2.7
Quality3.4
Difficulty53%
Would Retake124
Reviews53%
Would Retake
124
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
18
4
22
3
29
2
23
1
32
What Students Say
“Larsen curved our grades down and a 70 was curved down to a D+ and an 80 down to a C+”
CHE2C - 1.0 rating“He hates on the textbook yet doesn't supply alternative material”
CHE2C - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
14%
Textbook Required
53%
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B+
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CHEM
5.0
(1)CHEM110A
5.0
(1)CHE2BH
4.3
(8)CHEM2C
4.0
(5)CHE110A
3.8
(5)Difficulty by Course
CHE205
5.0
CHEM110B
4.7
CHE110A
4.2
CHEM110A
4.0
CHEM107B
3.9
Reviews (124)
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this guy sux at teaching and has this "you shoulda known this" attitude. well maybe if you taught it i would have. instead of testing how to solve problems or what is emphasized in the class, he picks a topic he maybe did a half lecture on and makes it huge. horrible teacher.
that's right. He's suck. He doesn't know how to teach. Also, he's so lazy. His exam isn't clear. His handwriting is horrible. I don't recommend u to take this professor.
His lectures made a lot of sense if you did the reading with the textbook beforehand. However, that isn't always possible so a lot of things didn't make sense at the time. Tests required applications of concepts and wasn't related to the hwk very often.
He was a horrible teacher i was not interested, in his lectures cuz i can read it in the book and understand it much better because its clearly written, I dont know where he came up with his tests but they did not seem to from the assigned homework problems. Wish the university had hired a different teacher.
If you have an IQ over 80, you should do fine in his class. Just ditch the class, and read his online notes. Easy A
What kinda professor was that? I've never seen that kind of lazy, unclear, and boring professor in my whole UCD life. He had an attitude too. I wish I would have taken it last year with different teacher.
He wasn't that bad, but clearly could improve. His questions for exams were not from the homework in the text, which was annoying. He did give clear discussions in office hours and I took advantage of that.
I don't know. He didn't seem interested in what he was teaching (general chemistry) and seemed to lecture without any sense of enthusiasm. Seemed kind of bitter for no reason at all. A lot of his tests are MC, so beware. Don't go to his lectures because the notes are online; he goes way too quickly in hie lectures anyways.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS if you get him drop the class doesnt like to teach, doesnt know how to teach hates being there and tests are not on what he teaches
Biggest joke of a teacher around. He doesn't care about students. PP slides contain too much info, disorganized, lazy and bitter. Got an A- on the final and I never went to class, do everything by yourself or else you're screwed. DIDN"T EVEN WRITE HIS OWN MIDTERMS. He had the lead TA who did not go to his lectures write the midterm. AVOID Larsen.
He was a horrible professor. He did not teach well and his lectures were pointless. He was not passionate about teaching. He used another professor's exams without informing you he was using her tests, so you had no idea what the tests were about. His final curve screwed me over and I didn't deserve that.
AVIOD AT ALL COSTS!!! he doesnt know what he is doing most of the time. After 2 midterms and a final i STILL dont know where the test material came from. Going to class doesnt help at all. His tests are mostly multiple choice, and even though the short answer say partial credit, theyre not. AVIOD AVIOD AVIOD
I had him last year for 2c. Avoid him if you can. I stopped going to his lectures halfway into the quarter because he obviously hated lecture and did not care about the students. He also likes to be super wordy on his slides, then skip by them without letting you get all your notes down. He also does not write his own tests..
Delmar is awesome. He rides a motorcycle. Tests are hard but awesome. Boo ya.
Delmar is one of the best teachers at UC Davis. They should name UCD "UC Delmar." Tests are taken straight from lecture notes. He is also very funny.
TERRIBLE TEACHER. The curve was high and he was funny but the stuff is boring and most of it was irrelevant to anything that a biochemist could ever need to know. We have no choice but to take him b/c he is the only teacher for this one, just beware
the first test was kind of easy, but the second test was freakishly long and hard.. PChem series taught me absolutely nothing.. get ready for some UBER BORING Material.
