[CHEM W3546] Advanced Organic Chemistry Lab

Jack is an amazing person. The year I took Advanced Organic, four of the first year graduate students ended up choosing Jack as their doctoral advisor, not only because his research is interesting, but because he is genuinely a caring and considerate, sweet prof. I've never taken Gen. Chem with him, but I imagine his cute personalisms will carry over. His students often kindheartedly make fun of his shyness, his awkward hand gestures and his overall Jackness, but its because they love him.

Most likely, he will get into some kinetics stuff (not sure what the GChem curriculum is), topics that he covers in his own research. His lectures in Adv. Organic were always very well-organized, he lectured pretty close to the textbook, his problem sets were long and challenging of course, but that's to be expected. His midterm followed his lectures/psets pretty closely, and he graded very fairly.

My main advice to frosh taking his GChem course: go see him! If there's anything you don't understand, or if you're just looking to chat about the class, etc. shoot him an email. I'm sure he'll reply. He's probably very busy (I think he's pretty involved in the department) but he'll always make time for a student!

Tauqir is amazing. Though she mainly oversees the regular orgo labs, Tauqir basically teaches this one herself. If you've managed to get to know her at all in orgo lab, you've come to realize she is by far the funniest, nicest and smartest instructor this department has to offer. In a roster dominated by "serious" (aka ones who take themselves too seriously) research professors, Tauqir is like a breath of fresh air. More often than not she is more knowledgeable than the lecture professors, but most importantly she can explain things without condescending.

By all means, take Advanced Orgo Lab if you're interested in the subject. The class itself is taught with less structure than Orgo lab, which thankfully means more individual initiative along with more interesting/challenging lab work. It is by no means disorganized though, for Tauqir's been at this for quite a bit.

Michael is the WORST TA one can ever have and will ever have. He has no knowledge of organic chemistry whatsoever. He is incredibly rude. If you are taking this class next year and are in the section taught by Nuckolls, and if you learn that the TA is Michael Lefenfeld, SWITCH IMMEDIATELY TO THE SECTION TAUGHT BY TAQUIR. IT IS WORTH SWITCHING YOUR ENTIRE SCHEDULE AROUND.