2.3
Quality4.0
Difficulty15%
Would Retake168
Reviews15%
Would Retake
168
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
24
4
18
3
28
2
33
1
65
What Students Say
“You can't tech a course worse than O'Donovan”
PHYS236 - 1.0 rating“By far one of the worst teachers in physics”
PHYS442 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Attendance Mandatory
15%
Textbook Required
88%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.33 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS364
5.0
(1)1D03
5.0
(1)MACPHYSICS
5.0
(1)PHY115125
5.0
(1)QUANTUM2
5.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
121
5.0
PHY115EE
5.0
PHYSICS
5.0
PHYS121122
5.0
PHYSICS121
5.0
Reviews (168)
No Comments
Chris is awesome; always willing to help.
Doesn't give many examples.
Does anyone understand his jokes? oh wait, does anyone actually understand
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Goes too damn FAST. Slow down man! Teach the material don't just post it!
Go to class to watch him drink coffee and stare at his bald head
TOO FAST!!! But he's always willing to help
Too hard!!!
He drinks far to much coffee. I feel sorry for his liver.
A bit fast, but the class is easy!
No Comments
you gotta ask questions to learn, or he will blaze thru at light speed.
go to rohan's lec, its at the same time.. he's much better
reads scripted notes for an hour. go to rohan's class...
fastest talking prof ever... must be the coffee...
Teaches a little too quickly... But he does help you understand the material
Difficult course at times but he was able to clear up confusing topics.
No Comments
Sometimes when I don't have time to shave in the morning I just go to his class and use the reflection off his head as my mirror. Not the greatest prof, but he makes fun of everyone so the classes are interesting
stop with the lame jokes..Rocket Science? LAME. WAY too fast, no explainations.
Really, really helpful guy. Earning marks will not be easy, but he will help you a lot if you ask. Nice sense of humour too.
umm....
way too fast for anyone to understand what he's doing, ease off the coffee buddy
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No Comments
Works hard, the website and everything is not easy to manage. But telling the students to shut up all the time makes him an ****
WAY too fast, doesn't explain thoroughly, "...one person nod..." is NOT a good way to go. jokes aren't cool, and yea, too much coffee. buddy, visit G.Tenti's class!!
terrible, TERRIBLE!
The jokes are rarely funny to anyone still trying to understand what happened three slides ago.
he is good....
makes everything more confusing than it really is. cracks really dumb and unfunny jokes every 5 seconds. i loved physics until entering his class, but now i just loath it - dont let this happen to you: ESCAPE NOW!
Dont wanna get him for Phys 125 next sem... (enough said!)
going too fast
can't teach, jokes aren't funny, website is horrible, moves way too fast, enough said, i would rather change programs then have him again
too much coffee...tries to help but goes way too fast and makes everything way too complicated...i though i understood kinematics when I first entered the class but he changed everything...
This was a hard course and the prof and TAs did nothing to help us. Explained things way too fast. What's the point of going to this man's lectures anyway!
a lot of people don't like him but i think he's a really good prof. yeah, he went really really fast before the midterm but that's coz if he didn't we wouldn't be able to cover everything and everybody would be fked for the midterm.
Teaches by example instead of by concept - something that ends up leaving memorizing solutions instead of learning. His tiresome humor is a reflection of his attitude towards teaching. Career change or metamorphasis recommended.
His lectures were a little bit unclear but it's also due to the amount of materials he had to cover. He's a good person who offered voluntary midterm & exam review sessions. He knows the material well, just pay attention if you decide to stay in his class
No Comments
Most useless,unfunny,unclear teacher ever encountered.Maybe it's the coffee,but I highly doubt that.Don't know what exam he was preparing us for,cuz the exam didn't look nething like his lectures.I know less Physics now than I did four months ago.
Simply the worst teacher ever. I learned more physics in Tenti's calculus than I did with this idiot.