Doesn't teach! He just reads off the slides and doesn't teach us why it's relevant and how it applies to solving the problems. Spends more time boasting about his party life during his college years than teaching chemistry.
This guy is crazy!! He doesn't know how to teach at all. Exams were copied from another professor!! He never posted the solutions to anything!! Final was out of no where!! Don't take this guy!!
UNRELIABLE PROFESSOR.He constantly makes mistakes in lecture, and when you ask them about it HE DOESN'T KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER!I didn't learn anything useful from Larsen.He spent so much time trying to be funny and people laugh at him.I wish he was more knowledgeable of the concepts in 107B so students can actually rely on his lecture notes to study
HE SHOULDNT BE TEACHING!!! didn't learn anything from him and he doesn't know the answers when people ask questions!!! I HATE THIS GUY SO MUCH!! He's the WORST prof I've ever had in my life so far!!!
It's a joke on campus. Both of the midterms he made insufficient copies, and he even had to cancel the 2nd one for that reason. Very boring lecture and it's hard to take notes in his class. It's so bad that you would go "wth am I supposed to study for the midterm?" The textbook sucks, and the only use of the textbook are the practice problems.
Dr. Larsen doesn't teach well. Its very difficult to understand what he lectures in class. He doesn't go over any sample problems at all. His tests are not hard. If you do all of the problems he assigns, and go to TA couple times a week, you will get at least a B.
Where do I start with this guy,he's the worst professor @ ucd so far,we had to actually cancel our 2nd midterm coz he didn't make enough copies,many ppl complained to the chair,doesn't post up any keys for exams, lectures don't make any sense, don't let the midterms fool u, the final came out of nowhere,failed it,too bad he's the only one teaching
Biggest complaint is that he tries to be funny instead of being serious & teaching. Class isn't THAT hard but you must use OH and do all the reading. Like all upper division class students MUST commit to do problems/reading on their own. He offers a BIG extra credit opportunity. Text sucked but that the chem department's fault, not Larsen's.
This teacher is really bad. He is not organized, does not explain well, and thinks he is funny. He makes the worst comments, and assigns HWK before discussing the topic. If you have to take P-chem, heads up he sucks big time. TA OH helps. By the way, dont expect him to be like Fisher for P-Chem. He is the worst teacher I have even had.
This class is not hard as long as you study a lot and do all of the homeworks. You must understand the concepts behinds the homeworks in order to get a good grade on the exam. I got a B- on the first midterm, A on the second and A on the final. Even though his lectures are not that helpful, but you must go to TA and OH to understand more.
Dr. Larsen isn't that bad of a professor. Most people who complain about his tests never even came to lecture. Yeah he's goofy, but he's a Physical Chemist! Just go to lecture, review his Powerpoints, do the homework. Go to his reviews before the exams. He pretty much tells you what to expect on the test.
He is a nice instructor.His tests were so easy piece of cake.I strongly recommend you to take him.Go to class everyday and do homeworks.You will be fine for the class.At the end,you have 10% extra credit if you do the ChemWiki (2topics) thing.
Well, he is not that bad at teaching. The textbook in this class just sucked really hard. I never went to TA's OH, but I got A. Oh, I'm an international student and English is not my first language. So people complaining about the class should be serious.
I got an A and I went to every lecture.Not all people who make complains are bad student.For rating this layman/unprofessional guy,the class is hard only because he does not teach and organize well,which makes it harder.Going the lectures everyday means that I was being a good student but I felt like I was wasting my time.The 5555 rate maybe Larsen
The tests are poorly written but are easy. His lectures are disorganized, but they are clear. He offers a lot of extra credit which makes it even easier to get an A.
Dr. Larsen is human and made some mistakes but he was more than generous with extra credit to make up for them. The material is difficult but if you study and do extra credit you can expect a good grade!!
I sat in on his class because my Chem2C teacher was terrible(Atsumi), and while he isn't the BEST teacher ever, if faced with all bad choices, he is the best choice. His lectures were clear and somewhat organized. He also hates the textbook and uses a chem wiki, and gives a lot of extra credit. He can be somewhat rude but will help you if you ask.
