Nicholas Turro

Wow do not take Organic Chemistry with Turro. Not only is it in that stupid Havemeyer classroom with terrible echoing, but Turro literally mumbles like his mouth is full of peanut butter and marshmallows. That, on top of his muffled, staticky microphone, pretty much meant I could not understand a single sentence he said. I stopped going to class after the first week, and only came to take the exams. Luckily the required recitation section taught me what I needed to know for the quizzes, midterms, and final. The class starts out incredibly easy, the first two midterms had averages in the 90s. But it picked up pace and the third and fourth midterm averages were in the 70s. It was nice to have so many midterms, because by the time the cumulative final came up, I literally studied for one hour and then went off to take it. Try to take orgo with a different professor if you can. But if you insist on taking Turro, be prepared to learn everything in recitation and by yourself.

I really loved this professor. If you pay attention, his lectures will really clarify things that may not have been so clear in the text. He's also very sweet and funny. There is no curve in this class because he doesn't want students competing with each other, he wants us to learn together. An A is very attainable but I wouldn't say it's easy to earn. You will work for it. The majority of the test questions come straight off of the practice exams. The questions you've never seen before are the ones that separate the B's from the A's. They are not meant to trick you. If you understand what's going on, you should be able to get them. Turro is a great teacher. You will learn enormous amounts if you take his class seriously and you'll have the grade to match. He truly wants you to succeed. I probably averaged around 10 hours a week of studying and got an A (I'd never taken chemistry before). Don't bother with the other chemistry teachers. I had friends in other sections who were ripping their hair out because they had fussy, tricky teachers. It's just not worth it. Take Turro, he's wonderful. I just wish he were teaching Chem II next semester.

How in the world did this guy get the teaching award in the past? He can't teach for life and his powerpoint slides are filled with useless material about chemistry jock and paradigms - seriously, how are these related with learning the language of orgo? Instead of explaining reactions and going over important topics like R&S configuration in stereochemistry and mass spectrometry, he spends more time blabbering and going on massive tangents about how he worked for almost all the scientists we learned about in the McMurry text (which is a pretty bad book in the first place). This class was a huge drain of my time and energy, for I learned very little about organic chemistry-> bodes well for next semester. In the beginning, Turro seemed to be a decent lecturer, going over the first few "easy" chapters PROPERLY, but when we got to IR, it seems like the demons got him. His lecturing skills degenerated more and more as the semester progressed, becoming so incomprehensible and incoherent to the point that I wished I had taken Cornish. I had to consult extra sources to even get the concepts straight, which can be avoided if the professor is at least okay. Now the grading - absolutely evil. NO NO NO CURVE!!! I hope I don't have to reiterate it. Initially, a curve was not needed given the ease of the first two midterms, which grabbed a bunch of ques. from the practice problems, but aft…

AHHHHHH! Don't take this class! It was a roller coaster ride of horror. The first half of the semester was a complete joke; we covered like 2-3 easy chapters a month, skipping all kinds of sections and important material within the chapters that 99% of organic chemistry classes cover (acids/bases, MO Theory, RS Naming, mass spec). At one point, he even said that he just wants to take his time, so he wouldn't race to cover material we don't get to and outlined the rest of the semester to include his prior orgo syllabus without chapters 10 & 11 (organohalides and synthesis/elimination reactions). Then, Turro had an epiphany once everyone gave him bad reviews on the surveys, and he decided to make the class harder. His logic was apparently that since everyone finished the first two tests 10-20 minutes early, he would double the length of the third test. Obviously everyone raced to finish NMR questions that were now harder than Cornish's and most still failed to do so. By this point, we had 3 weeks left of class, and had learned a grand total of 1 reaction, but Turro then decided that he would complete his full syllabus after all! We again raced through 4 chapters of reactions without learning much logic at all behind them and were given a fourth midterm on more material then the other 3 midterms combined. For some reason, it was surprising to Turro that we proceeded to do badly,…

