2.5
Quality3.4
Difficulty33%
Would Retake100
Reviews33%
Would Retake
100
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
10
4
19
3
17
2
26
1
28
What Students Say
“Teaches insanely fast and moves on even if you express that you don't understand”
CHEM2120 - 1.0 rating“While Ying Zheng is a very nice and approachable prof, her teaching style is dreadful”
CHEM1000 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
52%
Textbook Required
22%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.29 avg changeRatings by Course
CHEM1000LAB
5.0
(2)CHEM2110
4.0
(2)CHEM2200
3.6
(5)CHEM2120
3.4
(5)CHEMISTRY
3.0
(2)Difficulty by Course
CHEMA
5.0
BIOCHEM2300
5.0
CHEM1000
3.8
CHEM2120
3.6
CHEM1110
3.0
Reviews (100)
Wonderful, wonderful! My favorite prof! She is so helpful and she really wants one to do well in her class! If only ALL prof's were as dedicated and awesome as she! Ying is the best! Makes chem fun!
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Painful. It was like the whole class is about testing your patience with this woman
Doesn't know what she is talking about, I wish I had a big GONG for when she tries to be funny. wastes so much class time. askes obscure questions. what is charlie brown thinking about the glass of water and spoon of sugar??? mutarotation. 3rd day of class. wasted 20 min asking everybody.
She should retire now period
Funny in a sort of corny way. Her examples and analogies were so ridiculous that they helped me remember. I found her easy to understand in lectures, and helpful and easy to get along with one on one.
I thought she was funny. Her jokes did help me remember some things. "You stink (Cys)", "(Ser)iously, I'm just a sulfur different from you".... Now how can people not think that is funny???? Her practice tests also prepare you well for the ream thing.
She looks younger than her actual age of 58. Accent is not so bad after 2 weeks you'll get used to it. Exams horrible.
I thought she was funny and she made the lab interesting. Seemed to be interested in the individual and not just your mark. This was the better half of the Chem 1000 course.
It's unfair to pick on the teacher's looks, etc... She's not good looking but her class was OK.
Willing to spend time to explain even simple details. Very helpful.
She is very helpful and will always make time for you.
Her exams are too long, she wastes class time and does not explain things well. She also has the tendency to think that her class is the only one that the student is taking because the workload is ridiculous.
she did her best to make this class some what enjoyable. Funny and has a decent sense of humour.. Although if you have a hard time with accents, watch out.
I had her class last term.It was enjoyable but she didn't seem to go through everything we need to know...
A knowledgeable instructor; however, she can frequently be late for class and has a tendancy to assign tutorials that she has not given adequate instruction to complete.
Take advantage of her office hours but make sure you take the time to understand it before you go. A lot of information to process. The first exam isnt as hard as you will think.
Like talking to a child. She has horrible grammar and does not cover near enough of what is on tests. Also, she often calls out students when they don't know the answer and embarrasses them infront of all 200 other students
The department sucks, these people are uber anal! There are readings, coursework AND online assignments to do in your own time and the exam time is not flexible like all other departments. That said, Ying, is helpful but works through slides too quickly with not time for discussion of difficult parts, she is also available for help if needed.
Horrible prof, doesn't even know how to do basic chem, her answers are wrong, her notes are wrong and contradict the textbook..but she wrote the textbook and most of THAT's wrong too. Goes on random tangents in class about NOTHING.Calls out people in class and embarrasses them..Needs to retire/career change.
Terrible, doesn't teach anything, just expects you to know everything
TERRIBLE. Worst prof. ever. I went to every class just to see if I would learn anything in at least one of them, I didn't. Ying is the worst teacher EVER. When she gives you in class examples all she does is answer them, she doesnt explain at all how she got there. DO NOT GET HER AS A PROF. If you do then expect to teach yourself the whole course.
Bad Professor. She tries to make it interesting by making jokes but they are really lame. She seems lost all the time and has no real explanations for concepts. Sometimes her explanations are also different from other sources. Did not make me want to go to class.
