In regards to all the questoins asked about preparation for the final it doesn't surprise me that the students havent received a solid responce. The posted summary doesnt tell what chapters are on the exams and provides no practice problems. there are no old exam from which students can obtain an idea as to what kinds of questions will asked. there was a comment made about "mean life" which complained that a question on one test wasnt completely covered in class or in the book. This just goes to prove that the system of education does not cater to the needs of the whole class at large rather a few lonely students who do nothing but chemistry. unknown to most, apparently, life has alot more to offer besides than the periodic table. there are many students who have 4 finals this week and a simple summary as to what they will be asked and some sample question isnt too much to ask for considering that the professor knows everything there is to know about his exam (or so we would hope). I for one understand that the value of chemistry is greatbut still useless if you can take some time to go out and enjoy all the molecules that make up this big rock we call earth. Hell the forecast said we should expect some really pleasant weather this week, but without some help nobody is going to enjoy the rare occassion that the sun shines in rochester. if professors understood the effects of stress on the human body they might be a little more lenient, and for that i reccomend a book by robert sapolsky, entitled "why zebra's dont get Ulcers." read it and see if your views change. i have also seen that the value of education and life is know best by one man on this campus, professor bird. Unfortunately the university felt that his ingenius was not needed here and he will be in california by the time you read this message. Just goes to show that when somebody begins to understand the system and change the way is works they conviniently dissapear. i hope one day that a university actually take into consideration the feelings of the students rather than their standin in US news and World report. but until then i take it many kids wil lead miserable college careers filled with stress unneeded anxiety and excess amounts of Chemistry. ahh well, life sux, regardless, good luck to everyone.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Answers

dude, did someone steal your prozac??

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I think youre absolutely right, but unfortunately, that statement doesnt belong here on this bulletin board. Schroder isnt going to change anything because of what you said; if anything, hell get mad and make the test harder. I think you did make one good point, though. Its impossible to be prepared for a test with out having a good deal of practice problems to do. And we all know that practice problems for the tests dont exist in this class. I dont think anyones final grade in this class will reflect their knowledge of chemistry.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

This letter is completely on target. This class has been taught not with a regard to the material needed but rather a focus on the high- level chemistry that the Professor is interested in and studies. There is no reason that his preferences of chemical theory and phenomenon cannot be integrated into the framework of the class, but this integration should not overshadow the course material that is needed for an easy progression through subsequent chemistry courses.

As for the exam, the amount of information that can possibly be tested for is immense. It is not unreasonable to ask for guidance and work problems that can focus the studies and fortify the concepts at the same time. I understand that principles need to be learned and also that they may not be exciting at all times but there is no need to make them painful as studying for this test is/will be without study problems or outlines.

Example: most of the three chapters that have been assigned have not been taught

P.S. As the mean life question was not part of the practice material for the last test, could this be representative of the final? Hope not.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Suck it up.

Obviously you are/were intelligent enough to reach college. This means that you must have some ability to do independent study. This BB is used for the exclusive purpose of complaining. If people read more and complained less, then this BB would be less cluttered and more useful to the class in general. It is no wonder the BB remains largely unused: it is filled with inane dialogue. (I am sorry to contribute to this trend.)

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that I am unstressed and chemistry comes easily to me. This is far from the truth. The fact is, however, that college means work and we learn from the struggle of work.

I am very sorry that people have so many finals. Cry me a river.

Students wonder why their questions are never answered on the BB. If the comments posted were not so banal and more focused on chemistry, I am almost positive that the TAs and Prof. Schrvder would respond to posted messages with the utmost speed.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Woooooo....Lets get professors that teach us Chemistry, and who aren't here just do do research

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

This class is a joke. The BB was made for complaining. Obviously Udo doesn't care about this class, doesn't answer questions that his students ask, and gives large amounts of (unknown) extra credit points for doing CALM questions... Where did CALM come from? Anyone can do those stupid problems... the hard part is signing on. It says a lot when we have a class of about 2 to 3 hundred students and only 30 come to class. Every other word that come out of Udo's mouth is an um or an ah. Where did the university find this guy? If he gets rid of those extraneous words we might get through a chapter this year. It would be nice to know whats on the final... instead he summarized our textbook. Thanks man. good luck on your research

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

I totally disagree with you Bob! I would just like to say that we have actually gone over at LEAST one chapter in class, in fact, in much more detail than the book presents it (we are responsible for 7, of which 3 we do on our own). Maybe if you actually went to class, you'd know!

About CALM, why are you against him giving extra credit? Are you upset now that he is giving credit because YOU didn't do it? Well, then too BAD!!