Whether or not you should take this class depends on your view of chemistry, how much you would like to learn, and how much work you have for other classes. Prof. Turro is a mediocre lecturer at best. He attempts to shake things up with a funny slide or a cool demonstration on occasion, but for the most part, lectures are useless in terms of learning new material. Do yourself a favor and don't bother attending because they tell you little that the book doesn't (with the exception of the lectures at the end of the semester...those you should attend). You will learn a good amount of material in this course if you have little or no previous chemistry experience. Otherwise you will probably just coast, which isn't bad either if you are just fulfilling a requirement. Exams and quizzes are meant to see if you have been keeping up with the practice problems. These problems are called homework but in no way affect your final grade. However, it is in your best interest to look them over and understand them. They WILL appear on the exams and quizzes (many times in exactly the same form). Your final grade is split up into 6 equivelants (one gets dropped, leaving 5 worth 20% each). Each exam (there are 3) is worth one, a total of your quiz grades (one quiz is dropped) is worth one, and the final is worth two. The exams and quizzes place an emphasis on "special cases" in the material as we…

This class was a joke and so is Prof. Turro. You have to get used to him and his style of lecturing if you are to not die of boredom in class. The first 2.5 months, I went to class about once every 3 weeks since I found it so useless. However, I failed the second midterm miserably (despite knowing the book backwards and forwards) because Turro took all of the example questions from class (most of which were exceptions to rules) and put them on the exam. After that mishap, I gave him a chance and started going to every lecture. Eventually, I found myself enjoying lecture and following along with his messy powerpoint presentations. Like I said, you just have to get used to him. By going to lecture and reading the book, I felt like I learned a lot. If you learn how to follow his lectures, he will teach you. However, I find that most people get frustrated the first week by his style, that they never give him a chance and so they don't utilize him as a resource. He would give out optional homework every week (not for credit) and a practice exam before each exam (get extra credit if you score 80% or higher) - all are multiple choice. I recommend you do these, because he repeats a lot of the questions. About 90% of the final was made up of old questions. I finished the final in 30 minutes without even reading most of the questions, since I had seen them so many times before. This cla…

Turro does a passable job of teaching the material, trying to keep the class light-hearted enough (wearing a Fantasia wizard hat, playing Flight of the Valkyries, random class videos, etc.). In terms of material, just stay awake in lectures and most importantly, do the practice tests. The three midterms are based VERY heavily on the questions on the practice tests, at times being the exact same questions. Recitation TAs are spotty. While some may not know too much (and basically admit to it), they're nice people and aren't here to sabotage your grade. All things considered, Turro is an above-average professor whose primary concern is molding your young malleable mind into thinking in different ways. The intention is there, even if the presentation is so-so.

Nick Turro is a sweet man, but a very boring lecturer. Also, the lectures he posts online are often quite different from the ones actually given in lecture, with a mix of extra slides, missing slides, and out of order slides, which is generally irritating if your trying to take notes on a print out of the given lecture. I thought that the tests/homeworks/quizzes, etc. were difficult until I realized the secret: he reuses the exact same questions (same question, same numbers, same answer options in the same order) over and over again. One question appear on a quiz, on a homework, on a practice exam, on a midterm, and on the final. By the time I took the final, I'd already seen probably 70% of those questions before. Yes, this made it easier to get a better grade. No, this did not help me learn how to actually do the problems (ie learn the subject matter), since I didn't have to know how I got the answer after a while, I only had to remember what the answer was. So, not too hard to do pretty well if you pay attention. Far more important than going to lecture is doing every homework, every practice exam, and taking every quiz (your graded on those last ones, any way). With that, you'll do fine. You should know the material anyway (read the book!), but the exams will be much more familiar than you'd expect.

The class was really easy, perhaps the hardest part of it was to stay awake/focused for the entire duration of the lecture. Frankly, the only reason I went to (or attempted) to go to every lecture was because you can get extra point with the clicker questions that pop out two or three times during the entire lecture. The materials are completely different from those learned in AP Chem, so you would have to actually study on your own. That said, it's fairly easy because all you have to do well is to read over the chapter section once, and then memorize every single problems on the homework and practice midterms he posts on coursework. It's an easy A if that's what you are looking for.

Nicholas Turro is the worst teacher I have ever had. His lectures are the most boring I've ever heard. He reads his powerpoint out loud. His homeworks are all multiple choice and totally useless. I can't say anything bad enough about this class. Its only redeeming aspect is that St. Nick clearly wants us all to learn. Also, my TA Ben "ya I don't know" Dach doesn't know chemistry. Going to class is completely pointless. You are better off reading the book and doing the homeworks. I haven't taken the final yet, but the midterms were all taken from homeworks and the practice exams.