Gerard Parkin

Despite all of the negative reviews, I actually had a decent experience in this course. Yes, Parkin does sorta read off the slides, however, he almost always still adds some things to make it engaging. The experiments shown in class aren’t that relevant to the exam, but made class much more fun and interesting. I found the homework to be most cumbersome because you needed to purchase the ~$90 online subscription and I found it to be not the most helpful for the exams. The practice exam he gives out is the number one resource for the exam. Recitation was completely useless, and my TA did not know what he was talking about sometimes, since he solved some practice problems incorrectly.

this class is easy. parkin sucks at lecturing and you won't understand content during the lectures when it gets to the later half of the semester but the exam questions are easy. Every midterm was LIGHT. The final was SO LIGHT. idk why yall are complaining. just study.

It doesn’t feel like an introductory class at all. It starts with simple concepts but quickly becomes very challenging. Overall, the lectures are boring. Professor Parkin required us to buy specific calculators and clickers and also made us pay for the homework platform. I don’t think the homework was helpful for exam preparation. There was a noticeable lack of resources and practice materials that actually help you learn and prepare for the exams. I also feel that the bonus points didn’t really have much impact. By the end of the semester, they seemed more like a strategy to increase class engagement and attendance. Only a small percentage of the class receives grades in the A range. Professor Parkin doesn’t provide much information about exam statistics or grading curves. After each exam, he shows a diagram at the beginning of the lecture, but you never see it again. He also never explained how our final semester grades were determined. Some of the TAs struggle to explain things clearly, and only a few really know what’s going on and can explain concepts in a simple way. Honestly, I regret taking this class (speaking as someone who hasn't taken AP Chemistry) If you don’t have a strong chemistry background, this class will be very difficult, consider another teacher probably.

Very rude, has little to no patience with students. Tries to get students to attend lectures by having clicker questions for ambiguous "extra credit" but other than that, lectures were pretty useless bc he just reads off his slides. Take literally anyone else, preferably Roy.

Really great chem I professor. His lectures are interesting, his tests are fair and as long as you go over the lecture slides, you really don't need to read the text.

I did some research on determining the structure of TIA1 using solid state NMR.

She is the worst TA out of all of the TAs. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2023 Course: CHEMUN1407_002_2023_3-GENERALCHEMISTRYI-REC : CHEMUN1407_002_2023_3 - GENERAL CHEMISTRY I - REC Instructor: Xavier Roy

If you did not take chemistry in highschool youare fucked. he does not review the basics.

Professor Parkin is a horrible professor. He reads off lecture slides and doesn't explain anything. He is not a nice guy and is not interested in helping his students. He is only interested in research. He is not approachable, and his bonus points mean nothing. The other professors in the section are considerably better than him. He is the only chemistry professor requiring HW, which is a lot. You need to have a solid background in chemistry to get a decent grade, and even then, the grade average on exams is always low. Avoid this class!

Parkin is a fantastic and amazing and nice professor who doesn't get mad at anyone and certainly doesn't read off his slides! He also loves to mingle and talk with students, and loves to help out his students to enjoy the wonderful world of chemistry. He's also super funny and kind and sweet. And I certainly don't enjoy weeding students from my weeder class!