I had Dr. Odonovan when he taught @ Mac. Despite missing a couple lectures, he really got the relevent information and concepts across. He even attended tutorials. One of few physics profs who can speak English- I think that's why I got an A in his crs
You Waterloo wimps are complaining about O'donovan being hard even though he was fair, very clear, and enthusiastic. Try taking physics with a McMaster prof. The only thing this guy loves more than physics is coffee - wow.
We waterloo students really don't care how brilliant Prof Coffee's past performance was at Mac. The fact that he is ungifted in teaching physics at UW is unchangeable and unforgivable, and I don't want to hear any execuses about that.
The amount of bell curve required to pass a majority in this class was a good indication of the quality of teaching. his solutions to the assignments would not compile! avoid like the plague.
Once he started teaching by blackboard (instead of overheads) he was an exceptional prof. Who cares if you don't like his jokes? His lectures are very clear and the notes are written very well. That's more than can be said of so many other profs.
Hard midterm and final. Makes (bad) jokes constantly, but can be entertaining. Lots of examples. I just wish he'd use the blackboard more and less overheads.
He's a decent teacher. However, his assignments and exams are full of tricks that most people will not figure out in a million years. Final was a big surprise. But he's pretty good compared to most Physics profs at UW.
has no idea what he is talking about....
Horrible, horrible horrible professor.
Doesn't Understand mechanics very well. Doesn't "Care". Terrible attitude towards teaching. Bad Jokes, and Hates Engineers. (well guess what, we hate him.)
Pfff... engineers, as soon as they find something difficult they turn tail and run. Truth of the matter is this is one of the best profs I've ever had, and this is for Quantum Mechanics 2! His assignments are easy, but his mid-term and final are tricky...
I had him for quantum mechanics. Unfortunatly he seems neither interested, nor capable of teaching. In fact, I have no idea HOW he got a degree in physics, considering most people in the class understood the subject matter better than him.
We beg of you UW Physics, DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO TEACH.
oh god. where do i begin. he has NO IDEA what he is talking about..and ray diagrams? ray diagrams are a separate adventure all together. geez. learn what you're teaching. who gave you your degree? they should be shot. lock him away. please.
too confused as he approaches the blackboard. perhaps if he knew the material better?
He was horrible. To give you an idea, people were attending another Mechanics prof's class on the stair steps to avoid the unbelievably horrible 'teaching' of O'Donnovan. He's not bad though as a stand-up comic.
Very useless teaching method. You won't learn a damn thing in his class.
I don't know what the hell all those other students are talking about, O'Donovan is a great prof. I had no trouble with his class and would be glad to take any of his other classes.
good prof bad attitude towards students."since you guys have finished the prof evaluations, I can be mean to you guys all I want" and he really did. Some students hate him so much that they brought cereal to disrupt his class
Great teacher always helpful, disliked the midterm but hey who likes midterms anyway, he has some funny jokes, corny but funny
Watch out for this guy. He'll easily lose assignments, and then expect you to "get over it". Not only does O'D refuse to do his job, but his attitude bites the big one, especially in first year courses (it's well known in the dept. that he hates teaching first year courses). Avoid at all costs!!!
HORRIBLE AND INCOMPETENT!!! I think a contract should be signed between him and the students before the start of the semester so that if we do bad on his exams he will have to give our money back.
I dont know what the other guys are talking about but O'Donnovan i great, he always has a joke and is helpful in the tutorials. I took a class next semester partially because he was teaching it.
It seems you either love him or hate him. I am of the former. I found his class fun to attend and helpful when I went. The only thing that worked against him seemed to be the class at 8:30. I wish I went to more of them.
i seriously don't like this guy, neither do i like his jokes.
Dear God!!! Somebody make this guy stop teaching - i found his classes more confusing than helpful, and he was really difficult to understand a good part of the time.
He's a decent prof, legible writing, good boardwork. Goes a little fast, though. If it weren't for the class having been my morning class I probably would have attended it more often and enjoyed his teaching. He seemed nice enough to the students, I don't know what everyone else is talking about.
