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This woman is the devil. Not only does she stink at teaching, but is completely out of touch with her class. She is impersonnable,boring,weird, and what is up with her hair? It was like she was lecturing with a dead, wet cat on her head.

I've learned what I can from the book and that's about it. It's kind of hard to take her seriously when she thought e=1/2mc^2 or when she has to backtrack on her OWN example. I just hope my GPA doesn't take a beating from this course...Good luck to those who will be taking her.

I think she is one of those profs who is there just for the research and not to teach. Doesn't seem like she cares how students do in her class. Take the ~50% average and the fact the doesn't post answer keys to practice exams when she know help will be hard to find during exam week. All in all and terrible prof if you value your grades.

how are we supposed to learn from a prof who gets confused reading from her own notes!!!! grading scheme is completely unfair... doesn't seem to want to help students... we had to argue with her to put up the answers to practice midterms and finals and she still didn't!!! its like she wants to see us fail!!!

Although i got an A, i dun like her a bit. Her writing is awful. In her lecture, it is like taking an eye test to c how many words u can actually read. Basically, all u hv to do is read the text book and wish god bless u.

Worst prof possible, she stinks at teaching, super hard exams, you learn nothing from the lectures. Okay as a person, horrible as a professor

Horrible prof, not very helpful at all. Avoid her class if at all possible. The only way I got by was through the textbook. Her teaching style is unclear, she teaches the entire thing from powerpoint, and her tests are ridiculously difficult. Definitely recommend staying away from her!

Brutal...

Do not take this class with her!! Midterms have nothing to do with what she teaches in lecture or what is taught in tutorials. She's a nice person but she cannot teach and her lectures are usually confusing.

Extremely unorganized class overall, tutorials are next to useless. Karen sometimes gets confused trying to solve her own problems and in the process makes students more confused, even if they had come into the class thinking they had a pretty good background of the topic. Midterms are quite random and sometimes don't pertain to what's taught.

Avoid at all costs! She doesn't come to lectures with structured notes, she just comes with a pen and notepad and draws pictures and writes random formulas without clear explanations. Exams are very hard and do not pertain to what is covered in lecture or tutorial or the homework and she always seems surprised when students don't get the concepts.

no idea what was happening in this class. I ended up not going to lectures 'cause I found it pointless and a waste of time since she write her notes with confusing drawings and formulas that are unexplained. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!!!

Terrible at explaining concepts in class, and get confused when people ask her questions. Tests are way harder than any written homework she assigns and are harder than any textbook/ mastering physics question and are super unrelated to what we have even learned. Do not take this class with Karen you'll get a back grade. 0/10 do not recommend.

Lectures are so confusing that she gets lost on her own notes. Tutorials are totally irrelevant to material on exams however it is worth 5% of your total grade. Exams are ridiculously hard compared to assigned homework. Grades are scaled at the end of the term. tl;dr She is a very nice person but a terrible prof. Would not recommend.

Lecture notes are hard to follow as they mostly consist of poorly drawn diagrams that are left unexplained. Material and concepts were not too difficult and can be easily be learned using online sources. She also often gets confused when answering student's questions. Would not recommend unless confident in learning most of it yourself.

The most confusing prof I have ever had. Has no idea what she is talking about what so ever. Students constantly have to correct her, and then she will argue with them as to why they are wrong

Before i took this class i was hesitated if i should take her course or not since EVERYONE says she is terrible at teaching. Now im taking her course and regret that i didnt listen what others saying. Its so confuse to understand her. I feel like she is just murmuring herself explaining concept and nobody has idea about it. Plz dont take her class

Confuses herself in lecture. Says she'll get back to you with an answer, never does...

She cannot explain a concept for the life of her, the lectures were useless, she was unable to finish an example or solve an equation during lecture. The average on the second midterm was well below 50% and she still would not admit that it was too hard of an exam. Do not take this class it is horrifying

Take physics with anyone else. Very poor at explaining concepts in class. Was often confused when lecture ended. Prepare to self-learn the entire course. Practice midterms, textbook and homework Qs will not prepare you for very difficult exams. Tutorials are unhelpful and disorganized. She does scale the grades though but GPA will be ruined.

