Ruben Gonzalez

I really enjoyed taking Gen Chem 2 with Professor Gonzalez. I would definitely recommend taking his class to anyone who is deciding between chemistry courses. He is extremely organized, clear, and concise. All of the lecture notes are on powerpoint slides, which are posted before class. He was extremely helpful answering questions both in class and in office hours as well. I felt like there was more material covered in Gen Chem 2 compared to Gen Chem 1 so it was important to keep up with the material. That being said, Professor Gonzalez definitely made the material interesting and enjoyable. You definitely have to work hard to earn a good grade. The lectures were great enforcement to the textbook readings. If you read the textbook, go to lecture, do the problems in the back of the book, and ESPECIALLY the assigned OWL problems then there is no reason you should't get a good grade.It seemed like the difficult exam problems were similar to some of the OWL problems. There were weekly quizzes in recitation, but studying for them helped keep me on top of the material. They definitely paid off when the exams came around.

It's hard for me to know where to begin talking about Gonzalez. He is so incredibly awful, from his poor lecture slides (full of typos) to his poor lecture delivery (monotonically reading it off the slides) to his lack of email responses (two days before the midterm he emailed us telling us not to email him as he had gotten too many messages and didn't have time to respond). Honestly, this guy is the single worst professor I've had at Columbia, and I don't say that because of my grade -- I got an A. Perhaps if his lectures were actually decent, I would have been more forgiving. But he literally took them right from the book (as in, copied it directly onto the Powerpoint), and STILL managed to make mathematical errors. Moreover, he didn't even manage to deliver them with enthusiasm and excitement. And I can think of only two demos he did in an entire 6 weeks he taught (he team taught with Kaufman). When I did this material in AP Chemistry, it was interesting and logical. When I did it with him, it was boring and illogical. A "good" day would have 40% of the class show up. This is the kind of person who should be kept far away from a classroom. If you have an option, stay away from this guy. It's not that he's that hard; he's just that mediocre.

Gonzalez taught the first half of Gen Chem II, Bursten the second half. Gonzalez: Sucks as a lecturer. Bursten: Good lecturer. Class: Pretty much every exam (3 midterms, 1 final) had 50% or lower averages. The TA's couldn't even get full scores. It was beyond ridiculous; the test questions are much much harder than anything covered by anyone whether the professors or the TAs or the assigned problems. Most people straight up guessed on 1/4-1/2 of each test. Clicker questions which are stupid and a waste of time/money b/c only the top 3 students in a letter grade get bumped up if they answer correctly 50% of the clicker questions. Both profs refused to release the answers for practice exams/actual exams. They created special exam review sessions where it was crowded with people trying to copy down every question/answer and Avoid these professors if you can. Everyone dumps on Beer, but at least his tests/grading is fair.

Ruben Gonzalez is one of the toughest professors. He doesn't go beyond what the book says to explain the material more clearly. He is a nice person but unfortunately as a student he does not give you the impression that he wants you to succeed. Almost everyone in the class was looking for better ways to study for his exams but every time his exams were surprisingly difficult and not at all in the same style as the quizzes or assignments or study problems from the book. Therefore it made it very hard to stay motivated to do well in his class since he didn't seem to want us to by making the exams close to impossible and not properly preparing us fir them. Average on our exams were 50s and lower. He had 20 questions on the exams and 40 on the final. Every single question is challenging and was not the same style question of difficulty than anything we've seen throughout the semester. He did not seem to want to help us do better...making every question " tricky" which he thought was a good learning experience.

This semester, C1404 was co-taught by Professor Gonzalez and Professor Bursten. Professor Gonzalez taught everything up to Thermodynamics (roughly 2/3 of the material for General Chemistry II), and then handed things over to Professor Bursten for Thermodynamics and Chemical Kinetics. I found the first 2 months of lecture very frustrating. Professor Gonzalez puts very little effort into enhancing the material presented in Zumdahl. He takes his slide show presentations DIRECTLY from the textbook, including worked out examples and graphs. This makes his presentation redundant for anyone who bothers reading the book before class. If something doesn't make sense in Zumdahl, it won't make sense in lecture. Professor Gonzalez incorporates 1-2 clicker questions into class, and even the promise of a grade bump dependent on your clicker use wasn't enough to fill the seats of this 10:30am lecture. In order to obtain solutions/an answer key for practice exams or midterms, you were required to attend office hours. This was supposedly a policy enacted to encourage students to engage with the material, although several days before the final exam the head of the Chemistry Department said this policy had been enacted to prevent "exam stocking" by the frats. Mysteriously, this section of Chemistry was the only section for which this policy was enforced. Professor Bursten was a game changer for…

I had a split semester with Gonzalez and Kaufman. It was his first time instructing here and he taught the second part of Thermodynamics. I agree his slides were flawed nearly every lecture, but then again so were Valentini's and he is the head of the department and arguably a genius. I'm not so concerned with algebra mistakes. My concern lies in the instructor's ability to engage students in order to present the material they are tested on. Gonzalez does just that. He doesn't stray from the material too much in theoretical discussions, although some may enjoy that; he gears his lectures directly to the subject matter and leaves ample office hour time for those who may have deeper questions. He seems to take his examples directly from the book. He has a friendly demeanor and stays after every class to answer questions.

- Owl problems (optional but highly recommended) - 8 recitation quizzes (lowest 2 dropped) -3 midterms -1 final You drop the lowest 20% (either midterm, quizzes, or part of final)

Assigned problem uncollected/graded. Quizzes in recitation session. 3 midterms, 1 exam. One midterm/quizzes grade dropped.

3 exams (one can be dropped) , one final, assignments that are nit graded, weekly quizzes

Heavy workload. 3 Midterms (1 equivalent each), 8 Quizzes (1 equivalent, lowest two scores dropped), 1 Final Exam (2 equivalents); lowest equivalent dropped Prepare to work, work, work. The quizzes are tricky, with an average around 1.5 pts (out of maximum 3). Exam scores were decent for the 1st exam (mean ~65), then took a nose dive for acids/bases and thermodynamics (mean ~50 for each).