Avoid this professor! This professor is horrible to the max. His powerpoints during lecture are pointless. His exams are hard and clear. And his style of "curve" is like you have never seen before. His curve is extremely messed up. And the bottom line is: He is awful. Worst teacher I've had at Davis.
RIDICULOUS CURVE! He ended up factoring the extra credit into the curve, which he vehemently claimed that he would not, and it turns out you would have needed a 96.7 after his curve to get a solid A... I had 95.4 and thought I'd be SET with my 4.0 GPA for the quarter, but ended up with an A-... Sure you'll learn all the same, but he grades HARSH :(
he is lazy and admits it. I'm not even sure if he understands the material that well >.< If theres another teacher teaching, chances are that teacher is muchhhh better! honestly Larsen is a good guy with cheesy humor but not a good teacher..
Lectures are straight from his Powerpoint slides, which are long and wordy. His tests are on the hard side and practice tests don't always help. He makes jokes that aren't funny. Overall, so-so professor, but not nearly as terrible as others made him out to be. The extra credit DID help and his curve was rather generous.
Delmar Larsen is a great teacher! I mean, he is clearly good w/ lectures & explaining the material. If you do the HW you should be set for the midterms;he even tells you what to expect on them. His lectures are based off his ppt. I never went to lectures & passed the class with an A+. That's how easy his class is! Don't avoid him. Trust! :D Haha
Great lecturer! Makes funny references that makes lectures more interesting and engaging. He's very passionate about his teachings and is a cool guy. He goes a bit slow but it's nice. Highly recommended
Ok professor. Good lectures that are engaging. Very funny
Funny guy. Really loves lecturing but sometimes rambles. Good pace professor easy grading.
Currently in his class. He attempts to connect with students but to be honest, he just needs to do more practice problems. He didn't go over a few things on our midterms and focused on pointless topics for too long (like 2 weeks too long). I wish he would just stop trying to be so funny and focus more on demonstrating how to do difficult problems.
Larsen likes chemistry and clearly enjoys chemistry, but he's not a very good lectureer to organized. His website he enforces is filled with errors. His lectures are unorganized and he does hardly any practice problems. His tests were straightforward, but I still found it very hard because I had to teach it all to myself.
Disorganized lectures. Tries really hard to make jokes during lectures instead of getting to the material. Practice exams are nothing like the actual. But if you study yourself/go to other professor's lectures, you should do well on the exams.
Tries too hard to "connect" with students with awkward jokes. Doesn't spend enough time covering information that is pertinent to the course. His exams are fairly easy. He hates on the textbook yet doesn't supply alternative material. Basically a self-taught class. Also, he is very condescending/makes students feel unintelligent.
Larson has a great style of teaching. He uses many analogies, it's up to the students to see if they can understand them. He offers extra credit and midterms are fair.
He is an ok professor. Definitely one of the better professors i have had here at Davis. He can ramble a little but if you pay attention and put in time for practice problems you will be fine.
In general, Larsen tries to teach chemistry in a conceptual fashion that many people seem to find confusing due to the rambling. He doesnt follow his slides very well and he just keeps shooting out information to which you aren't sure what is important unless he specifically stops to say so, but that is not often at all.
All he cares about is being funny. His lectures are mostly concept based, yet exams are not. He's to lazy to go over practice problems and is completely unclear about grading. His test are hard and he admits he expects 50% averages. Went into the final now knowing what my grade was basically. Definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND
Interesting guy but not the best but not the worse. Got better half way when he did a few problems. Really cares about students and wants them to learn and love chemistry, not just get an A. Tests MIGHT be easy (resulting in a downcurve.) MUST DO EXTRA CREDIT b/c it might be factored into curve (which is controlled by the school and not his fault).
Larsen was a decent lecturer although he made several inappropriate jokes. I was in his chemwiki class and it was a helpful study resource.(although Larsen is a little obsessed with it) I went from beung a C student to getting an a minus in his class so he must have been better than my last teacher. Overall, not a bad dude.
Honestly, I believe his lectures are useless. I did not attend half of his lectures and still managed to get an A-. He tries to be funny and is very slow in lecture. I found studying from chemwiki very useful. His midterms and final are fairly easy if you do a lot of practice exams. His extra credit was also a grade booster!