By far the worst professor that I've ever had in all of my undergrad. She lacks the ability to communicate with her students in lectures, often times mumbling to herself while attempting to solve questions. Very confusing and disorganized lectures. Always thinks shes right despite majority of the students disagreeing with her.

Dr. Kavanagh was not a very good instructor, due to poor explanations of concepts and lack of organization in lecture content. I did not find that this course was very difficult, however, and easy to learn on your own by doing textbook questions. All it takes is a little effort.

Dr. Kavanagh has a difficult time teaching this class because the level of study she does is so beyond basic physics. She jumps right into problems in lectures without giving sufficient theory. If you do have a to take a class for her I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you read ahead and learn the concepts before lecture so that you understand her problems.

I found coming to her lectures made the concepts more confusing than it already is. The notes that she gives are literally random numbers and signs, and NO explanations of the concept what-so-ever. Her exams are very random, as majority of the content on the test were barely covered in lecture! Grade was saved by the curve tho!!

I pride myself in being successful in handling bad professors by selfteaching myself the material and doing a lot of question. BUT THIS DOES NOT WORK WITH HER. I did ALL the questions of the textbook, assignment, tutorial repeatedly and successfully, still managed to get my first ever C+ . Her exams are unpredictable and her lectures are useless

If you get this prof, get ready to learn everything yourself. i have never seen a prof this bad at teaching. She gets confused over her own lectures and iclicker questions. (no joke, we spent 30 mins for one iclicker question because she confused everyone and herself). Her tests are okay IF you can teach yourself. Written homework is dreadful!

OK so, I thought I could take this class and do well even her bad ratings. I'm telling you now, don't do it, especially if you're not strong in physics. Her exams lack any resemblance to the reviews, you can't follow her notes at all because she just doodles around. This course should be easy but she makes it difficult.

Dr Kavanagh is not the most organized prof and her lectures are variables with no numbers and no context. It's very confusing and the tutorials aren't any better. The mastering physics code costs $80-$90 and it is only worth 5%. Her practice exams don't come with answers so it destroys the whole purpose of having a practice exam.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!! Do NOT take physics 101 with Karen, You'll leave the class knowing less than when you went in. Absolutely terrible. Give you the wrong formulas during lecture and doesn't even notice. Students have to shout at her to get it together Expects you to understand her notes, but its jibberish Re-taking the course with a real prof.

I am not saying that you can't still get a good grade in the course if you put in the work, but from an objective standpoint she is a terrible prof. I went to every lecture but they always confused me more and she seemed just as confused as we were. Though Karen's teaching was a total gong show, the exams were fair so the class wasn't a total bust.

Doesn't teach material and relies on Achieve Prelectures. iClickers are confusing and doesn't even really give the correct answer at the end.

The professor does not understand materials enough to teach students. She keeps making mistakes which makes the lecture more confusing than it seems to be. She's struggling explain the concept so pretty much I have to ask T.A for help.

The lectures and notes are not useful at all.Her explanations are not clear or helpful during lectures. Simon was a great instructor, ensuring everyone understated the material and each achieve question. But the second instructor doesn't even give us the correct answer for achieve and she needs to understand the lecture before she teaches it!

Probably the worst prof I have had at SFU. Going to her lectures leaves you more confused then when you went in. She doesn't even know how to work iClicker.

Super confusing lectures and concepts are not clearly explained and explanations just leave you more confused than you were before. Cares more for iclickers and doesn't really explain them anyways.

horrible wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy

Just don't do it.

Slides often messy or showing incorrect solutions that are changed after class. Doesn't know how to use iclicker properly so technical problems can cause you to lose marks.

She is a nice lady, but her lecturing skills are very poor. She struggles to speak clearly, remember the content, and organize her lectures. It can be very difficult to know whether you have the right idea regarding a certain topic in class, because she often doesn't know either. Spends class time doing problems she doesn't know the answer to-AVOID

She is TERRIBLE at TEACHING. Her lectures are so uselss cuz she just repeat the achienve videos. Her tests are so hard SO GL.

Very confusing lectures. Reads off of her slides. Tests are nowhere near the practice material provided for it. Tons of homework, I-Clicker is necessary. Take this class with someone else.

