Difficult course made more difficult by the professor and did not prepare his students well for the exam. Did not provide adequate study resources to support students in the class.

Does not help prepare for the exam at all

The professor teaches absolutely nothing, and we have to teach ourselves everything. We spend most of our time writing the prelab notebook instead of learning.

This class is something

doesn't teach well. exams bloody difficult. class mandatory for chem 1701 stream. prepare to do a lot of self-teaching.

Doesn't give any "real" practice tests to prepare for the exam. Doesn't go over all topics that were really covered on the exam either (like pH, pOH, moles electron, etc.) I feel like he is very nitpicky on what he's looking for in the lab notebook and can easily get points off. Overall I feel like he just expects you to know topics on your own.

If I could give a 0, I would. But that's not possible, so I choose to give a 1. Professor Kummer did not set clear expectations for this class's previous midterm exam, and did not give adequate practice questions that reflected the difficulty of the course. While I think the labs demonstrate technique properly, the exams are very detrimental

This midterm was nothing like the practice. The person who gave him a 5 is lying don't let them deceive you.

Bro makes us copy the manual by hand every week and doesn't talk about anything in class.

Professor Kummer can't teach or prepare people for exams period. He's a nice guy but that means nothing if you write impossible to complete exams.

Professor Kummer wrote a ridiculously hard exam he didn't prepare us for. He probably forgot that many students were doing college chemistry for the first time and decided to write an exam that was impossible for said students.

Horrible professor

Terrible in every way

So bad I don't even remember him

So bad I don't remember a fact or lesson we learned

Dr. K is out of touch. The 2 credit class demands more than 10 hours weekly. Students must handwrite procedures already printed in the manual, tedious and pointless. Tests are 14 pages, lectures lack teaching, and lab reports are exhausting. Too much busywork, little learning, poor course planning, and he ignores student feedback despite a petition

Very nice person and passionate about chemistry, but some things are unnecessarily complicated when it doesn't need to be.

Dr. Kummer is not suited to run a course as large as Chem 1751. On top of the tedious busy work, lab grading felt inconsistent, and I rarely received constructive feedback that helped me improve. Lectures were hard to follow, and I struggled to grasp key concepts. The fact I went out of my way to write a negative review is very telling.

Man does his class suck. For a 2 credit, intro chem lab the workload and difficulty is ridiculous. He makes you hand copy 30+ lab steps instead of just letting us bring in the lab manual, basically wasting 3+ hours of time/week purely on busy work. Also gave us no helpful resources to prepare for (imo) one of the worst exams I've taken at WashU yet

Tedious work—2-3+ hours spent on writing the procedure down verbatim (unbelievable). Not enough practice problems to know what to expect on the exam (only last year's exam as practice, which was considerably easier). Unclear on grading, taking off 10% for unordered pages. Prepare to spend more time than you think for a 2 credit laboratory class.

Drowns you in busy work and doesn't teach you the material on exams

Professor Kummer is a nice guy but barely teaches the material. He excepts you to read and understand the entire lab manual front to back on your own and write out the lab procedures verbatim every week (which is way too much work for a 2 credit course and is just busywork). Not to mention the practice exam was nothing like the actual midterm.

Seriously, the worst class I have ever taken in my life; keep in mind this is a two-credit course.

Be ready to sit in a mandatory lecture and learn nothing that will help you in the lab or tests. Most of the work is busy work and takes up a significant amount of time each week; sadly, this class is only worth 2 credits. Also, your grade is determined by the midterm and final, which the practice test, lectures, and labs fail to prepare you for.

Any and all materials given for exams will not help you, and exams are 50% of your grade. Lectures do not prepare well for lab. Insane amount of work for a 2-credit course, and most of it is busy work with literally copying down word for word assignments. Incredibly tough grading on reports and exams. Harder than chem lecture by far.

