Dina Merrer

Pros: - Prof Merrer is generally a good teacher. She explains things pretty well and her worksheets and sample tests are helpful. - The tests are similar to the sample tests Cons: - Prof Merrer treats students like children in a condescending way that I found really annoying. She sends emails before tests reminding you to get sleep and eat healthy and is really into April Fools. Often, I'd ask a question and she'd make me feel stupid for not understanding it already. She seems to assume the worst whenever you ask her for help. - She will not do anything for you that is extra. Her baseline is fairly good--she has office hours and provides good materials, but asking for more won't get you anything. But she doesn't do 1:1 meetings. She might show up late to office hours, but she will not stay even 30 seconds late. If you ask where to find extra practice problems, she will send an email to the whole class recommending that you "look in chemistry textbooks" (...no duh) and when Canvas went down, she told us it was "too hard" to provide the material any other way, so basically too bad so sad figure it out study for the final anyway. (Then Barnard forced her to give us the materials so she did.) - Everything must be done her way. Don't bother arguing with her. I tried to ask a question about a test because I didn't understand why she graded something a particular way, and she literal…

I enjoyed the teaching style. Worksheets given allowed me to follow what was happening in class and locate important information later. She did all lectures on the chalkboard and drew out a lot of images. While orgo is a complicated subject, she was really passionate and a very good explainer.

I LOVE PROFESSOR MERRER. I went in expecting orgo to be hard, and don't get me wrong, it was, but Professor Merrer made it feel approachable and doable. The class takes a lot of effort, but I found that as long as you put in the time you can do well. Her teaching style is also amazing. Her lectures are so clear and easy to follow, and I think that learning all the mechanisms is so much fun and the was she draws everything on the board is beautiful! There are assignments before every class, which I find very helpful in terms of keeping up with the material. In addition there are weekly problem sets, some of which take longer than others, but if you run into problems going to office hours always pays off. She will even give different ways to solve a problem in different office hours, which means going to office hours is rewarding no matter how often you go. Also going a bunch is just fun because she is so cool and nice and smart! She may be intimidating at first but she is so nice!!!! If you can, take orgo with her!!!!

Merrer is very well organized and on top of things. She lectures very clearly and concisely. If you have the opportunity to take a class with her, I suggest you do it. Her grading -- at least for Mod Tech-- is very fair.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS—I’M TELLING YOU!! I died after every exam. The teaching style just isn’t it. It’s literally torture to take this class, and it’s such a big weed-out course. There’s no point in going to class because there are absolutely no PowerPoints or materials that help. She just copies from the paper onto the board and writes everything out, which doesn’t help at all, how am I supposed to learn if I’m just copying? She provides practice exams, but they’re nothing like the real ones. There are NO multiple-choice questions either, it feels like we’re set up to fail so we have to retake the class. Also, a single question on the exam can be worth around 20 points, which is insane, and there’s barely any partial credit given. The chem department really needs to learn how to teach students and make their lives easier rather than harder. Organic chemistry isn’t inherently difficult, it’s the way it’s taught that makes it 100% worse. No matter how much I study or go to office hours, it doesn’t help!!

I enjoyed having Dina Merrer as a professor. I admit that I learned a lot, yet I didn't end with the grade that I wanted. I admit that it has nothing to do with Merrer's teaching style or presentation of material. Regardless of the numerous hours I spent studying for that course, I suppose my studying method wasn't correct. The office hours are helpful only if there aren't many people. Many times I found office hours a waste of time because some people show up asking extremely basic questions. Seriously, if they were listening in lecture, they would have known the answers to those questions. The recitation group presentation I thought were pointless, because if you attended office hours she will solve the problems presented anyways. The good thing about the recitation groups was the friendships I made; our recitation group ended up being a very very close group of friends. I definitely thank Merrer for that.

Dina Merrer LITERALLY triggered my depression. At the beginning of the semester I thought she was a decent teacher with a fair workload but NO. On the last test the average was an F and she blamed it on us for not working hard enough! Even though the test was too hard! I would be a much better student and person without her.

OMG, guys absolutely not. This class is hell, and the exams are omg, just wanted to cry every time I saw the questions and my score. Don't get me wrong, she's a sweet person, but her exams are guns. I actually am dying in this class, and the fact that people are doing worse than me shows how much we are struggling. Don't ever take this class unless you have to, and make sure you study all the different ways of the practice exams because she will be putting things that we have yet to learn.

Average.. not to much. Just make sure you spend more time solving problems than reading the book. That was where I went wrong. I spent way too much time reading the book and frankly it was useless. Actually, Merrer would tell you that reading the book isn't crucial period.

Merrer was a fine teacher but her problem sets were incredibly difficult and she didn't teach all the material on them. Also for our third test the average was a FIFTY SEVEN PERCENT and she blamed it on US even though it was a hardworking class. She barely curved the class and destroyed many people's GPA while being condescending about how hard they worked.