Students will assist the teaching assistant in teaching a lab course in which the student previously received a grade of A- or better. Activities will be determined in consultation with the instructor and include instruction of 1 or 2 lab sections per week. Undergraduates enrolled in Chem 183 are learning assistants (LAs) in the general chemistry laboratory. LAs teach and mentor first-year university students. LAs assist students with experiments, lab technique, data analysis, calculations, learning chemistry concepts, and problem solving. As the LAs learn STEM education pedagogy, they can practice what they learn as LAs in the chemistry lab.
1 - 5
UnitsPass no pass
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeUpper division only
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeGainer was a good lecturer, but the tricky thing was the fact that there was lab + lecture. TA makes or breaks your lab portion. Try to do well on lab reports, because they can help cushion your exam grades. Do all the textbook problems before exams, they helped me do really well on the exams compared to the average. Curve can help by section.
Gainer is a very approachable professor, very nice and willing to answer questions. However, his lectures are not the most organized and are quite disconnected from the textbook. Ask for a classmate's notes if you missed a class, do not waste time reading the textbook. The final is pretty tricky, but doable.
Professor Gainer is amazing! Everything he says clicks and it really stays with you till test days. This class is heavily dependent on TAs and how they grade. My TA was Ms. Bashir, and she was ridiculously impossible to work with and just a mean grader. Do not sign up for Friday 8AM with Bashir!!!!!!
This professor has ridiculous standards. No direction is given for the first lab report. You will not get feedback for your report until you've submitted two more, setting up students for failure. The quizzes were tough, asking students to memorize up to three complicated mechanisms and to be able to recreate any one of them on paper from memory.
Dr. Gainer is a super nice guy who has pretty useful lectures and is available for help if you need it. This class was not easy, but I think the difficulty of all exams was very reasonable. I HIGHLY recommend the book problems for practice! Labs themselves are TA dependent, but most of the TAs want you to succeed. I really enjoyed this class.
Good luck. Exams are hard. If you have the time, talk to a TA as much as possible.