He seems like a cool guy sometimes during lectures but everything else about the class is terrible. I'm usually pretty optimistic in my views, but this has gotta be the worst class I'll ever take. The lab manual which you have to copy down by hand is riddled with errors and inconsistent vocabulary. There's no grade compensation for the confusion.

this class is the reason why im no longer pursuing bme

He does not want you to do well in his class

The class is actually the worst ive ever had its crazy how poorly done it is

Worst professor ever

All the wrong things are hard in this class.

The course is basically a flipped classroom. The lectures do not teach anything but rather assume we know the material that is given in a manual. A manual that teaches chemistry as if we are chemists rather than students, who for most of us, are taking chemistry for the first time. The main assignments are also just copying down the manual verbatim

Since this class is required for SO many STEM majors, it makes it really hard to want to continue with the path that I've chosen. My other classes are hard, sure, but none make me hate my life like this one does. The structure causes unnecessary stress and it basically requires you to teach yourself and hope for the best.

I can't take this anymore.

Lectures don't help with the exam and offer minimal help for the physical lab, required to hand-copy the lab manual instructions into a separate notebook, which is time-consuming and doesn't improve performance during the lab. The test assumes that you know the content that is talked about, even though you only skim past the parts in the lecture.

This guy wants his students to suffer. This 2 credit course requires u to spend 1 hour in lecture, 3 hours in lab, and 2 hours in just copying lab manual to your notebook every week. He teaches nothing in his lectures and u need to learn everything in the manual by yourself. Also, the lab does not provide gloves even when students are using 6M HCl

Way too much effort is required for this 2-credit class. The exam he made is nothing like his practice material.

You are given a lab manual with all of the relevant safety and procedural information you could need for lab, but you can't use it! Instead, you have to copy it by hand into your own notebook. If you forget to include something, too bad. Material covered in lecture and given as practice material very poorly reflects actual content of exams.

We only have 1 lecture a week and he barely teaches anything during them. He gave a difficult midterm that only people with a good chemistry background would get a good grade on. It is over 7-8 hours a week of studying/preparing, for a 2 credit class.

WashU gets a bad rep for it's social life, primarily because of professors like Kummer. I'm spending 4-5 hours on average rewriting the experimental procedure for the pre-lab assignment and an additional 2-3 hours, all per week, trying to somewhat comprehend the unit of the week's content in his textbook because his lectures aren't proficient.

Smiles all day long and you'll be smiling with him until you realize that nothing he teaches is on the exam. If you copy a single word wrong on the lab manual he will hunt you down and take so many points off you'll think its the end of the world. The problem sets you need to self-learn to do. The classes he teaches are a waste of time and life.

This course makes me regret choosing a STEM major. Lectures and practice exam are useless for exam preparation, and every homework wastes too much time, which is not the workload that a 2 credit course should have.

He seems like a wonderful person but good god that work load is out of this world for 2 credit hours. If you're in gen chem it's fine but if you're in 1601 kiss your gpa goodbye. The exam was a literal encyclopedia about content you had to teach yourself. Not to mention the 5+ hours of work you have to do on your own time each week.

Worst professor ever met. Although he seems nice during the lecture, everything he taught is almost unrelated to the mid-term exam. The practice exam he gave us is unhelpful at all. The test is mostly unrelated to the lab the we done, while the exam takes more than half of the grade. Lots of self-study. Even if you master chemistry, you may fail.

I hate this class and he made it too difficult for it to be worth only 2 credits. I hope i never have him as a teacher again. He think is a class average of a 60% on an exam is "impressive".

The fact that it is a 2-credit class is hilarious. Terrible.

experimental outcome of his chem lab class is heavily increased anxiety, sleep deprivation, and low self esteem. wish washu had more professors who empowered their students with more comprehensible content / knowledge rather than letting students rot in their unpreparedness after each lab and exam.

A in the class but at what cost? pre-med kids will be crying over the grading but it really is a rude awakening. notebook prep is long, test was very stressful with little material to prepare, lectures are just going through the textbook. incredibly nice man, but this being his first time leading the class really shows

Nice guy but disorganized. Content is easy but twisted into something complicated due to poor instruction

Sweetest dude outside of the classroom but willingly chooses to be the worst chemistry lab professor conceivable. Unnecessary amounts of notebook work, practically useless but mandatory lectures, and exceedingly long and difficult exams. 👎👎

you'll learn everything yourself. doesn't teach.