No Comments
It is rare to find a prof who daily goes out of his way to look for students that need help. If you actually care about the class O'D will be a great prof. He is easy going and a entertaining lecturer. I feel sorry for those that did not enjoy O'Ds class. Everyone in our class thinks he is one of our best profs.
I didn't like him.... He always made bad jokes... and made fun of me...:)
No Comments
Great teacher
No Comments
he wasn very clear and whizzed through everything expecting we already know it..he put things on the mid terms that had nothing to do with what he taught us...ARGH bad prof with bad jokes!
Bad yet funny jokes, flies through topics, isn't quite clear with material. Teaching is not continuous and therefore not differentiable.
Very funny guy and crazy but predictable wardobe. He "teaches" by writing and solving problems. He does not teach the concepts and material. Plus his assignments, midterms, and final exam are really diffcult. PLus he doesnt allow you to use numbers in the work!!
He flies through the class, does useless word problems which he barly explains. But what I hated the most was that his questions dont involve any numbers...I make one small mistake and the whole question is wrong...I wouldnt recommend him for first years or non Physics majors. I hear hes better for upper year courses.
No Comments
too cocky. i wont recommend him to anybody
Good prof, even if subject is hard. The course is weed-out one, as it is supposed to be. Gotta love physics and gotta be willing to spent time THINKING about it to pass it well with this prof. And yes, his jokes ARE cool. Go O'Donovan Go!
Hands-down the worst prof at the university. VERY unclear. Assignments were INSANELY difficult and took more than 6 hours to do. Very very unclear and terrible jokes! And his head will remind you of Lexx Luther.
i think hes an alien... go back to roswell donovan!
2nd worst prof I've had at UW. He doesn't actually teach physics, he just does example problems without really explaining what's going on. Also gives insanely hard finals. The lousy jokes really don't help much either.
Very good prof for Quantum Physics, however he does not post solutions online and only covers them in tutorials so you're screwed if you miss one. Also makes bad jokes...
Not a bad Quantum Prof, painful humour. The kind of person you'd expect to find rating himself on this site.
The two sides of O'Donovan: If you are a real keener and go to all the classes and tutorials, seek extra help from him and sit in the front row he's a good prof and very helpful and accomodating. If you don't he will passive aggressively screw you all term. He really really wants people to go to his lectures
He's very knowledgeable in the field and enthusiastic about it. Expect to have quite a few assignments, but they're very helpful for understanding the content. However, as others have pointed out, he does have a nature of "screwing over" students he doesn't like and seems to be partial in favor toward physics majors in his courses outside class.
Funny man (in a painful sort of way). I suppose you could have learned from the textbook and not have gone to class, but that wouldn't be any fun. How well you like him is directly related to how much you like physics.
Once you get used to hearing one of his cheesy jokes after another the lectures are good. Would be nice if he posted the notes online though.
one of the best phys department professors.
Very unprofessional and hateful towards students who asked for extra help. Stay away from his classes at all costs!
No Comments
very bad and confusing teaching.. does only one or two examples in a lecture.. that too with mistakes and getting lost somewhere in negative sign.. ends up making corny jokes to which no one responds.. the guy tries so hard to be funny and interesting.. but can't help it.. so.. not the best physics prof out there..
He is a terrible Prof for first year students. He knows his stuff but he does not care less to teach it. Pretty much you're screwed for his class.
great guy, enthusiastic about physics. Funny and definitely knows his stuff. He may go on a lot of tangents but i found them interesting, too bad we never got to black holes.
It's a hard subject, and his math background can make it more so for people who aren't in math. Still, a good prof if you can stand a few (ok, more than a few) corny jokes. Obvious enthusiam for physics and Hawaian shirts.
vague with really hard tests
This guy definatley knows his stuff. He is definatley one of the better profs at this school. In class he goes a little fast but its easy to catch up from the text book. As long as u don't mine the odd retarded joke and Hawaii, your set.
He's funny and enthusiastic. Always says like,"if you go to my third year class, you would learn ...blah blah".
