1.6
Quality4.1
Difficulty17%
Would Retake87
Reviews17%
Would Retake
87
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
3
4
4
3
7
2
17
1
56
What Students Say
“I recommend this professor to only my worst enemies”
CHEM1061 - 1.0 rating“His mistakes are often simple, yet confusing ones”
CHEM1061 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Attendance Mandatory
23%
Textbook Required
9%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.57 avg changeRatings by Course
CHEM4111W
4.0
(2)CHEM1061
1.6
(81)CHEM1065
1.5
(2)CHEM1101
1.0
(1)CHEM1015
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
CHEM1065
5.0
CHEM1061
4.1
CHEM1101
4.0
CHEM1015
4.0
CHEM4111W
2.5
Reviews (87)
Boring lecturer. Just writes notes on board off of his note sheet. Handwriting can be hard to read. his letter A is written as a triangle which causes a lot of confusion when the Greek symbol delta starts to be involved. Not good at experiments and freely admits that he is scared of some of them. Does not prepare you for the exams very well.
He is hard to understand and has terrible handwriting. He also likes to go on tangents.
Seems like such a sweet guy, but his lectures are hard to follow. His mistakes are often simple, yet confusing ones. With that, he is also not confident in his skills and often asks if he made any mistakes. However, he has a HUGE curve in the tests, so my advice is have him for lecture, but go to Pelton's or Salmon's lectures to get the best grade.
He is a very nice man, but a horrible teacher. His lectures are very hard to follow, doesn't really put accurate notes on the board, and often makes mistakes, which are then corrected by the class. I would really encourage people to avoid taking him.
Nice guy but he has no organization or clarity in lectures. He is very confusing and the class often needs to correct him on example problems. Of the midterms taken, Arriaga's class average was below any other professor's average. Find another professor and go to their lectures, that's what I did to help with the content
He doesn't teach at all and if you want to know how to do a problem you better figure it out yourself since he puts how to do it on the screen for two seconds without actually explaining how he got everything. Take any other section that you can because even if you are good at chemistry he will confuse you and you will do bad.
Notes are all over the place. Unclear where he gets numbers from in example problems. Doesn't post full notes online
His lectures are not helpful. He was good the first weeks, probably because it was review rather than new material. Many mistakes within lectures and notes aren't nearly as in depth as needed, so you MUST read. He is good during office hours though! The curve is VERY generous. Material is difficult but this is the same no matter the professor.
Arriaga is a very nice man. However, he is unable to explain specific information well in a large setting. The way he does notes is awkward, and whether or not you will see the notes clearly depends on where you sit in the hall. The test curves are huge, but tests are also 90% of your grade, so if you do poorly on just one, you might be screwed.
Arriaga is a really nice guy, and seemed to be a good teacher in the beginning. But as class went on, his lectures became a lot more confusing as even he was getting lost in what he was doing. He often makes mistakes in class that students have to point out, and a lot of his demos go wrong because he honestly doesn't know what he's doing.
If you want to self -teach Chem one, this is the professor for you. He seems like he is a nice guy but he should not be a teacher. His lectures are hard to understand and it is unclear what he wants you to know for the exams. Unorganized, and the exams are not similar to the practice exams. I recommend taking Chem One with ANYONE but him!!
Terrible teacher! Don't take his class unless you like to teach yourself all the material. Very unclear and doesn't communicate well. Tests are tough.
Although he is a sweet man, the class was extremely unclear and I felt like I was teaching myself the entire time. The tests were very hard and I had friends in the same class taught by other professors who thought it was much easier than it was with Arriaga.
Arriaga is such a sweet man and has good intentions, however he was not a good teacher. His lectures are long and he talks in circles. It is very difficult to understand what is going on and I found that I had to teach myself everything (which is not easy for chem). My grade in the class was very bad and his teaching style was a large factor.
Billy Mays here, if you enjoy sleepless nights wondering why you scored 40% on an exam you studied hours upon hours upon hours for, Dr. Arriaga is the teacher for you. His tests make you feel worse than a bad breakup and finding out you're adopted, on the same day. I recommend this professor to only my worst enemies. Good guy, bad teacher.
