you like structured lectures and straightforward exams. I always felt like Welch was trying to trick us on both the individual and group tests. Chemistry's difficult, but Lisa makes it doable.

Keep in mind that I had Professor Morkowchuk for Chem 1420 during the covid-19 pandemic, so my experience with the class is not quite the norm. I think Morkowchuk is a good lecture and goes over material well. There were a few classes when we were still on grounds, however, where she did not finish all the slides or the problems were rushed. I think the class would do well to be extended by 5 or 10 minutes, which would not be a big deal since it's only a 50 minute class. A major chunk of the work for the class is the Mastering Chemistry problems. I think doing as many practice problems as possible is the best way to succeed in the class, but the Mastering Chemistry set up needs a lot of work. There were a number of problems that were extremely difficult and when I went to office hours the TAs struggled with them as well. Many times I saw the TAs using chegg & they told me she would not ask questions like that on an exam. Another problem with Mastering Chemistry is that the system is very picky. Your set up for the problems could be right, but you had to use more than 5 or more significant figures in your calculations to get the right answer. The best thing though is that the problem sets were "due" each week, but there was full credit for late work, so if you had a really busy week you could get away with putting things off for a little. Make sure you check this though because that may change in the future. For the tests, you need to understand the concepts and then be comfortable with doing a lot of math. She has a no curve policy so make sure you prepare well and watch out for the final exam. All in all, I would not recommend this section of Chemistry 1420. There is an excessive amount of outside work & everything is very math heavy. If you need to take this class, go with Welch. His setup is more conceptual based and has group exams, which, if chem is not your thing, but you need to take this class, seems to work better for people. It's not impossible to get a decent grade (which think of as a B to an A), but you'll need to do a lot of practice problems.