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 finished Chem. 1A, 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: We are fortunate to have two excellent Lecture T.A.s.  They are:  

Ms. Vivian Chen, Email: chenvt@uci.edu.

Mr. Wilfred Russell, Email: wsrussel@uci.edu.

Lecture Time and Location: Tues. & Thurs, 11:00-12:20, PSLH 100 

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

Office Hours:  I will have office hours during the hour after class each Tues. and Thurs. (12:20 -- 1:30 pm) under the trees near the rose garden, just outside Rowland Hall (after I get a cup of coffee).  If no one is around after I get my coffee, I will repair to my office, so don't delay in coming to over to see me.

T.A. Office Hours:  Ms. Chen and Mr. Russell will hold one office hour each week:

Ms. Vivan Chen - RH 523 on Wednesdays from 1 to 2 pm.

Mr. Wilfred Russell - RH 552 on Thursdays from 2 to 3 pm.

Required Text:  Chemistry: Structure and Properties (1st Edition) Author: Nivaldo J. Tro.  Do not buy the 2nd edition unless you or your parents are wealthy.  It's crazy expensive and completely unnecessary.  It's not our job to support textbook publishers.  This rant will be continued in class on day 1.

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.

Exams:  Two midterm exams and a final exam will be administered on the dates listed below.  Midterm exams will be held in class.  The final exam will be comprehensive and identical to the exam taken by all other Chem 1A students - the so-called Common Final. There will be no makeup exams this quarter.  The total weighting of these three exams will be 90% - the remaining 10% will be contributed by the homework.

The Common Final Exam:  We are working hard to make the five sections of Chemistry 1A equivalent to one another in every way.  To this end, we will be administering a Common Final Exam that is identical for all five sections.  This exam has its own website, located at http://sites.uci.edu/chemcommonfinal/ (to be updated) where additional information on the exam can be found.

A Common Final Exam equation sheet will be made available, and a Common Final Exam Study Guide will be issued - identical for all Chemistry 1A students this fall.  Stay tuned to receive these materials prior to Week 10.

A Make Up final:  For the Common Final Exam only, a makeup exam will be offered to those who have an exceedingly good reason for missing this exam.  Dates for this makeup exam are to be announced.  Just to be clear, there will be no makeup exams for either of the Midterms.

Discussion:  Discussion sections, taught by our teaching assistants, will be devoted to problem solving and to answering your questions. A discussion study guide (DSG) will be prepared each week. This study guide, which will consist of several "key" problems, will be circulated to students in attendance at the discussion and these questions will be solved interactively by the class and the instructor. Attendance and preparation for Discussion will be a key to top performance in the course. Discussion Study Guides will not be made available outside of the three discussion sections.

Note-taking:  You are already an accomplished student who has succeeded in mastering the courses offered in high school, thereby earning your way into The University of California, and this class. You already understand how to study and learn - at least at the high school level. But I offer this advice to you anyway, on the chance that you may take it to heart:

Take notes.  Since all lectures will be posted on our website, and since you have a phone that can be used to photograph and record my lectures, you may say, that's ridiculous advice.  Why in the world should I take notes?  The answer may surprise you.

The act of writing notes will help you remember concepts and remain focused.  Some of these concepts will not be covered in the book.  Your ability to recall concepts from lecture will be improved by writing them down, and here is the surprising thing:  Taking notes improves recall  even if you never look at these notes again!  This assertion is based upon a small data set consisting of one person - me.  Invariably, I find that anything written down is more readily recalled than things that are not.  I believe the benefit of note-taking is universal, but your own results may vary.  Taking a photograph of the slides using your phone, or staring intently at PDF files of the lecture slides, while easier, does not provide this benefit - at least for me. 

PDF versions of the lecture presentations will be made available on the <a href="lectures.html">lecture schedule</a> page of this website just in advance of each lecture.

Homework:  Homework will be a significant component of your final course grade, 10%.  Homework is automated, and supported by Sapling.  Homework assignments, ten in all, will be assigned about two weeks in advance.  These are automatically graded.  There will be a few, optional, extra credit assignments, worth ≈20 pts. total.   

How are you Doing?  Your final grade will be obtained using a curve.  The same curve will be used for all five sections of Chemistry 1A this quarter.  This curve will be decided at the end of the quarter by the five professors teaching Chem 1A in Fall 2017.  But you will have an approximate idea of your grade since the mean of this curve will be - approximately - at the border between a B- and a C+, and I will provide you with your mean at several junctures during the quarter, including before each of the three exams.

Missed Exams & Homework Assignments:  With the exception of the Final Exam (see above), there are no makeup exams or makeup homework assignments in this course. In general, where an absence occurs without my prior consent, the absence will be unexcused and the student will receive a zero.

Exam Regrading:  I will be pleased to regrade exams or problems which you believe to have been unfairly graded. Please note that the product of a regrade may be a higher score, a lower score, or no change of score.

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.