Professor Arriaga is great guy, but he isnt a good teacher by any means. Most of lecture was spent correcting his mistakes and it caused a lot of confusion. The only way I got anywhere in the class was by reading the book. As a teacher he is terrible and I did not find his office hours helpful at all. I would never recommend him to anyone. Ever.
if you are an unassuming freshman who unknowingly signed up for chemistry with this professor... go and drop the class. right now. if you want a good gpa you will listen to me and every other person whose grades were wrecked by this very very nice man who just can't get the job done. drop his class. but if you want a challenge, take it.
He is a very confusing lecturer and often gets his words mixed up which then confuses even more. His exams do not reflect his lectures in the slightest. Not very helpful when you ask questions or attend his office hours. Decent man, not able to teach the subject well
I was lucky enough to drop this course and save my GPA, but overall, I wasted my time because of this class. If you were fortunate enough to find this before taking the class I envy you. Honestly, save yourself the headache. If you can't take Chemistry this semester unless you take him, then just wait instead.
If you have NO OTHER OPTIONS for chem except with Arriaga ... WAIT UNTIL NEXT SEMESTER. I mean this. He is a very sweet man and means the best but his lectures are confusing and his tests are INSANELY hard. I dropped the class in order to save my GPA. I even tried to go to his office hours to get help a couple times and he didn't show up.
Dr. Arriga is a great man but his lectures are terrible. They are more confusing than anything. I would not recommend taking this class unless you've already taken something like AP Chem because it is not an easy class to teach yourself anything. You'll spend hours upon hours of studying and still do poorly on exams. So that's fun.
This is the hardest class I have taken. Arriaga is such a nice guy, but his lectures make absolutely no sense. He often has to be corrected in class. Tests are 90% of your grade. I ended up not even going to class and go to other teachers lectures-if you're absolutely stuck with him try to get Hybrid videos from a friend if you can!
NOBODY SHOULD TAKE HIS CLASS! SERIOUSLY, HE IS A GPA NIGHTMARE!!!!! IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR GPA, AND FUTURE, AT ALL THEN AVOID TAKING HIS CLASS!!!
No. Just no. If you decide to take his class after reading this review then you clearly enjoy torturing yourself. Unless you've taken AP Chem or are just that much of a genius, AVOID IT. His lectures are all over the place and his test questions are asinine. Nice guy, but being nice won't save your GPA.
He is a nice person, but his exams are really tough and there's no specific way to really study for them. He ended up changing the curve at the last minute which caused me to fail the course with a C-. If he had stayed with his initial curving, I would have passed the course with a C. Sign up for a different professor like Pelton or Leopold.
His last minute changing of the curve made me fail the course. Take a different professor.
Don't bother going to lecture. Do the recommended practice problems out of the book. If you can't figure one out, look it up on Google or go to the tutor room. Help yourself and do the weekly assigned homework on ALEKS. It is worth 10% of your grade. The other 90% is based on tests. It's a weed-out class. Success is possible but very difficult.
Mr. Arriaga was very hard to understand during lectures, and it did not become easier to understand him throughout the semester. The class is very tough, and he does not prepare you well for the tests. Most tests had problems that were not covered during the lectures, so reading the chapter is a must.
Don't take chem with Arriaga!!!!!! He didn't provide any practice tests for the final and multiple other chem professors did. He was hard to follow and had little to no examples. Just don't do it.
Professor Arriaga is a very helpful person. This is a college class, so you should expect to do a lot of practice and reviewing. In order to pass this class, one must attend lectures, do the practice problems, complete the homework, find study buddies, read the textbook, and attend office hours. This class is passable, if you put in the effort.
Arriaga is a nice person but an awful teacher and only provided one practice test for each test, whereas all the other professors provided multiple practice tests for their students. The tests were hard to prepare for no matter how much you studied from his lectures and the textbook.
Prof. Arriaga seems to have good intentions, but his lectures were absolutely terrible. They never made any sense and were very unrelated to the exams. Our classes average was very low. I went to his office hours and he did more story telling than explaining and I just left feeling more confused thinking "so what just happened."
Really bad lecture class, the professor won't provide any resources for the test. Some of them is exceed the level in the book, and the class just become more confusing after the exam.
Edgar is here for research purposes only. His class is boring and he rushes through everything expecting kids to know what he's talking about. His accent is distracting and hard to understand at times. Don't. Just don't.