Really not as bad as the reviews here are saying, definitely not the worst prof I've had. She doesn't cover enough material, but tests you on it - the class average on our last midterm was 50%, after she curved it. She is very willing to help, if you can make time for it out of class. Thick accent too...
Very knowledgable. Important to ask questions during class, sometimes shes not very clear but thats your responsibility to let her know. Accent wasnt an issue. Print the slides, make notes and fill in the blanks and review the notes same day and your guaranteed to do good!
She spent a whole class doing 5 easy questions on the board because nobody would go up and do them so she would just wait until someone did, then realized shew wasted the whole class. When there is an error on a midterm, she argues that you should've known better even though the practice exams she gave us had it done the "wrong" way. Horrible.
Can be funny at times, but her accent is so thick and she pronounces so many words wrong so she's really hard to follow. Lectures are pointless, and shes terrible at explaining things. If you've taken Chem 30 in high school this course should be a breeze, just don't expect her to help you understand much.
Very hard to understand, treats you like a dummy if you can't understand her concepts or have issues with the assignments.
This class is pretty basic but you don't learn much in the class. She breezes over slides and you need to work with it after and do lots of practice questions. She does know her stuff though.
Don't bother attending class. Can't understand her and she gets her jollies from attacking students and making them feel stupid. You can learn better on your own from the textbook than going to her class.
Ying is a great prof. She tries to make jokes about chem. She explains everything and takes questions in class. I failed high school chem- and have an A- in this one, that has to speak for something. Attend class and do online assignments, you are bound to get a good grade.
Hands down the worst professor i have ever had. Yes she has an accent but that is not what makes this class and herself so terrible. Her slides are awful and disorganized and she can't actually teach the material, she just rambles on about irrelevant stuff. She also treats students terribly, in the sense that we are all stupid compared to her.
I absolutely loved chemistry in high school. I thought that when I came to university, this love would deepen. Sadly, this love was lost after taking Ying's CHEM1000 course. Terrible explanations, and slides. Every time I left her lectures, I asked myself whether I learned something that day. Sadly, the answer was always no. Would not recommend.
Lectures are extremely boring. She reads straight from her power points and it's so hard to focus on what she is saying and learn the material is class. I learned 90% of course material on my own. However, exams are fair.
Terrible professor, you spend the whole lecture simply trying to understand her english nevermind the chemistry. Do yourself a favor and avoid her. Does not present the material very well. consider yourselves warned!
She speeds through important info- and goes slowly through the needless crap. Midterms are average and online homework does not give any indication as to how hard her exams are. Online homework is elementary compared to her exams.
Ying is really not as bad as people say she is. Go to class, make an effort, ask a lot of questions if things aren't clear. She will answer them. Alot of work needs to be done outside of the course (practicing questions), but thats what learning is about. Welcome to university :)
This class is like taking high school chemistry, its easy and if you know the basic concepts to chemistry you will be fine. She spends lots of time going over useless things in class and goes quickly over some more important things. Make sure you understand the math aspect of the class, barely studied and barely went to class, pulled a decent grade
She's very good at explaining herself and cracks random jokes that surprisingly helps you memorize some information. This course was fairly easy but she was able to keep it interesting. She is by far the best prof I've had.
Can't understand her very well because of her accent, so that is difficult to understand. However she also cannot explain things well. if you ask her questions she isn't able to put it into different words for you, she only repeats the same thing over and over. All she does is read word for word off of the slides which is not helpful at all.
Pretty hard to understand her. She doesn't explain things great either. She's nice and tries to be funny but I learned better from reading the notes and googling things rather than her actually teaching it. I also compared notes to my friend in the other lecture and it said two completely different things. Wouldn't recommend.
Ying encourages the class to learn by making a lot of worksheets (not for marks) that we do in class and she goes over with us which was quite helpful. My bone to pick with Ying resides in the fact that she does through slides way quicker than it is possible to comprehend and is bad at explaining once you have a question.
Ying is obviously passionate about what she does. She is so good at chemistry that sometimes she can go through some material very fast. However she is really good about answering questions in class and making herself available outside of class. The lab portion boosted my grade for this class immensely.