A really nice man, but the material is hard to understand. He should spend more time showing how to apply the material instead of just showing the theory. You will get used to his Hawaiian shirts.
The lectures were pretty useless. Spends a lot of the class not really focusing on the material.
I kindda like this prof, although I dont think he teaches well. He's always can't help to go way off topic but you can see his effort in trying to make the lecture interesting and inspiring you in physics. His assignments often requires lot of thinking, which helps in exams. also he has a remarkable obsession in hawaiian shirts - -|||.
Dr. O'Donovan's an interesting prof and his notes are helpful for assignments. The only thing is that he got off topic into higher years' physics courses very frequently.
he is a very good prof..
Fairly clear when explaining material, however notes may become a little messy. Luckily he always numbers his boards! Sometimes goes off on tangents not relevant to material, but they're fun to listen to and lighten up the class. Has fun demos every once in a while. Gives you a mark reflecting the ammount of time you give to your course.
Horrible teaching abilities. Confuses the students more than teaching them. Assignments have nothing to do with the material taught in class and he does not help at all.
Thinks he is a lot better then he really is.
He's class is extremely FUN!!!!!
Even though the course itself was difficult, he made sure those who tried hard end up with marks higher than expected. Overall, a good lecturer, knows everything inside out, but brace yourself for the final exam.
Good Prof, GO TO LECTURES
I don't think he has actually taught us anything. whoever introduced him to clickers deserves a painful death
O'Donovan clearly should not be: teaching at the first year level, using iclickers, writing a text book, cracking jokes, or writing tests. He has to bell hard, and violates your physics confidence. O'Donovan should learn to: explain what he's doing, make assignments and tests possible, and know what tools we have coming into the course.
taking his class is like being a fiveyear old with absolutely no knowledge of numbers, and you teacher asking you "what does two plus two equal?" you don't know the objects or the function of the question, or how to intpret the overall form of the question. then if you magically put it together and give him "four" hell say "no, it's two squared."
By Far the worst teacher I have ever had. Avoid at all costs
Horrible professor. Spends all of his classes telling corny jokes and reading off of the slideshow without proper explanation, and when the rare time comes when he does care to explain, no one could understand him because he uses vocabulary only a grad student could understand. In addition, his assignments and tests were insanely hard.
It's difficult to rate this "lecturer" along the guidelines of a professor. Every single lecture is based on examples. Almost no theory, no basis to ground solid knowledge on, just extraneous examples from his own textbook. He expects the world of the students, but doesn't bother to teach anything. He is a stigma to the physics department.
Lots of negatives: can't keep a learning environment in class with all the jokes he makes, can't explain concepts, can't do examples at needed level of explaination, skips steps when doing problems, assumes that if you can get an iclicker question right you know the concept.
Wow, what can be said for Mr. O'Donovan. He repeatedly told us to drop his class (which I did....) as he would not be making it easy for us. His ego is such that he is trying his hand at a textbook, but it is in draft form and barely legible, let alone understandable for a first year student. ICLICKER is not a substitute for teaching. BAD BAD
On the whole, he has some issues. He is clearly very good at Physics himself, and he will answer interesting questions if you care to ask him, but his teaching methods could use improvements. He overuses the i-clicker, and he has an overinflated ego, which mean more of the class is spent talking about how he teaches than actual physics.
Doesn't seem like he's a bad guy, just not cut out for teaching.
BAD. Replaced teaching with expecting you to learn the material yourself on your own time then come to class an expert and answer a few iClicker questions. Also, don't expect assignment solutions-he'd rather reuse questions-good luck on exams unsure if you have done anything right all term. ("Clicks DROP button")..the world is a better place again.
Gives us easy practice midterm and then screws the whole class over in midterm, class average was 41%, doesnt bell curve the marks, totaly useless, hated by all, too bad we cant drop the course, AVOID AT ALL COST
So i have had bad profs before, but this guy should really not be teaching (either quit or get fired). Jokes are not funny, and sometimes offensive. He doesn't teach the material properly. And he is just a jerk. Stop assuming we know****. PS if you have him. MAKE sure you just stay on his ass ALL the time. Asking for extra textbooks, examples,etc.