He's a nice guy when you talk to him one-on-one, but I would definitely recommend taking this class with another professor. He constantly contradicts himself in class lectures and doesn't explain questions clearly. You have to rely on the textbook and ALEKS to prepare for tests, because the topics in each exam isn't related to his lectures at all.
Professor Arriaga is a very reasonable person. If you have any questions, he is always willing to help during office hours. He does a good job with lectures, especially covering all the concepts that will be seen on the exams. Doing all the suggested practice problems is very helpful for tests.
The class is test heavy. Studying for tests a week in advance is most important to get a good grade.
Gen chem at UMN is very test heavy. This lecture is no exception but Arriaga doesnt teach very well. On multiple instances he would teach something incorrectly or expect us to solve a sample problem in lecture without showing us hiw. That said, hes honestly so nice and caring. I basically did all your learning through ALEKS.
Keep in mind that this is a hard class. Read the book on your own his lectures are hard to follow. Hard to understand with his accent. Take the practice exams.
Arriaga is one of the worst professors I have ever taken at the U of M. The only reason I passed his chem 1 class was because my roommate took chem with another professor and reviewed with me. His lectures are awful I would suggest not going and just reading the book instead. Find a different professor!
Arriaga was a professor that didn't ever have everything together even though he was nice. There were things that were not clear and the few things taught to us were not done well. This was a lab and we had an independent project to do which had NO guidance and not hardly any of them worked. Overall not a super hard advanced lab, though.
Topics that were difficult to understand were made impossible by his accent. Regardless, skipping lecture will make passing even more difficult. If taking this class with Kenneth (Ken) Leopold is possible then DO IT. The difference is night and day. Got a D with Arriaga, retook it with Leopold and got a 97% and actually enjoyed lectures.
This is an advanced analytical lab. The lecture component felt useless as it did not always correlate to rotation experiments. The independent projects felt useless. Only 2 graded lab reports, but they were hard as TAs had different grading techniques. Only bad part was the data analysis as it sometimes took hours!! Overall, I recommend this lab!
The worst professor, teaches nothing and can't solve the questions he makes.
When I've talked with the professor during office hours, he seems to be very understanding. A lot of the problems stem from tests through Proctorio and participation through ChimeIn. He is pretty new with all the technology. Tests are also pretty hard because you really have to understand the concepts and not all of them are taught in class.
Prof. Arriaga is a nice person, but he is not a good professor. He contradicts himself in class and confuses the students. I saw a jump in my grades when I stopped going to lectures altogether (I got an A in this class in HS, but have to retake). If you can avoid this class, please do, especially if you have not done the course before.
Hands down the worst professor I have had so far for college. While he is a nice guy and I didn't find his accent hard to understand he is TERRIBLE at explaining things and if you ask a question he normally doesn't seem to quite understand what you're asking. There are 6 tests each 12 questions.
He is a very nice person but not very good at explaining chem. He sometimes gets lost in his own problems and his handwriting is hard to read. I basically learned everything from ALEKS.
Prof. Arriaga was very caring and listened to concerns about grading. He was helpful at clarifying questions during his office hours. His lectures were not helpful for me, and I learned primarily from textbook and relied on previous knowledge. I still attended lectures because of participation questions, however I did not gain anything from them.
Professor Arriaga cares about his students. He just struggles to motivate them. His lectures tend to move at a slower pace, so amount of content was small. here in lies the issue, spending 50 minutes in class, 3 times a week, where 3 concepts are covered is not an effective use of time. Difficulty was moderate. Look Elsewhere for CHEM 1061
Such a bad lecturer. His handwriting was ineligible, he barely covered the topics on the tests, and didn't seem to care about the technical difficulties students had during online exams. My computer crashed during the final and he didnt care. Would NOT recommend. His lectures also contradicted the textbook at times.
Don't take 1061 with Arriaga. If he's the only professor available, wait for the next semester. You will not learn chemistry if he is your professor. Lectures are incredibly slow and pointless. He assigns homework and practice problems but never gives solutions. I felt incredibly unprepared before every exam which were weekly and online.