Let me ask you this, when does the Professor EVER tell you what exactly is going to BE on the final in any class??? Dr Schroeder gave a sumamry of what will be in the final without trying to give away everything! Now, he could have simply said the final is on chapters 9-15. However, he sat down and wrote out the important points on the final so that we know what to look for when we study...WHY do you expect more than that? Anymore than that, he'll be giving us the final exam questions!

And let me tell you this, if you actually sat down and tried to understand the book, you;ll do well on the exam!!

Another tip, if you just try to go through the book and only understand how to do the calculations, then you can expect yourself to fail....the only way to do well, is understand why you're doing the calculations! And now, you're probably thinking, this is an introductory course..well, let me tell you this, TRUE, it is! That's why Dr. Schreoder doesn't expect us to understand the material in great detail...if you look at the previous tests, they weren't very detailed at all! in fact, you could have aced it with just reading the textbook! And I can tell you, I did not spend more than 4 hours studying for any of the 3 tests so don't come telling me that those that do well in the course are the ones that only do chemistry and nothing else!

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Hey, while we're on the topic of extra credit...does anybody know for sure how much the extra credit will be affecting our grade? say if my grade was a 70 and a 75 (assuming we drop the lowestone) how does the extra credit add on to it then?

best of lucky studying eveybody

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Is there any reason why we should be arguing about how well we think the course was taught? It is over and done with now, and we will each take from this semester something different. A few may have a better understanding of chemistry, and others may have finally come to the bitter realization that we are not in high school anymore. I am not saying that I think we all should have mastered chemistry from this class, or that it is right that we were expected to teach ourselves an entire course. Trust me, I feel just the opposite. All I am saying is that we do not have any control over this last semester, and sitting here complaining about it will have no affect on how well any of us do on the final. So good luck studying and make sure to take a break and go out and enjoy the weather this week.

ps. Honestly, is it too much to ask where the final will be held?

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Whats up student of chm 104... Just so you know I am doing well in ichem 104. I have a 93 and a 77 on my best 2 scores and i have a 28 average on my labs. Sorry buddy i'm not a retard that is complaining about the course beceaues i suck. CALM does piss me off because it allows those people who did bad on the tests (the ones who didn't read the textbook) to do reasonably well. If CALM can raise your test score more than 30 points... I don't knwo what to say... someone who got a 60 and a 70 on his best tests now looks better than i do. Extra credit is good but giving out absurd amounts of points which depends on how bad you did on your tests is stupid. Where's the incentive to study?

For my calc test... mth 163... i was given a study packet with every kinds of question that could be on the test. Yes Udo did tell us what was going to be on the test but he might as well have said chapters 9-15.

This is an introductory course... why is Udo teaching us extra stuff. I don't care about the chemistry of the sun (thats what i learned one of the few times i went to class). Its discouraging when i go home from class to read the text and find that everything that Udo has said doesn't apply.

Good luck on the chem final... where ever it is.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Yes, I underdstand that it's discouraging to go home and see that what was taught in lecture was not in the book. I am assuming that Dr. Schroeder wants us to understand the material better than what the book has. He believes that the book does not have enough information. I believe at the very beginning of the semester he once asked if we liked the textbook, and everyone agreed that it was good...however, the text hardly applies anything to where the equations come from and how it relates to life. After all, what is chemistry? it is to understand the chemical processes happening around us...otherwise, why even study chemistry?

I see you get practice problems for math. But this is only because math are calculations....and not everything in chemistry is calculation. there are also conceptual things. therefore, it would be hard to give you every kind of problem that will be on the test, wouldn't you think? And to say the truth, there is really not much more for Dr. Schroeder to ask on the chapters tested already so I wold suggest just looking over the test....I mean seriously, if you understnad everything the book is saying, you'll do well on the test...it doesn't work if you only get the main idea down....I know this worked for chem 103....but wasn't that course really easy? We'll complaining because we had it so much easier last semester. However, I believe there are way harder course than thia one that we will encounter in the future.

I agree it's not right to dump so much material on us, but if you tihnk about it, Dr. Schroeder doesn't really test us on all that detail...his tests are really not detailed at all..in fact, it requires onlt the knowledge of doing the calculations and understanding to a simple degree why you;re doing it.

I agree he is giving a bit too much credit for the CALM problems...but if you do the math, no one will get higher than those that had a higher grade in the 1st place. But it is true, it is not fair how much points he is giving for CALM. I agree.

I didn't mean to imply that you were a retard, I just wanted to state that it is possible to do well in the course with the text only. Good luck to all on finals.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Hey how much is the calm worth by the way?

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

I think everyone should just shut the fuck up. This class was a disaster and a waste of our tuition money; nothing more needs to be said.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I'm glad we're all on the same page... except for that other guy who apparently loves chem... loser

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000