<p>What do former students know about this guy? Is he as bad as he sounds and to be avoided at all costs?</p>
<p>from what I hear from rising sophomores, you should definitely avoid him… they said that he curved his class to a C, that he got visibly upset when one person scored a 95 on one of his exams, and he added in organic chemistry and like rocket science into his curriculum. This past year was his first year at Duke, but I’ve heard that we stole him from Princeton.</p>
<p>dont do it…i never had him but ive only ever heard bad things.</p>
<p>so you think chem 23 with toone would be easier than chem 21 with warren?</p>
<p>I have the same question. It says that Chem 21 is being taught by Craig and Warren. Should I wait until spring semester to take that? I don’t remember much Chem and I probably wouldn’t place out of 21 to 23.</p>
<p>Also, it says MechE majors should take ME21 but I can’t find that in the registrar. Anyone know what courses MechE students need to take freshman year?</p>
<p>Chem 23 will not be easier than 21. These classes are curved, so even if Warren’s tests are hard, it only matters how you score in comparison to the rest of the test. My roomate also scored at or below average on every test and got a C+, so I have a hard time believing it is curved to a C. It’s probably curved to a C+/B-, same as 23.</p>
<p>Toone loves orgo and biochem because he does cancer research. For those of us who aren’t premed, his class was a pain. Chem 23 has 4 hour labs. Those are annoying, so much so that I would go out on wed nights just to relax after chem lab. </p>
<p>My roomate spent about half the time I did on his labs in chem 21. </p>
<p>Warren really loves physics, so his class his tough. But the level of competition will be much greater in 23 than 21, so I would personally stick with 21.</p>
<p>Back in the day, Chem 21 had a situation where you were required to figure out the lab protocol on your own – they would give you a list of materials and you’d have to figure out what you were supposed to do and then do it.</p>
<p>This made 21 much, much harder than 23.</p>
<p>Has that changed?</p>
<p>I remember my roommate did a chem 21 lab last year where the whole procedure was basically BS and useless and all the error calculations yielded errors in excess of 40%. His lab TA told him that the whole point of the lab was to teach that using imprecise methods like poking random holes in tin foil and shoddy material like the aforementioned crumpled tin foil will result in bad data. :):):)</p>
<p>If you take general chem, by the time you make it to orgo 2 you can pretty much type up a single “discussions” section, add three specific sentences, and hand it in with each lab. It gets pretty repetitive after a while, but in a good way… if you happen to do lab work again, possibly as part of an independent study, you know some of the common pitfalls.</p>
<p>Xeneise - see <a href=“http://www.mems.duke.edu/undergrads/degree_reqs.php[/url]”>http://www.mems.duke.edu/undergrads/degree_reqs.php</a> for the latest on ME. ME 21 Fall has been replaced by EGR 53L, while EGR 53L Spring is replaced with EGR 20L.</p>
<p>so is the consensus stick it out with warren in chem 21?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks a lot! And I just read another thread and noticed you’re Dr. G himself! Looking forward to EGR53 next fall! I’ve heard nothing but good things :-)</p>
<p>By any chance, do you know if we can opt to take Chem21L in the spring? I think I can place out of Physics 61 via AP credits, so I could take it in place of that.</p>
<p>Xeneise - you <em>could</em> take CHM 21L in the Spring, though there are two things against that. First, Dean Simmons would probably not be super happy about it. Second, the offerings are more limited (typically one lecture, three recitations, and 5-7 lab times in the Spring vs. two lectures, eight recitations, and 7 lab times with multiple offerings of each of the latter in the Fall). </p>
<p>See you in the Fall!</p>
<p>so if we have a good chem background, but dont want to take higher level chem classes by exempting the gen. chem., then would it be better to take 21 with warren or opting to take 22/23?</p>
<p>I just wanted to add here to the debate between Chem 23 and Chem 21/22.</p>
<p>Chem 23 can be either harder or easier than Chem 21/22, and that depends mostly on you.</p>
<p>The class is structured (at least it was like this when I took it a couple years ago) so that you essential do an entire chapter a week and have a quiz on that chapter every week. There is a lot of work involved and you need to be able to keep up with the fast pace. I saw a lot of freshmen, myself included, struggle to keep up with the fast pace of the class while adjusting to a new school and environment etc. </p>
<p>That being said, if you have a very strong chemistry background and are able to manage your time well, you will do fine in the class. I did not take it with Toone so I don’t know how the policy is for curving, but when I took the class, there was no limitations on how many people got an A and basically, if you earned it, you got it. Of course, not everyone gets A’s and I believe this is partially because of time management reasons discussed above.</p>
<p>Toone doesn’t have quizzes. He had three exams, and a final. In recitation, we went over problem sets. </p>
<p>Toone says half the people get As and Bs, and half get Cs and Ds. His curve is fairly annoying since almost everyone got at least a 4 on AP chem.</p>