Not fond of this professor. Went to every lecture but found them hardly helpful. He was running a test trial with his chemwiki (which he is obsessed with) when I took his class. Not completely error-free btw. I think he tries to hard to be funny and rambles in lectures a lot. Made it hard to understand exactly what he was talking about.
Overall he was an okay professor. His tests were pretty straightforward and resembled what was in the reviews and practice tests. Personally I didnt like chemwiki it doesn't really help and lecture didnt really help either. Just go over what you need to on your own from a book or a reader, study the reviews and practice tests and you'll be fine
Even though I did well in his class, I would recommend avoiding him like the plague. Likes to be humorous, but doesn't know how to teach well. Goes over concepts in his powerpoints, but rarely solves any actual problems. His homework and worksheets do not prepare you for his midterms/quizzes. Hates the textbook and loves Chemwiki.
Study with the book or the chem wiki, whichever you prefer, and do the practice tests. Lectures can be helpful, but you don't really have to go to them. They can be pretty disorganized.
his lectures are not helpful or relevant to the topic
Tries to be funny during lecture but at least keeps you awake. Lectures not that helpful but he goes slow. Chemwiki and practice tests were more helpful. Even though he's not that great at lecturing, his tests were pretty easy and he gives a lot of extra credit.
Larsen is not terrible, but he's not great either. His lectures were disorganized and all over the place. The class itself is not that bad. His tests were manageable.
If you have Enderle's reader and do his extra credit video you are certainly going to pass. I got an A without the curve on both tests. He is straight forward about what you need to know. Understand the equations and how they can be manipulated. Got an A in the class.
Lecture style consists of reading through the online lectures he puts up. Doesn't do any examples so that makes homework a bit tough. First test was really tricky but the next two were manageable. Allowed cheat sheets on our exams which was very helpful. Homework was very tough but it wasn't graded closely from what I found. Not the best
Larsen can seem to spend too much time on some topics and not enough on others, but overall he does a fantastic job of explaining thermodynamics and everything related to it. Don't worry about not doing well on a midterm or final - he curves and he wants the mean to be 50%. Also, he offers an extra credit assignment, on the corresponding system.
Delmar knows the material and often goes beyond what is required when you have questions. No expensive textbooks or anything are required and most of the work/resources are conveniently online. Generous extra credit and a curve are used for grading on the corresponding system here. Delmar's not perfect but I'm glad I had him.
Delmar is pretty cool on the corresponding system. Sometimes he gets politically charged, but overall he has solid lectures and is very clear on subject matter. He uses a curve that holds the average of the exam at a B and any standard deviation representing a grade. The class was fair, although I probably got one of the worst grades.
Honestly one of my favorite professors. He genuinely cares about his students and will go above and beyond for each individual. His lectures are clear and concise, and he does everything expected and more as a professor. His tests are hard but fair, if you study you'll do well in his class.
He's a nice professor but nice doesn't get you a passing grade. His lectures are scattered all over the place and goes too slow . Sometimes he'll talk about useless things during lecture (spent 10 mins talking about trump) Pro: our final is different from the other chem classes though which is good since we were way behind the other professors
Libretext is for some, not for others. Curves to a C+, but if your class does well (the standard deviation is low) he pushes it up to a B-. Discussion sheets are basically the content that will be on the tests. Do them all.
I liked Larsen, he does go slowly and digresses a little but overall he taught his content. Tests were not hard and were related to his slides and discussion sheets. His lectures get monotonous, but he actually cares about his students.
In my experience, teachers curve to help improve students grades in a class where the average is lower than what is desired. Larsen curved our grades down and a 70 was curved down to a D+ and an 80 down to a C+. If the class average was high, there should be no reason to implicate a curve, as this only hurts students at the lower end.
He has t/f on tests, those wrecked me. He implemented a downcurve, but his extra credit offset it. Lots of jargon in his textbook and slides, but nice guy, decent lecturer, fair tests - he's ok
Larsen is provides a very theoratical approach to teaching on the corresponding system. Pretty funny and laid back guy, with easy exams. Just study discussion sheets and practice tests - test questions are taken from those. Results in high average and downcurve, but extra credit is offered to offset. Libretext has mistskes, but saves us money.