Absolutely insane how he expects us to learn anything. He does teach just assigns so much. No idea how I am gonna do well in this class and I spend hours trying to understand just one lab. Doesn't teach yet is so picky. Terrible professor.

Unclear manual, poorly taught lectures, tedious pre scans, awfully difficult exams. Claims that the course does not require high school Chem, but if you really didn't take chemistry at high school, praying is the best thing you can do.

Spent too much time copying a lab notebook word for word for no reason, and no preparation for exams. Even harder than the actual Chemistry course.

has us spending hours rewriting procedures word for word from a useless manual, and bases our grade from a midterm and a final that is nothing like anything he has taught (which is not much). Expected to learn everything at home, and makes a 2-credit course the hardest and most annoying course that I am taking.

May be the worst class I have ever taken. Making us do hours of just copying a manual word for word every week. In terms of exams, they are nothing like anything he has taught us, and you will need external chemistry knowledge not taught in the class. the student lab supervisors try to help, but non-student assistants have been very condescending

Any positive review here must be from Dr. Kummer himself or his family/friends that feel bad for him. As others have said, he is not a great lecturer, gives busywork to already very busy college students, and the practice was not like the test at all.

I am at an utter loss when I am copying down every grueling procedure from the Lab Manual to a separate notebook in pen. I have to become completely neurotic, and it takes at least 4 hours. The workload for a 2-credit lab is egregious and does not accurately reflect it. The lectures are confusing, and I am teaching myself nearly everything.

Dr. Kummer seems like a very nice person and always has a smile on his face. However, he is an awful teacher. Textbook is difficult to read, lectures aren't helpful, and I leave without understanding. I spend too much time doing useless tasks like writing the procedure verbatim, and I am lost at every lab report. Too much work for a 2 credit class

Made the midterm test insanely hard. The practice test he gave us for it was nothing like the actual midterm at all.

This is the most awful and insane teacher I've ever met. He forced us to copy the whole lab manual.

Professor excepts you have the chemical intuition of Linus Pauling. Material in lab reports not covered in readings or lecture.

student asked him to post a blank of the midterm to help study and this guy say "ill think about it" WHAT IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT

Lectures and exams seem to operate in parallel universes, occasionally acknowledging each other from a distance. The workload feels more suited to a course with three credits. As for the handwritten LabNotes requirement—a bold pedagogical experiment—I suspect its value might be best appreciated by anyone willing to personally try it someday.

Worst course I have ever taken. Kummer truly makes you lose your passion for chemistry. So much work and exams are not at all representative of course but worth over half of grade. Also, gives little to no resources for them. Targets specific students and is unnecessarily cruel. Stained my first-year experience at WashU. Stay away if you can.

This professor has come to absolutely kill anyone's interest in chemistry. It has made my entire semester a miserable experience, and almost everyone in this class agrees that Prof Kummer has made this course unbearable for a 2-credit class. The cumulative final has no practice problems or exams. I hope WashU makes a change ASAP.

This is the worst class I have ever taken. Ignore all positive reviews. One class a week where we learn JUST about glassware and basic procedural steps, the content taught in class is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to content on the exams, he refuses to publish practice exams, and you better have a hardy immune system because there is no policy for make-ups.

Ik this class is required for premed so maybe just change majors

he successfully made an easy introduction into chem lab, a class that has historically been a well respected class, into a hellscape for students. A notebook policy that includes simply repeatings whats already in the textbook requires, no valid practice test for the midterm and no practice test at all for the final. dont recommend

Kummer wants the best for his students but often fails to depict such. His work load is immense compared to nearly all 2 credit courses. The grading is often confusing in my opinion especially on reports. And there's 2 exams, both have 0 study guides. Best of Luck!

If 1751 is required for your major, change majors. If you're not religious, pick one and pray.

