Course Syllabus

Instructor:  Professor Reg Penner. Email: rmpenner@uci.edu. 

A Note About Printing This Page:
Please don't. This syllabus will be posted at this URL long after you have graduated from UCI, and become famous. You will be able to share it with your children and grandchildren. You don't need a paper copy of it.  Less is more: Let's work towards being more environmentally responsible.

Lecture TA:  Ms. Ilektra Andoni, Email: iandoni@uci.edu. 

Lecture Time and Location: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-12:50,  SSH 100. Note: There is no Friday lecture for the course, however, a five quizzes will be administered in the Friday Discussion section.  

T.A. office hour: Friday, 12:00-12:50,  SSH 100. After the Friday quiz, Ms. Andoni, our head T.A. will hold office hours in the lecture hall.  The goal here is to make it convenient for you to get help with lab write-ups, and the concepts discussed in the lecture and homework.  In these informal meetings, Ms. Andoni will address a variety of issues relating to the laboratories.

Professor's Office: Natural Sciences 2, Room 2137.

Office Hours:  I will have office hours during the hour after class each Mon. and Wed. (12:50 -- 2:00 pm) outside Social Sciences Lecture Hall, in a shady spot.  If no one is around, I will walk back to my office, so don't delay in coming to over to see me.

Required Text: Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry, 9th ed., D. A. Skoog, D. M. West and F. J. Holler and S. R. Crouch, Publisher: Brooks Cole; 9 edition (January 1, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0495558281, ISBN-13: 978-0495558286.  

• But look, don't buy the 9th edition unless you or your parents are wealthy.  Here is the down low:
• If you are planning to be a chemist, or your are an insufferable nerd (like me), buy the 8th Ed. which is currently $9.99 at Barnes and Noble.  Or the 7th Ed. or the 6th Ed., etc.  I used the 2nd Ed. in 1980, which will be 100% ok today.  Listen, it's not our job to support the broken business model of college textbook publishers.  
• If you are not planning to be a chemist, don't buy any book.  Just rent the the 9th Ed. on Google.

Course Enrollment:
Thankfully, Prof. Penner does not have the authority to sign add/drop cards.  For the first two weeks of classes, WebReg to add, drop, or change your class. No adds drops or changes (grade to P/NP and vice versa) are allowed after the 2nd week (Friday, October 13th).

Use WebReg to add, drop, or change your grade option for your classes. The deadline to add/drop most classes is Friday of Week 2 by 5:00PM. Laboratory changes may not be made after week 1. 

For enrollment-related questions, please visit the Chemistry Undergraduate Program Office website at https://www.chem.uci.edu/~upo/. Enrollment-related questions are not handled by instructors and must go to the Chemistry Undergraduate Program Office.  The Chemistry Undergraduate Program Office is located in NS2 1103 and is open Monday-Friday from 9:00AM-12:00PM & 1:00PM-3:30PM; closed 12-1PM. Email: undergrad@chem.ps.uci.edu; Phone: (949) 824-2895.

Laboratory:  Laboratory sections, supervised by our teaching assistants, will be devoted to hand-on learning of analytical chemistry.  Here is the schedule:

 **All office hours will be held in Rowland Hall, Room 228/229.

Homework:  There is no graded homework.  However, working problems will be the key to excellent performance on the semi-weekly quizzes.  I'll assign these in class.

Quizzes:  We will administer a short, 5-10 question multiple-choice quiz on the following dates this quarter:  April 12, April 26, May 10, May 24, June 7.  You will be allowed to drop one quiz.  

How are you Doing?  Laboratory Reports (900 total points) and quizzes (200 points) will account for 100% of your 1100 total course points.  Your final grade will be obtained using a modified straight percentage scheme (see below).

What's modified about it?  Well, I have not explicitly indicated cut-offs for (-) and (+) grades.  I reserve the right to do that.  But I can assure you that if you receive more the 87% of the course points, you'll get some flavor of A, 76-87% of the course points, some flavor of B, and so on.  The bottom line is that everyone can do well in this course. 

Academic Dishonesty:  This is an unpleasant topic. Suffice it to say that academic dishonesty will be punished in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the UCI Academic Senate.