Truly cares about the students and get's into subjects in depth. Goes slow and ends up covering some things more than others.
Hes the founder of LibreTexts, so the textbook is free and online through LibreTexts. Unfortunately, it can be pretty sparse at times, and difficult to understand what exactly is expected for you to learn. Easy extra credit available by finding errors in the LibreTexts pages.
A little bit disorganized, generally speaking ok
Dr. Larsen is one of the best CHE professors there are. He is very funny and has a deep passion for chemistry. He definitely knows what he is talking about. His class is easier than CHE 2AH. His tests are fair and he offers a good amount of extra credit. I look forward to taking him for organic chemistry!!
He is very passionate about Quantum, but a little disorganized which makes it hard to follow. Tons of homeworks that arent too bad, but very time consuming as you have to read and research how to do problems due to his lectures not having any examples throughout them. Overall not a bad professor, in the end you can tell he wants you to do well.
Grading style was difficult. Libretexts is your bible. Delmar lectures very conceptually, but he pushes you to understand more deeply. This was easier than CHE2AH, but it required more day to day effort in assignments, reading, and overall organization. Formed a great relationship with us though, lots of jokes in lectures and on Discord.
Made difficult honors chem subjects easy to understand. Dynamic lecturer, and regularly chatted with students in discord server to give help and receive feedback. Loves to crack jokes. When he knows you're working hard, he's accommodating for deadlines and exam material. Heavy grade deflation scored by standard deviation. Rewarding but difficult.
Awesome prof, but strange grading scale considering the class size was only 50. Make sure to read the textbook; I found the lectures to be a bit disorganized. He joined the class discord server and this was very beneficial.
Fun lectures with a lot of Marvel and pop culture references. He was accessible outside of class and encouraged us to work through our questions using the tools he equipped us with. That being said, I wouldn't take his class again because of the numerous issues with his tests and his general grading system.
PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. I took him for CHE2C in SQ2021 online. It was absolutely horrible. He uses ADAPT (No OWL, Canvas, Gradescope). Exams crashed & there were many problems with the hw, labs, & midterms. Also not clear grading scale or even how to determine grade. Not good at teaching -- too many Marvel references & no examples.
His lectures are mostly straightforward but he doesn't use very many real examples, just pop culture references. His tests and hw are through adapt and it always crashes and is unreliable. He is in the class discord and for the most part gets back to our questions quickly, but is sometimes slow to act on his promises like extending hw due dates.
He is a solid choice for the Gen Chem series. However, he gives lots of homework and his lectures are disorganized with few examples, but tests are easy, and he cares a lot about students. Libratext is your religious text while taking his class read and you'll be great. Also does his own thing rather than combine with other teachers for the final.
AVOID HIS CLASS!!! I took CHE2C in SQ2021. Lots of homework, disorganized lectures, few examples, I rely on youtube videos to survive. ADAPT system is NOT working, exam crashed, so many people cheated but his response is only minus 10 points. BTW, after I spend so much time to finish the homework, he decided to give everyone HW full credit. UNFAIR
He tried to take a theoretical approach & get students to understand things conceptually. Lots of issues with the hw & postlabs so he ended up giving everyone full points. Practice problems are your friend. ADAPT was a nightmare, definitely miss OWL hw. Extra credit at the end really helped. Made the average a B, which was nice. Very accommodating
Honestly, his system of grading was stressful since it was often confusing but he was very considerate towards his students. He always communicated with us and even answered our questions on discord. His midterms were very reasonable and he gave a lot of extra credit opportunities. I definitely recommend taking him!
OK Larsen is caring and responsive; however, I question whether he made an effort to adjust his teaching curriculum for distance learning. Lots of issues with the ADAPT system so he waived the HW, WS, and one of the labs. Hard work: gone. WS and lectures: not in sync. Averages were high and cheating seemed ubiquitous... No wonder I had nightmares.