I haven't finished this class yet but if I were to continue taking it under this guy, I might end up in an insane asylum within the next few weeks. No joke, I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than continue taking this course under professor Ariagga. You're either insanely intelligent or insanely mental if you believe this guy is a good teacher.
Very bad at teaching course content
Professor Arriaga seems like a nice guy but god do his lectures suck. If you're going to take CHEM 1061 with him be prepared to teach yourself the material because you will gain nothing of value from his lectures. Most of the time the ALEKS homework only has a small portion to do with what's on the quizzes so don't use that as your study guide.
He is a nice professor who cares about students. He posts prelectures before the lecture, which I think is more helpful than the actual lecture. The grading is mostly based on tests but there is many tests and we can aslo drop lowest 2, which I think is fair.
I would rather jump off of the Washington Street Bridge than take chem with Professor Arriaga. I think he cares about his students getting good grades, but doesn't care enough to actually do anything to improve his teaching/class style to help us get better grades on exams. DO NOT TAKE CHEM WITH HIM.
- Lectures aren't helpful (very little actual content covered) - Handwriting is hard to understand - Exams aren't like practice problems or ALEKS homework - Grading method for the class is confusing (Canvas grade IS NOT your class grade) - Prelectures are 10x more helpful than in-person lectures, but I recommend going to both
Nice guy. Cares about his students! Extremely understanding! He would truly be a great choice if he could teach a little better. Class is chaotic and quite often have tech issues, though not always his fault. Cant always explain things or explains them in a weird way. Tests (2021) online via Practorio each one weekly with 5 questions easy C, hard A
Edgar is a horrible prof. posts 1-1.5 hour prelecture videos to do his actual teaching. Grading Criteria was VERY unclear. For meeting 3x a weeks you'd think we could get thru the material. Met with him mid semester about poor grades despite exorbitant amount of work, he told me to spend less time and try harder. take chem 1061 elsewhere. 0/10
Take any other professor. I spend most of my week trying to figure out what was even on the weekly 5 point exam. Get two questions wrong and you're failing. Three days from the final and I still don't know what my grade is. Stopped going to lectures when he spent the first half of class trying to figure out the same technology problems 3x a week
Edgar lied about the format of the final, making it seem easier than it actually was. Class grade is determined so weird. Hoping he STRONGLY curves the class to make up for his teaching quality.
If you get Edgar Arriaga as your chem professor, I pray for you. I really recommend The Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube. He's taught me more in the past few days cramming for the final than Edgar has taught me all semester. This class is a mess and should legally be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Bad professor, nice guy. Prelectures are helpful, lectures aren't. He has weekly tests that account for all of your grade, the actual content isn't crazy difficult. Try to get another professor, but not the end of the world if you're stuck with him. He said he would grade our finals, didn't, went on vacation and said not to contact him until 2022.
Edgar is a very sweet man but is a horrible professor. ALEKS is REQUIRED, I did not know until about a month in and the rest of the semester I was just trying to keep up. Communication in general is lacking. To give him credit though he was willing to meet with me for 45 minutes halfway through the semester to help me pass the class.
Dr. Arriaga seems like a nice person but the course is a mess. Weekly ALEKS homework assignments are required but are only tangentially related to the quiz content, at best; Do NOT use them as a study guide. Pre-lecture videos are rambley but still useful, lectures are a joke.
Weekly quizzes out of 5points based on the material covered that week. Rarely went to lectures because he spent them answering individual questions rather than teaching. Watched his prelectures only and did fine. He cares about his students but doesnt really know how to help.
Edgar is a nice person, terrible teacher. Many tech issues throughout the semester. Final exam is worth very little of grade. Pre-lectures are incredibly important and are kind of nice that you can put on 2x speed. I would avoid this professor if possible, however. Attendance is "mandatory," but it is an honor system.
Arriaga is a nice dude but his instruction is severely lacking. He posts prelectures that cover most of the material, just to repeat the exact same information in lecture. The ALEKS and practice problems have little to do with quizzes. Halfway through the semester he stopped offering office hours.
The concepts weren't too difficult to understand, but the way they were presented made answering questions 10x more difficult than it needed to be. He did NOT teach to the weekly 5-point quizzes, resulting in my exam grade being extremely skewed because we were only graded on 5 questions. Final weighted the same as quizzes. Overall disappointing
Good guy but hes unable to teach up to the weekly exams. Lectures arent useful due to technology issues and lack of teaching. His office hours was 1hr early on Monday which makes it hard if ur not free then.