Nice guy!!
disgusted by him, horrible prof, doesnt follow the outline at all, goes teach something unrelated to the course, puts something on the board and say "you learned it now" and doesnt explain avoid at all cost!
This professor was so bad he was replaced by a new professor so we would actually learn something .. this alone says something to all the poor souls who will have him in the future.
Well O'Donovan, I suppose you went too far and the Physics gods have come down and removed you from class. I suppose you still think this is everyone elses fault.
Replaced with 5 classes left of term. Still set an assignment, day after removed from teaching. Then showed up on the first class when new prof was going to show up. Midterm would have been fair if he had taught the material. Teaching style? None, because he doesn't teach. He just talks about physics rather than about vector calculus.
Although his engineering students dislike him, he's not a bad physics prof. He makes sure all questions are answered satisfactory, and assigns chapter summaries that are really helpful. However he doesn't post solutions, so you have to see him during office hours. He's really helpful if you seek extra help, so DO IT!
Absolutely the worst/professor I've ever had.
Cannot teach. Goes over slides which relate to nothing in the textbook, which he makes you summarize every week. Once people stop showing up to his class, he makes the midterm RIDICULOUSLY HARD. The class starts easy enough, but gets harder exponentially - especailly when your prof is O'Donovan.
Poor teaching style. Does not teach programming whatsoever in class and expects us to produce code similar to something from The Matrix. Rates his code perfect in any example he briefly goes over. Spends too mch time telling bad jokes and pausing for laughs (which he doesn't get). Only programming teacher I believe.... sadly....
Ignores you when you go up to him to ask him questions during class. Unless you had previous experience in programming, you're pretty much screwed for his tests. Oh and not to mention his over-inflated ego, "Look! My code just got rated 10/10!" -_-
Absolutely horrendous professor. He is the first prof I've had at this school that I find it impossible to respect. He teaches his lessons the week after the assignment involving the lessons are due, is unhelpful and condescending to his students, and very self-assured of his own capabilities.
Hired to teach programming, however he makes his students read statistics textbooks that have little to no application to the assignments. He also expects them to program second year physics problems with no clear description of the material. Worst teaching person I've ever had.
I know it says I had him for Phys 139, but I meant stats. This course is supposed to emphasize programming skills. He first tries to teach you brand new concepts in stats, math, or phys, and then tells you to write a program that implements them. The solutions he posts online are full of material he has never shown us.
Makes the lectures interesting, as well as the assignments. He seems to know pretty well what he is talking about too. Not very organized, though.
Absolutely the worst prof at the school. Course was programming, taught phys and stats theory, then expected us to program it without showing us how to use the language. Feel sorry for people with no coding background. Examples always came after assignments that we needed them for, always had things that were never shown. Googled my way thru.
Reads from his notes, makes extremely unfunny jokes, silences people whispering at the back of the class even if they are not interrupting anyone. Very boring prof who thinks he is funny
Very poor prof. I wouldn't mind his jokes if he knew how to teach but the doesn't. He expects everybody in the class to already know how to program. The median for the first test was 50 and that includes some 100's from people who already knew how to program so it was actually ~ 45. He is also very rude to people who ask questions.
Lots of mixed opinions about this professor but I really like his teaching style and course organization.
He makes a lot of puns. We cover a few chapters of Marion-Thorton. I don't like the idea of writing an essay for a phys course. He has a lot of energy for an 8:30 class. Kinda like what I imagine Robin Williams would be like if he were a physicist.
In theory this should have been a very easy course. Why there was an essay for a phys course is beyond me. The assignments are ridiculous. Doesn't teach any of the material properly and expects you to get it from the textbook, which is the worst I've ever used. Ludicrous how many marks are docked on assignments for trivial mistakes.
Assignments were half-decent. Midterm was decent but it was belled, so hooray! Final was one of the worst I've ever written, so I'm waiting for the bell. Goes too fast during lectures. Attempted to teach us unnecessary material. He tries really hard but he just doesn't explain things well for our level of knowledge. Interesting guy, though.