One of the most flexible professors I've had at Davis, I struggled a lot keeping up for personal reasons and he was the most understanding it was a huge relief. Very accessible outside class, assigns LOTS of homework though, but it's all doable and so are the tests. Plus he founded libretexts so pretty much all the information you need is in there
As an incoming transfer student, I was delighted to have Delmar as a professor. He understands the workload at UCD can be overwhelming at times and was very flexible with due dates throughout the semester. The exams reflect the difficulty of the homework, and most of the learning will be done byreading Libretexts and doing homework sets. Great guy!
I really liked Larsen for this class. He gives A LOT of homework which was pretty overwhelming at times but the exams followed the difficulty of the homework pretty well. He was generous with deadlines and understanding. Lectures were ok and not exactly necessary for success, I mainly learned the material from the free libretext.
Do NOT take his class! Very disorganized, super ez lectures, hard homework. It's like you play Lego with him during lectures and he requires you to design and engineered a rocket and landing on Mars to find life source. This is absolutely hilarious and I felt insulted.
Loved having him for a professor. Really funny guy who connected with the students. Assignments arent too difficult just time consuming. Overall a really reasonable professor. Can sometimes be unorganized but again is very reasonable.
Larsen is a personable guy and the lectures are fun and helpful. He gives a lecture and a weekly homework just about every week, which is time consuming but manageable. Exams are ok, I found the final to be pretty hard. He also uses z-score instead of curving the class, so your grade won't be that great unless youre a top scorer. Take him I guess.
Lectures seem easy, but HW is challenging, & tests are difficult. Slow, homework ahead of lectures. Curve was very confusing & works on z scores, whole class pushed ourselves a little too much, making average so high we actually got curved down, A- went to a B. Dude invented libretext & this curve method, so he gets offended if you have complaints
He was constantly late for lecture over 3 weeks in a row thus putting us significantly behind where we needed to be. Yet he required us to cover this material on our own "teaching ourselves." He uses Z-score to grade students which is incredibly unfair as if everyone does well on an assignment your grade is curved down to a B.
His creations of adapt and libretext are a headache which makes the already difficult curriculum insanely had to understand. He is super super super lazy and makes several mistakes through midterms, assignments, homework and in his own lectures. Don't take him unless you wanna go bald in your freshman year of college.
Larsen was a good lecturer but everything else about the class was awful. The class itself was easy but the ADAPT system he is developing is horrible. It seemed premitive and we were constantly correcting answer keys to HW and tests. The z-score grading made no sense and his exams were also very hit-or-miss. I wouldn't take a class from him again.
This class was really unorganized and expectations/grading were unclear due to a slew of errors in answer keys and other issues with ADAPT. I just started doing the reading from the online textbook instead of listening during lectures, and that served me well. I know this class is a requirement for chem/chemE people- hang in there, it gets better.
He grades based on Z scores so if the entire class does super well on anything then technically everyone has a B. He did offer extra credit towards the end so it moves the grading scale up. Super disorganized and had to email the TAs to correct HW. However, he was a good professor and his exams weren't bad. Doing the practice exams helps a lot.
I miss taking his class. He is a very good lecturer and explains everything well. Even though the course is slightly disorganized, the TAs and textbook readings will help keep everyone on track. He loves interacting with his students, so it is fun to attend his lectures and watch him banter with some students. The curve is a grade saver.
His use of Libre text to autograde everything makes doing trivial homework a complete nightmare. Do not take this class unless you are forced to. My thoughts and prayers are with you chem and eng majors.
Very Very Very unorgainzed.
This class was an organizational nightmare. Everything is done through a software Prof Larsen is developing and your grade is never stated until the end. Very generous curve, content is not too difficult. Never attended lectures and read libretext assignments and did fine. Do every practice provided for exams. He takes straight from it. Go to TA OH
he was really funny and sarcastic lol, but bro was using this whole Libretexts bs, we were the guinea pigs. it was horribly unorganized. tests were reasonable but i swear if u see that he's using librebs RUN. lab+disc+hwk+2MTs+final. curve was good tho at least. def self study tho to save yourself the headache
hehehehehE DONT TAKE CLASS, why he use his own website in the course. Very disorganized.
Professor Larsen's class was a mixed bag. While his lectures were helpful, the class organization and grading system were a mess. Fortunately, using resources like the textbook, TAs, and tools like unstuck study helped me stay on track. Overall, it was a challenging but manageable course.