He's a nice dude and all but not a great professor. Grade is essentially based 100% on 5-point weekly exams, so you have to do well on them in order to pass. Grading is difficult to understand, don't know how I got by with an A-. TONS of unnecessary ALEKS homework that must be completed on time. Would not recommend this class to anyone.
He's a nice guy but an absolutely terrible lecturer. His lectures were useless and his quizzes were barely related to the homework problems (Aleks). He's very bad with technology and so half the lecture time he spent working out technological issues. His grading criteria is not clear at all and his Canvas is extremely messy. Avoid!
It seems like Prof really is trying to improve how the course works, but he's not the best at working with tech. There's a weekly, five-question quiz at the end of every week. The grading system he uses definitely takes some getting used to. He also very often makes errors when doing problems. Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube is your best bet.
I'm only grateful for one thing when taking his last semester class. I've experienced first-hand how a 1star professor is. Here's a guide on how to spot a 1-star professor * If 50 plus students drop out * If the grading system still isn't clear after a month * IF lectures have nothing to do with Exam *If HW has nothing to do with exam Good luck
He is not a good teacher, its that simple. He is clearly smart, but he does not know how to run a class. He constantly messed up quiz questions/answers, and you are better off just using the book to study for exams than going to lectures. Luckily the class itself is fairly easy if you just do the homework early. Avoid him if at all possible.
AMAZES me how a University can say they are so prestigious then have this prof teaching chemistry. Save your morale and find a different section.
Arriaga is a nice person and seems to care about his students, but isn't the best teacher. His explanations of topics can be confusing and a lot of lecture material and homework is very different from the exam materials.
Doesn't know how to teach. Lots of technical problems, doesn't answer questions (he tells, he does not teach), often makes mistakes when teaching, gives the wrong information then frantically changes it (many students have had to correct his work), his exams are not what we go over in class. I taught myself most of the material for the class.
I do not recommend, grade is only based off of exams. He is a very nice guy but lectures are so confusing and material is not given in a good way. Don't take this class.
Edgar is super nice and I can tell he cares about his students, however I don't think he's cut out for lectures like this. Lectures were confusing and a little all over the place. More class time could be dedicated to material. Had to teach myself. Overall course setup for chem1061 is awful and in my opinion not setup for student success. Avoid!
He is so kind but he really cannot teach a big class. Runs out of time very often, but a lot of the issues surrounding the course are the Chem department's fault, the grading scale, homework, etc. isnt up to him but he will do whatever he can to help. Sends updates very often about course logistics and checks up on students frequently.
Edgar is probably one of the sweetest professors and really cares about his students, but the subject matter is difficult and his lectures aren't the greatest. The real issues come from the chem department's grading, but Edgar really tries to make sure everyone is okay and holds extra review sessions and office hours online.
The course is tough, but Edgar provides a lot of resources for help. I recommend doing Aleks hw on time (this will count towards grade), reading the texbook (based on the objectives he provides), and doing recommended problems. Other than that, Edgar is super nice, caring, and very reliable for any questions you have. Few tech issues.
He was sometimes very hard to understand and often unprepared for class. We never really got through the material we needed to for class and the tests did not reflect what was learned in class at all.
Arriaga is a great person and a very understanding professor. He understands what students are feeling and takes time to talk through issues. He often asks for feedback and clearly wants every student to leave feeling good. However, nearly everything in his class is overcomplicated. He records lectures, which is nice, but the audio is really bad.
Yes, the class is tough and poorly structured, but this is on the department and much of this is outside of the professor's control. Edgar Arriaga is nice and caring and if you have to take Chem 1061 - definitely take it with him, it is the best option!
Class Info
Attendance Mandatory
23%
Textbook Required
9%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.57 avg changeRatings by Course
CHEM4111W
4.0
(2)CHEM1061
1.6
(81)CHEM1065
1.5
(2)CHEM1101
1.0
(1)CHEM1015
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
CHEM1065
5.0
CHEM1061
4.1
CHEM1101
4.0
CHEM1015
4.0
CHEM4111W
2.5