Unreasonable and useless
On the surface, it's hard to tell what's wrong with this professor, but something is. The best that I can say about this class is that the textbook was excellent, but my knowledge and understanding of electrodynamics has decreased from exposure to O'Donovan.
The Griffiths book is excellent, and this course followed it pretty closely. Something about his lecturing style is exhausting and hard to learn from. Not a fan of the puns...
This guy is one of the worst professors in the University of Waterloo. You will not learn anything related to the course. His exams are stupid and if you ask him how to code something or how a function works he'll just tell you to google it. Avoid him like the plague.
You can't tech a course worse than O'Donovan. Its like trying to cool something below absolute zero.
By far one of the worst teachers in physics. His tests are not similar to his assignments or his lectures, he does not explain things well in class, he does not answer questions clearly, his notes are complicating things introduced in the textbook, and he will basically give you the answer to a question in office hours instead of helping you learn.
Very interesting and humorous prof. His has passion teaching his class. The teaching pace is fast but it follows Griffiths and appear to be very clear. Has bonus essay worth 5% for final and can lift up the final grades a lot.
I heard so many rumors that he was awful but O'Donovan is easily one of the best profs I've ever had. He's very energetic and funny in class. His office door was quite literally always open and ready to help. He follows the textbook extremely closely and provides handouts to supplement it. His tests were very fair, no surprises, a bit long though.
Very polarizing figure in the undergraduate physics community. I am with the Dislike crowd and frankly don't understand how others think he is okay, but to each their own. He is literally banned from teaching certain courses as a result of student-organized petitions. Nice enough guy but unfortunately overshadowed by his inability to teach well.
Well for starters, I don't know what I have really learned in this class. The prof spends a lot of time talking about random stuff. For the midterm he said specifically what was on there and then didn't put it on there. Next he didn't teach half the material for it (ie/ polarization through media). If it wasn't for the textbook I would have failed.
Literally doesn't teach. Every example he does contains an opening statement, then a "...", and finally the answer. Best learning experience I've ever had.
Shouldn't be teaching imo. Doesn't go through examples, doesn't give solutions to in-class examples. All round avoid like the plague
His lectures are disorganized. He often spend a lot of time on correcting his mistakes during lecture, and sometimes he states an example without doing it, forcing you to look it up yourself. In fact his lectures contain very little content. He likes to tell jokes which I think is good, but some people don't like it. Homework and exams are long.
Does not know much physics. Should only be teaching SCI courses. Nice guy though.
He literally taught us nothing. His only notes were so disorganized that it couldn't even help either. Learnt more by Googling course material.
He doesn't put anything that he taught on the tests, he doesn't really teach. Assignments and practice problems don't help for his tests, avoid like the plague.
He does not help us at all and forgets to do basic things like upload problems and solutions to the point where nothing is ready before you study for the test or even the day before the test he has nothing online. Do not take his class.
Incredibly unfair exams that he does not prepare you for in any way shape or form. The homework is useless but extremely long, the lectures are just him writing his lecture notes on the board while trying to be funny. Sad.
I struggled in all of my classes, including his. I went to office hours regularly, and after a bad show on the midterm he was one of the only profs I've ever had who cared enough to sit down and actually listen. He helped me get help, and I did quite well on his exam. Now doing my PhD in the subject he taught, and owe a large part of that to him.
So awful. Clearly knows nothing about the subject. Makes inappropriate jokes all the time that make people uncomfortable. Will overload you with assignments and be unable to answer basic questions. Avoid if you can.
Class Info
Attendance Mandatory
15%
Textbook Required
88%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.33 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS364
5.0
(1)1D03
5.0
(1)MACPHYSICS
5.0
(1)PHY115125
5.0
(1)QUANTUM2
5.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
121
5.0
PHY115EE
5.0
PHYSICS
5.0
PHYS121122
5.0
PHYSICS121
5.0