Teaching-wise he is actually pretty good; I enjoy his lectures for the most part and he's a cool guy. Problems are his websites (ADAPT and Antecedent) which are still quite new and totally feel that way (especially Antecedent which makes writing labs really frustrating). Hopefully he optimizes these in the future though as they are good ideas!
It's really annoying that I don't know the letter grade after the final exam. Everything is based on a z-score. LOTS OF HOMEWORK. You need to study ahead since most weekly assignments are way ahead than what he discuss in lectures. However, exams are easy. Just do the practice exams and you'll be fine. Don't take this course if it's not mandatory.
Larsen is a bit of a mixed bag. He's a fairly good lecturer but relies on all of his own software. Throughout this quarter there were countless delays on homework, especially labs because his software is a big work in progress. What is expected for you on tests is clear and the content is easy, navigating the tedium of class is the hardest part.
Professor Larsen's class was very weird, a decent lecturer and you learn the concepts you need too, BUT the software he uses for homework and writing labs was very problematic during the quarter. He was harsh towards some students, but he was reachable through discord and emails. Grade comes in terms of a z-score which is very confusing.
Larsen is a clear lecture and very good at explaining the content. However when I took this class he used Antecedent, this odd lab writing software that often crashed. He also would often be behind in lectures compared to where the homework content was which could be confusing. His tests were pretty straight forward and he allowed prepared notes.
I'm assuming you probably came from 4A with McCurdy, so get ready to miss him. Larsen is a good person, but teaching not so much. His class was just learning how to use his awful software, and made me lose motivation to learn. TAs basically have no power to do anything, so they can't help you either. Have fun!
Grading is highly confusing. Uses websites he created which also means you don't know your grade until the very end. Quite challenging class but very generous curve. Extra credit is a nice boost. You get to write your own cheat sheet for exams. Lecture is good, he is knowledgeable, kind, and funny even at 9am! Do not be afraid to email about issues
Nice guy overall and pretty good at teaching. His class will be easy if you've taken chemistry in HS as its mostly review with a few extra details sprinkled throughout, but the class is still very frustrating due to the lack of organization and the poor quality of the websites used for HW/labs. I would still take him again in the future though!
As a lecturer, Prof Larsen's decent-- he makes jokes, and is easy to follow along. Class structure and due dates were a bit disorganized. We did homework on a separate platform, and had to do lab reports on a glitchy site. We didn't know our overall class grades at any point until a few days after the final, but at least the class is curved nicely.
Although he was a bit behind on the material, lectures were easy to comprehend. Organizational nightmare though due to his libretext stuff still being new. Homework was hard because of the website, but exams were light if you did the practice exams.
Don't take this class with him unless you have to. Organizationally this class is terrible: slow at lecturing/not on schedule, websites used for hw/labs aren't functional, and we were behind (hw didn't match up with what we were learning). This class was a pain, and I almost changed my major (chemistry) because of him and this class.
Pros: Prof. Larsen is a decent lecturer, makes sensible tests, uses open source course materials, and has a fair workload. Cons: He uses a buggy software for lab reports that caused significant delays. There is little clarity on final grade due to the way it is curved.
Professor Larsen gave good lectures and easy tests. However, I suffered from the platform for writing lab reports. It is always down near the ddl. Also, you do not know the grade until the end so just keep an eye on the z-score for each homework and do the extra credit. Ending with an A+, so you'll be fine.
He made fun at students who were in 2B or were bio majors. The course is disorganized. He overestimated the # of lectures, making it unclear what to cover, and didn't always correspond to pre-lecture readings. Antecedent (labs) crashed every other day. These issues proceeded throughout the quarter, making it exhausting to complete the lab reports.
The overall experience taking this course was frustrating. ADAPT was a major issue, many students faced repeated submission problems. assignments are graded, impacting our ability to turn in homework. daily, weekly homework, lectures and discussion take up considerable time each week. The lecture slides are not clear, making it difficult to follow.
Happy quantuming(If you know this meme lol)
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
14%
Textbook Required
53%
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Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
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