- Joined
- Jan 27, 2008
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I took his class, was 3 SD above the mean on second midterm and 455 out of 500 on his final.Unless you've been a student at UC Berkeley and have taken Vollhardt's class yourself, you have no idea how wrong you are when you say "In fact, those classes are actually a little easier". That's your opinion, maybe based on your own experiences at your own University, but I can tell you Vollhardt's class is not "easier" - I wish!I'd love to hear you say that the class was easier after you have a go at it, lol!
I would venture to say that what makes his class incredibly difficult (at least one factor that contributes) is that you only get one perspective on the material, and if you don't get it based on that one teaching style, you're screwed. Vollhardt lectures exactly from the book, and is extremley hard to follow as powerpoint is no way to teach chemistry. So if you don't understand something from lecture, you go to the book and - oops - it's the exact same thing! Perhaps most importantly, because he wrote the book, he expects us to know the entire text as a baseline. So not only do we have to be adept at the textbook material, but we have to know everything in tons more detail that we get from OHs, additional texts, and graduate student lectures. So no, I have to disagree strongly when you try to tell me my class is easier because the teacher wrote the book - maybe for you, but not UC Berkeley.
it was a breeze.