During her lectures, there were times in which she would go off on irrelevant tangents, thus wasting time and forcing the student to find outside sources in order to complete the homework. She also had a tendency to postpone the due dates of online assignments without informing the class. As a person she is great, but as a professor she is not good
Nice teacher but teaches too fast
Amzing prof Listen in class, read notes you'll do well one of the best profs i had!
Teaches insanely fast and moves on even if you express that you don't understand. Her lecture notes are insanely confusing and her coursepack is word for word what is on her slides so the only way to get clarification is to ask her and like I said she doesn't help at all. The only way to get a good grade is to get it in the lab bc she doesn't teach
awesome
Well were only a week in, and i have no clue whats happening.
She is probably that worst professor I've ever had in my entire life. If you can at all costs avoid her because you wont be able to understand her because of her accent. Her lectures suck, and she doesn't actually teach you anything. Have fun paying a couple hundred dollars to learn from youtube. RIP
If you give Ying a fair shot and try you will do well, It can be hard to understand her sometimes as her english is lacking. Tests were straight forward. Make sure to know all her slides
Ying is so passionate about teaching and chemistry, and it really shows. It is obvious she wants her students to succeed. However, she tries to simplify concepts so much that it gets lost. She tries to use analogies, which makes things very confusing. Luckily, this class is fairly easy if you took high school chemistry. Lab is also very easy.
Ying is passionate about chemistry which makes for more interesting lectures. She attempts to keep the class engaged despite having large class sizes. This course is manageable, but if you did not take physics 30 the first two weeks may be discouraging as it is on EMR. Tests are also extremely fair in the course!
I loved Ying, you could seriously feel her love for chemistry the way she talked about it in lectures but the course itself was kind of hard and she wouldn't extensively explain some topics but overall the midterms weren't too hard. I studied for them but they were very strict on sig. figs and concepts.
Ying is very passionate about the material and tries to lighten things up with jokes, but she was often hard to follow and understand when explaining topics. I had to teach myself the material for most of the semester. She is often open for questions outside of class but I ended up getting most of my help from the TA tutor.
The course overall was poor. My biggest complaint is her power points. The slides are not done well and it carries over to the rest of the class. She just reads them over, since the slides are poor to begin with, it makes the course hard to get a grasp of. She rushed every slide and still somehow managed to be behind. I would avoid if possible.
For people complaining about all the hard work and not being able to understand her accent - welcome to the real world! This class if challenging, but Dr. Zheng is passionate about teaching it. She is a good professor, tries hard, and cares about her students. I found her teaching method decent compared to many other classes.
While Ying Zheng is a very nice and approachable prof, her teaching style is dreadful. She is constantly trying to make analogies for topics in class, which end up getting lost. She moves through difficult lecture material at lightning speed but dwells on easier topics. Don't take chem 1000 with Ying Zheng, unless you're prepared to teach yourself.
Prof. Zheng is hard to understand in lecture. She uses too many analogies and it's hard to figure out what she is actually talking about. The free tutoring session saved my grade
You can tell she cares about chemistry, but I was very disappointed when the TA marked my midterm incorrectly, and when I approached her about it she agreed to give me full marks, but then decided to dock marks off of another question, even though it was done right, so that my grade would even out and she didn't have to change it on Moodle. Unfair.
I really do not enjoy chemistry but this prof's explanations and her love for the science made me more receptive to the information. She explains concepts well (sometimes too fast). Material is similar to chem 30 with new information added on. Take the class if you have chem as a requirement and use high school notes.
I love Zheng! She is so passionate about chemistry and if you did (kinda) well in Chem 30 then you should be fine in this course. She really cares about her students and tries to make her lectures fun and engaging. She is just so cute and wholesome. Would recommend taking her Chem1110 and Chem2120 to anyone who needs relatively easy science courses
Ying was such a great prof. She has regular weekly homework assignments that really help solidify your understanding of the course material, making it an easy course as long as you put the effort in. Her lectures are so great to watch because of her wholesome personality and clear explanations. She wrote the textbook for this course, so it's free!