She can't teach. Lectures are awful. The ratings and comments made by others are accurate do not take the course if she's the teacher. Unable to solve her own problems in class. Prelectures are more useful than lectures homework questions are extremely hard compared to lecture questions. Even ChatGPT not saving you

Avoid avoid avoid. You are required to watch an hours worth of videos before every lecture, and all she does is repeat those videos while making it more confusing. Tests are similar to practice exams but you wont understand those if you don't self study at least a bit. So many iClicker questions make lectures more about those than learning.

DO NOT TAKE her course unless you want to teach yourself everything. She's not a bad person but she is absolutely horrid at teaching. She just repeats the achieve videos that you're supposed to watch yourself so she's literally not even the one teaching you. The test are nothing like any of the practice and the homework you get will take you hours.

Dr. Kavanagh is great as a person but horrible as a lecturer. Going into the lectures leaves people more confused, as she is horrid at teaching important concepts. So many iClicker questions for marks, making attendance mandatory. Homeworks are not rated to lectures and takes hours or even days to complete. Tests are also hard so good luck.

You have to buy a 100$ textbook that sucks, and she has in-class questions that don't help with understanding the subject. The pre-lectures and bridge questions before class make the subject more complicated, and her lectures just go over those questions instead of actually teaching stuff. The only upside is that her tests aren't very hard.

Karen is possibly the worst teacher/professor I have had for Physics. Not only do I have no clue what I am supposed to be doing for some of the homework, the parts I go to her for help she will only explain it in enigmas to the point where she will ask questions that are simple and leave me puzzled on the stuff I need to know. Avoid for sanity.

i want to end myself because of her awful explanations. she makes me not like living. like actually i am miserable in this course when she just tells me simplest parts about physics and not going into detail about the things i am asking to the point where she waits 20 minutes expecting me to get it when i have no fing idea

karen i am begging you to never teach another physics course. you cannot please i am so depressed 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

This prof cannot teach at all. Her explanations make absolutely no sense whatsoever, leaving people more and more confused. I-clickers make up 80% of the lectures, with little to none have resemblance to exams. Not just that, written and achieve homeworks were so dreadful, taking days to complete. However, the tests are somewhat on the easier side.

She cannot teach for the life of her. The pre lectures are the main source of learning and in lecture she repeats the same things in a more confusing way. Attendance is part of your grade. Tests are fair and easier than homework. If you self teach you will be okay. I stopped going to class and just bit the bullet cause it helped me in the long run.

Karen is so nice. But experiencing her as a teacher has made me crash out. There's an absurd amount of homework, concepts are taught entirely by mass produced videos from Macmillan, lectures are useless and confusing. But attendance is somehow mandatory... this class has taught me nothing.

she is nice but so bad a teaching. you'd think by paying money to come to school you wouldn't have to self teach but boy are you wrong. she just repeats the achieve videos is a worse way and videos themselves are terrible. the way the teacher in the videos talks make me want to end myself its so annoying. made me lose any interest I had in physics

Is a nice person but that's really it. If you aren't good at keeping up with deadlines, don't take her class, if you're ok with a more spread out grading/assignments then it might be for you. Lectures are attendance mandatory but she just repeats what's already done in prelecture, making it feel like a waste of tuition.

Makes students watch prelectures that covered everything that will happen in the lecture, but during the lecture, she makes topics more confusing. She also does mandatory iclickers which count for marks. Besides for the confusing lectures and heavy prelecture focus, she also makes test extremely hard.

What a waste of tuition. Karen is by far one of the worst people you can ever get as person to teach you physics. Prelectures are mandatory and so are her Iclickers. They are both worth together 15%. We told her that the Midterms were difficult, and yet made the final harder than PHYS125. What a shame to call her a Dr. & Professor. SMH.

what the hell was that final. I got an A on both midterms and genuinely might have failed that stupid test. what the hel

karen has actually made me so miserable to the point where after coming from my physics final at 12 AM i never want to take physics. if i knew about phys 125 before enrolling i would have taken that class at any chance given that karen was teaching phys 120 i would prefer the harder overall course than any course taught by karen. run for your life

Avoid this prof at all costs. She is so bad at teaching Physics. Before each lecture, we had to complete lots of pre-lectures, which the videos sucks and yet she goes over them in class in a worse way, instead of teaching. Her midterms were easy but the final, so bad to the point I never wanted to take physics again. What a waste of tuition!