Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry · Chemistry
4 exams, lowest one dropped, 1 final, worksheets in class collected at random, weekly check-ins
5 problem sets, 1 midterm, 1 project, 1 take-home final. But really Bostick made up the class as he went along, so it'll probably be different if he teaches again.
This class made me extremely confused. I found myself having to teach myself all the lectures before each exam. Austin does not do a good job at connecting and conveying all the content. Typically the practice exams posted were much easier than our actual exam. She expects us to have a strong foundation in general chemistry.
Bostick is hands down the worst professor I've had at Barnard/Columbia. If you have the option to take this class somewhere else, definitely jump on it. The only saving grace of the class is that it's not too much work - Bostick is so disorganized (and busy) that he never has time to write or grade problem sets. We turned in 5 assignments this semester and have not received a grade on a single one; our midterm was handed back 6 weeks after we took it, long after the PDF and withdraw deadlines. Also, at the end of our first midterm, Bostick told students he would likely lose the hard copies of their exams so students would need to take their exams home and scan them into Canvas. If the disorganization isn't enough, Bostick can't help but speak condescendingly to his students during class and office hours. Whenever you ask a question, he rants about how students can't perform basic operations in chemistry and how we would understand the material if we "just use logic." Never mind that the question was about a specific area of content. The Barnard chemistry department likes to pretend it's special by offering the pre-med chemistry sequence in a different order than every other school. But really there's no concrete curriculum for this fourth semester of chemistry. Take it at Columbia or at another school over the summer.
The content really wasn't too bad—you can drop a midterm and sub in your final for another midterm, so there's a lot of flexibility. Didn't spend too much time on this class aside from exam weeks.
Professor Austin was one of my favorite lecturers in the Chem department, but she miscalculated my grade and was super rude to me about it...
4 exams, lowest dropped Random assigned worksheets (not graded for accuracy) after each class. Just to show you were there. Pre-class readings before every lecture (usually 3-5 pages) Very manageable
Austin is a great professor. I had her for Gen Chem and now Descriptive Inorganic, and her lectures are always engaging and interesting. She can sometimes assume we'll know/remember things from gen chem, but if you do some quick review it's not too hard to keep up. Four exams with the lowest dropped, but no curve... that said, it is possible to get a 100% on her tests and they're very very similar to the practice exams. You can't get by on memorization though, you really need to get the concepts. I recommend this class for premeds doing their 4th semester of chem!
4 exams (60% total, lowest dropped so you could literally not sit for an exam if you wanted to), final exam (20%), weekly check ins where you summarize what you learned that week in class (10%), and in-class worksheets that she collects at random (10%).
Didn't really know what to expect with this class but Professor Austin honestly made this class as painless as possible for this class which was like 90% premeds (much appreciated <3) while also helping us learn a lot. I liked that she incorporated a lot of "real world" and relevant inorgnanic chemistry, for example we learned about the chemistry of a popular cancer drug and how it worked. Her exams were very straightforward and had questions similar to the questions we did in class, although going to OH def gave a leg up because she would emphasize the most important things to know and helped clarify some things that she maybe never got to talk about in class. For that reason they were always crowded before exam days. Overall, loved this class, and loved Prof Austin! Would take a class with her again.