I truly enjoyed my chemistry class. Ying does an excellent job teaching material and provides regular homework and quizzes to help further the understanding of the concept. If time is taken to attend the lecture portion, read the textbook and reviewing the slides on moodle this course is great. Highly recommend it to fulfill science requirements.
Ying is very kind and willing to help but used way to many metaphors. To the point where some information is only explained with a metaphor its so hard to understand. She would tend to spend to much time on simple concepts but far to short on difficult concepts.
The average on the final was 51%. The highest grade was in the 70's. Her examples are confusing and constant, and she scribbles over the notes as she teaches until they are illegible. There is weekly quizzes and homework due on days we don't have class, and there was a group project without individual marks so if you got bad partners you were SOL
As others have said, ying loves chemistry. However, hard to follow analogies and lightning fast material coverage, paired with a refusal to answer student questions, makes for a difficult class. Lucky for me, I did well on each midterm, because the final was a wash, with an average of 51%. Wouldn't take again.
Ying was very caring, & was always quick replying to emails. I wish she did asynchronous lectures, as many people always interrupted her with questions & it made me lose focus. Overall she was a good prof, online is a learning curve for everyone. The midterms were OK - just make sure to study hard. The final was EXTREMELY HARD..
Ying is great at chemistry, shes just not great at teaching it. Tests cover an uneven amount of the lectures, long & confusing metaphors, and the slides are just bad. Maybe Ying is good at teaching higher levels, but I can confidently say that shes not good at teaching the 1000 level. Just use The Organic Chemistry Tutor on YT.
Ying is nice and approachable but is a terrible teacher. She is far too fast pace to be teaching basic-level chemistry. She uses metaphors for literally every concept and it makes absolutely no sense. She made students present on each topic only to jump right into practice questions when the students presentations had false info. Waste of money.
The structure and instructing of this course was atrocious. Material was delivered through brief student presentations followed by very confusing problem solving. A total mess. The tutorials were better lectures than the lectures. Learn as much as you can on your own. Make the best of tutorials and labs and get your marks there.
Ying. is. a. G
Ying is a great professor as long as you take the time to attend and pay attention in her lectures, as well as study every day. Her passion for chemistry and love of teaching make her interesting to listen to. This course is very hard and her exams are also quite difficult. She is very easy to reach outside of class and responds to emails quickly.
There was weekly quizzes, but they were easy enough to maximize your grade if taken seriously. The lectures were extremely long and very boring, often just reading off the slides. The weekly homework was also not always related to lecture in any way, so I recommend having some chemistry background readily available. Overall this class was average.
Dr. Zheng is very passionate about chemistry and makes her lectures pretty interesting. However she is not the best at answering questions and having her mistakes pointed out
Ying is an amazing person but she tends to overcomplicate the material. All Chem 1110 is a repeat of high school chemistry and then one step further. She has a midterm and a final, a lab component, and weekly moodle quizzes. I really enjoyed the lab for this class though.
This course is all highschool chem with just a little bit more, there are attendance marks, beware that she does poke fun at students (all in good taste). Overall though she will click with some, not with others. Exams are not to bad if you do the prep work for them and make sure you put time in and study
You can get by taking her classes, just be ready to cringe at all her jokes, and prepare yourself for some passive aggressive comments when your doing the group worksheets. Will grade you on attendance. Does answer emails pretty fast. Course is basically just highschool chem with a bit of spice on top (literally learned like 2-3 small new things).
Has a passion for chemistry. Practice exercises are a great way to study!
Honestly is terrible at teacher - its crazy that she is an instructor.. She has a very thick accent and spends LOTS of time on the simple stuff - and then glances over the more complex things. Thank god for YouTube where I learn myself. And im a 4th year... avoid if u can ( I could not)
Definitely overcomplicates things and focuses on the simple things a lot but then skips over the challenging bits, so get ready to use YouTube to learn the hard parts. She is sometimes hard to understand with her accent but does seem to care for her students. Participation matters; she takes attendance, and you have to do weekly quizzes.