Lowk made me rethink my life choices

Avoid taking this course at all costs. You are expected to know content that was never taught in lectures. You are required to spend hours a week on busy work, copying down lab procedures. He is extremely unaccommodating when it comes to illnesses and life threatening hospitalizations. The course does not line up at all with the gen chem course.

Completely changed the course from last year. Lab notebooks are completely tedious and unnecessary way to waste hours of your week on top of other classes. Midterm and final exams have zero study guide and according to one of the TAs, “It's not even worth studying for this year's final because it's the hardest exam he's ever seen”

This course truly made my first semester at WashU miserable. I think decisions need to be made about alternative professors for teaching this course next semester, because the general consensus is that this situation is failing severely. Students are being left to fend for themselves, and only a small percentage thrive.

Made me leave my major

Don't take this course. Makes you copy the lab manual before every lab. The midterm was outrageously hard and nothing like the sparse "study materials" provided. I'm changing majors.

Never take this course. Made me switch majors. No matter how much work you put in its not enough. You were always expected to participate even if sick. Lectures are genuinely so useless to go to. Only goes over what you will do in the lab, which you already spend hours a week on copying down your lab manual.

I'm trying to study for the final exam right now, but the only materials I have is a manual that is required to memorize almost word for word in order to understand what is going on, and past lectures where the teacher assumes everybody knows what he is talking about, never explaining any examples. Something needs to change.

This has really been the worst class I have ever taken. I am cooked for this final exam, because of the fact that there is nothing to study. Before this year, chem lab was regarded as a pretty easy class, but of course this is the year when a 2 credit lab is harder than the actual chemistry class. Washu has to do something, because this terrible.

This guy is horrible and doesnt teach.

Taking Professor Kummer's class was damaging beyond academics. The cutthroat environment he created made learning feel secondary to fear and competition. I felt isolated, constantly anxious, and mentally drained. By the end, my confidence and mental health were significantly harmed, and I would not recommend this course to anyone. Strongly avoid!

Prof Kummer doesn't know what the word teaching means. Bro has a PhD but for the wrong course prob a mix up when getting hired. pls don't take if at all possible. business is always a good major to end with.

awful awful professor and course. the structure of it just doesn't make sense. how is a 2 credit chem lab course harder than chem 1701??

final is in less than 7 hours WHAT DO I DO GUYS. LITERALLY COOKED. DEEP FRIED. BD BURGER PATTY LEVEL COOKED

This class isnt real. No past exams, nothing is taught during the lecture, harder than chem itself. 10/10 not recommended

literally horrible, unorganized, ridiculously hard and ridiculous amount of work for a 2 credit course.

The instructor conducts the course as though it were a full‑time class, despite meeting only once per week. Assignments are graded with little to no allowance for partial credit. The pre‑notebook requirement consists largely of repetitive copying and pasting, offering minimal educational value. I would not recommend this course.

His first year teaching this class and it should be his last. 2-credit course but consumes most of my time. Midterm+final were really hard with NO real practice or preparation to help you. Lectures completely useless and don't help. He talks vague and can't really teach. If you want a good grade, you have to waste more time going to office hours.

dont do it :(

WashU find new professors, please... This is ridiculous.

I think that Dr. Kummer is probably a really great person. But this class was designed poorly. I spent hours every week writing my lab notebook which consisted of purely copying procedure steps out of our textbook. It was a huge waste of my time and felt disrespectful to my learning. I wish he would change the design so that we could learn more.

just read the book gang

Experiments were easy but exams were near impassable as the average for the final was a 67.87%.

No prepatory work, and honestly unrealistic asf.

I got good grades all because of online videos. I had very few chem knowledge and this is the HARDEST class this semester. He teaches literally NOTHING in his lectures and there is NO real practice problems. Don't take if you can.

I feel bad for the man because I think he really is a nice guy, but the class he made sucks. The workload is not equivalent to the credits you earn. The actual labs are okay, but there is so much material to learn for the midterm and final, especially if you are in 1701, there is little overlap, so you are essentially taking two chem classes.