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Louis-Serge Bouchard
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Based on 52 Users
The first day of class, he told us specifically that we would not need to use or even purchase the textbook for this class, and that the only thing we would need were his lecture notes. Unfortunately this is far from true. A few days before the midterm, he sent an email that said that he expected the students to read and understand all the material in the textbook and the lecture notes. There is also ADDITIONAL material in the homework (e.g. two page long explanations of new material for a certain question that you were required to know). There were mistakes on the solutions, which made my life so much more confusing. That's three different sources of different material. Plus actually going to lecture which sometimes he discussed material that wasn't in any of these three sources that was on the test.
He didn't discuss at all what from the material would be on the test and did not know his grading scale at all (when asked he basically just said he wouldn't know until all final grades were in). The only reason I did okay in this class was that I read all three sources of material and took ridiculously thorough notes of the textbook. I say ok because I got an A but my scores on the midterms were both C's, and I left a decent amount of the final blank. I took 4 classes and this is basically the only class I had time to study for. I knew an overwhelming amount of material including upper-div chem for this class slightly well instead of the ACTUAL information that I was SUPPOSED to know for this class very well. The midterms and final were actually not that hard in retrospect, but the averages were something like 30-50%, because he gave us so much material and people studied the wrong things/didn't know what they were supposed to study.
He is extremely condescending and will not answer your questions straight. I asked a very direct yes or no answer question to him and he kept giving roundabout answers, and lo and behold he very question I asked him was on a midterm and guess what I didn't know the fucking answer because he wouldn't help me.
I don't know what the final grade distribution for this class was, but seriously it is not worth your worry or stress with this professor I seriously aged 100 years by having him.
He teaches the hardest class I've ever taken, but also the best class. The material he teaches is well above the standard general chemistry level (more on the order of graduate level), but he makes it all very understandable. Furthermore, he writes you a fantastic textbook of lecture notes (and does NOT charge you for it).
Perhaps the best thing about his class is his teaching style, there are no hand-wavey explanations. Everything is derived, so it makes sense.
He is very nice in office hours and answers all questions very fully.
tl;dr: if you can put in a lot of work it's the best class available.
TL;DR: Nice person, good lectures, hard exams but not that hard if studied, no easy As
Bouchard isn’t that bad according to other students, at least in this quarter. His grading is mostly based on exams, a tiny part (10%-15%?) on quizzes in discussion sessions and homework. His lectures are quite important so don’t miss his class if you want a good grade. The exams are hard since he doesn’t allow cheat sheets and graphing calculators and the formulas for midterm 1 are real hard; otherwise it’s OK if you are good at time management in exams, math, and using scientific calculator. Also, read his class notes he gives (that’s a textbook-thingy he wrote and the exams are based on that) AND MEMORIZED THOSE GAWDAM FORMULAS. He is actually a nice man. I have never been to his OHs because our TA was very helpful on everything we needed to know for the exams.
I definitely don’t recommend this professor because relatively he should still be the last choice among professors who teach 20B, I assume. A friend of mine who was his TA really disliked him because he used to give TAs too many tasks and not respect students’ work. But if you are in his class in the future, don’t worry, he’s OK. Prioritize his class and you’ll be able to get a nice grade.
The first day of class, he told us specifically that we would not need to use or even purchase the textbook for this class, and that the only thing we would need were his lecture notes. Unfortunately this is far from true. A few days before the midterm, he sent an email that said that he expected the students to read and understand all the material in the textbook and the lecture notes. There is also ADDITIONAL material in the homework (e.g. two page long explanations of new material for a certain question that you were required to know). There were mistakes on the solutions, which made my life so much more confusing. That's three different sources of different material. Plus actually going to lecture which sometimes he discussed material that wasn't in any of these three sources that was on the test.
He didn't discuss at all what from the material would be on the test and did not know his grading scale at all (when asked he basically just said he wouldn't know until all final grades were in). The only reason I did okay in this class was that I read all three sources of material and took ridiculously thorough notes of the textbook. I say ok because I got an A but my scores on the midterms were both C's, and I left a decent amount of the final blank. I took 4 classes and this is basically the only class I had time to study for. I knew an overwhelming amount of material including upper-div chem for this class slightly well instead of the ACTUAL information that I was SUPPOSED to know for this class very well. The midterms and final were actually not that hard in retrospect, but the averages were something like 30-50%, because he gave us so much material and people studied the wrong things/didn't know what they were supposed to study.
He is extremely condescending and will not answer your questions straight. I asked a very direct yes or no answer question to him and he kept giving roundabout answers, and lo and behold he very question I asked him was on a midterm and guess what I didn't know the fucking answer because he wouldn't help me.
I don't know what the final grade distribution for this class was, but seriously it is not worth your worry or stress with this professor I seriously aged 100 years by having him.
He teaches the hardest class I've ever taken, but also the best class. The material he teaches is well above the standard general chemistry level (more on the order of graduate level), but he makes it all very understandable. Furthermore, he writes you a fantastic textbook of lecture notes (and does NOT charge you for it).
Perhaps the best thing about his class is his teaching style, there are no hand-wavey explanations. Everything is derived, so it makes sense.
He is very nice in office hours and answers all questions very fully.
tl;dr: if you can put in a lot of work it's the best class available.
TL;DR: Nice person, good lectures, hard exams but not that hard if studied, no easy As
Bouchard isn’t that bad according to other students, at least in this quarter. His grading is mostly based on exams, a tiny part (10%-15%?) on quizzes in discussion sessions and homework. His lectures are quite important so don’t miss his class if you want a good grade. The exams are hard since he doesn’t allow cheat sheets and graphing calculators and the formulas for midterm 1 are real hard; otherwise it’s OK if you are good at time management in exams, math, and using scientific calculator. Also, read his class notes he gives (that’s a textbook-thingy he wrote and the exams are based on that) AND MEMORIZED THOSE GAWDAM FORMULAS. He is actually a nice man. I have never been to his OHs because our TA was very helpful on everything we needed to know for the exams.
I definitely don’t recommend this professor because relatively he should still be the last choice among professors who teach 20B, I assume. A friend of mine who was his TA really disliked him because he used to give TAs too many tasks and not respect students’ work. But if you are in his class in the future, don’t worry, he’s OK. Prioritize his class and you’ll be able to get a nice grade.