Dr. Zheng is very passionate about chemistry and if you pay attention, she provides good examples of confusing material that will stick with you. But she talks fast so you need to be able to keep up in order to understand her examples. Her English is very fluent and easy to understand. Very smart and understandable but very fast. Average class.
Zheng's thick accent makes this class difficult to follow. She also has content HEAVY lecture notes that are all over the place. The course content of this class isn't hard, but Zheng makes it confusing with the way she teaches. I eventually stopped showing up to lectures and used Susans videos and worksheets instead.
Ying was ok but her notes were all over the place and a bit hard to follow. Didn't show up to class much I just used Susan's videos and notes and got an A. Ying is pretty nice and quite knowledgeable. The class isn't too hard, just practice a lot with the materials and don't fall behind. Exams were similar to practice questions. Overall Ying is ok.
Difficult class for sure but that's how it be. She was super hard to follow with things and wasn't super clear at explaining things. She was also a hard marker.
Ying is a very sweet professor, and it is clear that she is passionate about what she teaches. She is happy to answer questions and help without diminishing a students efforts. However, I drove without my seatbelt every morning in hopes I would get hit by a car before I made it to this class.
Hard to follow in lectures
She is passionate about chemistry, however her lectures are very hard to follow and all over the place. She dosen't really explain well, and it is a very self study class. Relied more on Susan's website. Weekly homework, and readings. Overall class wasnt too bad; but a lot of self study.
Her lectures are all over the place and very hard to follow, the only thing that can save you in her class are the labs and the homework and practice midterms. You often have to teach yourself and rely on other sources to learn. She expects you to already know a lot of stuff, and doesn't go over the hard stuff.
Need to study by yourself to actually understand what she teaches. Her lectures are so confusing and she explains it like you already know the material. Very hard tests and dont give you enough time for exams.
Ying is very condescending. She says shes open to questions but responds in a rude, shaming way. She clearly knows chemistry very well, but to the point that she cant teach it to people that dont know it.
Honestly hard to follow the lectures since most of the time they were animated slides. Often during lectures she would ask for questions but be condescending if the answer was not what she expects. She seems to know Chemistry but lacks the teaching skills required for it. Absolutely do not recommend her for first year students.
This class was very hard to follow. Lectures moved too fast and expectations were unclear, making it tough to succeed. Be prepared to learn lecture material outside of school, you'll definitely need to even after just sitting in one of her lectures. Avoid if possible, for your own sake!
Absolutely horrible class. Hated every second of it, hard to understand her, no clear lesson structure, doesn't prepare you very well for exams. Overall a horrible experience would never take her again.
This one the worst class I have taken. the lectures feel half done and like a waste of time. I stopped going all together and taught myself using the moodle resources and the text book. if you take this course, buy the textbook and use the reading list in combination with the vids. overall awful class.
I thought we were gonna be friends, but I was so quickly proven wrong. Ying is very condescending and seems to love to put down her students in front of the entire class. And her teaching style itself is not it. Lecture slides are given no effort and lectures themselves are a bore. Found myself hoping that the ceiling would fall on me in lecture.
Absolutely terrible, thought the class would be good when she was giving me nicknames, but to later find out they were out of spite and calling me reactive for participating in class. I highly suggest not having an opinion because anything but her own is incorrect. Good luck trying to survive and pray she likes you.
Ying is quite rude and does not respond well to questions after class, it's almost if you're testing her knowledge and questioning her whole degree. It's honestly all a humiliation ritual, this class should be taught way better especially to first year students who have no idea what they're in for. Overall, avoid if possible!
I f**king hate the way this professor teaches.
Don't do it.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
52%
Textbook Required
22%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.29 avg changeRatings by Course
CHEM1000LAB
5.0
(2)CHEM2110
4.0
(2)CHEM2200
3.6
(5)CHEM2120
3.4
(5)CHEMISTRY
3.0
(2)Difficulty by Course
CHEMA
5.0
BIOCHEM2300
5.0
CHEM1000
3.8
CHEM2120
3.6
CHEM1110
3.0