I took this course with Prof. Welch as a prerequisite for a bio major. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the class, but that's partly just because I don't like chemistry and mostly because I hated the Tophat textbook format. Professor Welch is probably the best intro chem prof there is - his lectures are very engaging and he really communicates the subject matter well. He's also really nice and easy to approach if you need clarification. However, he's using the Tophat Expo format, which I'd say is a downside. Tophat is a textbook platform you have to subscribe to, only to access extremely long, typo- and error-ridden chapters that don't always help you learn the material. Instead of having lectures twice a week, you have lectures on Tuesday and expo on Thursday (a sort of group-work on Tophat day which is supposed to make you think more deeply about the subject to better understand it. Honestly, I didn't get anything out of expo). However, between all the tophat assignments for the chapter, expo, and weekly assignments, you do get a bit of a grade buffer. The exams take place over three days; the first part is an individual in-class exam, usually pretty straightforward. The second part is an online, open-book exam, which sounds good until you've spent hours on five questions (they make them very detailed and you have to have minute understandings to answer). The third part is reconvening with your expo group to re-answer the questions from the second part as a group. The final was harder than I'd expected but not ridiculous. Overall, this class was a bit tedious, but it's required for many, and Prof Welch makes it a lot better than it would be with only Tophat. I'd definitely recommend taking this class with Prof Welch.

I agree with everyone else below, Welch is an amazing professor because he is an amazing PERSON, however, I don't really like his teaching. He taught very surface level which was frustrating because every lecture he never got to the most difficult parts of the required TopHat readings. He did though, explain the surface level concepts very well... Overall, I did not like the TopHat format. The TopHat readings were often difficult to digest and read, and it doesn't help that Welch doesn't thoroughly go through the more difficult parts of the readings. I also did not like the EXPO format. They say group work helped the TAs a lot, but I honestly think they're bluffing. All anyone wants to do in EXPO is to hurry up, finish and LEAVE. (EXPO is basically discussion for chemistry done on TopHat)

On your busiest WEEK, you will be required to do TopHat readings and questions, Writing to Learns (basically a two-page essay about chemistry concepts you probably don't understand and find 25 other students in the same TA office hours trying to also figure them out), Individual Exam Questions (which I promise you are the most difficult out of textbook questions I've ever taken), Group Exam Questions (which you take your individual exam answers and bring them to EXPO and agree on one answer, this was a huge grade booster and I was hard carried by my group lol), and the actual in-class exam that is somewhat doable - did I mention you do this all in one week, three times?

However, as a professor, he is the most approachable, easy-going professor I had. You can feel it during his lectures that he's a pretty nice dude. Also, if you miss a TopHat assignment he's more than happy to open it up for you again on the spot. I don't think he even asked me for an excuse, which I thought was nice. This review was mostly for the style of the class. If what I mentioned above is not the type of style you prefer than I would not pick Welch just because of his better rating. I am currently taking Morcowchuk for CHEM 1420 and it is a style I much prefer. She's also not as bad as everyone said she was, she's also nice as anyone else. I think there were a lot of negative things said about her and negative reviews, but I believe that she has gotten better. It's more traditional but straightforward. Three lectures (50 Min.), Mastering Chem HW questions (MAX 3 Hours (which is the same amount of time you would combine EXPO and TopHat homework, etc.)), and Exams. Nothing else.

I remember talking to Welch after the first semester was over to ask if there was any way I could join his class (it was full after the first two days of enrollment, rough time for a first-year like me). He said he couldn't do anything about the limited capacity and admitted that Morkowchuk's exam scores are better than his that semester. Take that as whatever you want it too.

In conclusion, choose the professor for the style you most fit!!! Not the actual professor!!! Chemistry concepts will always be hard to understand without your individual hard work and ALL the professors and TAs are resources to help you understand! Good luck.

Welch is the fucking man. He's easily one of my favorite professors at UVa. He is incredibly approachable if you have any questions, and is impossibly intelligent on his course content. Seriously, you can ask him anything about chemistry and he'll give you an actual MEANINGFUL answer (not just one where professors dodge around the question and completely fail to answer the question in the slightest). His grading is more than fair, and his exams were challenging, but not impossible. This class takes effort and persistence, but once you understand the base concepts (which can be very intimidating), doing the actual chemistry is very straight forward. Welch curved all of our exams (which were take-home/online) so myself and most of my friends did really well in the class. His lectures are designed pretty strategically. Basically you do the reading on TopHat and answer the online homework questions BEFORE you go to lecture that week, then during lecture he goes over all the material to solidify what we read. This class is heavily independent and it is important to try to understand the TopHat readings as much as you can before going to lecture, so everything welch discusses is just gravy on top to cement the content. He's understanding and knows that the content can be challenging, but from my experience, I felt like the content wasn't necessarily challenging, but just very intimidating at first glance.

Overall, Welch is an amazing professor and everyone should try to enroll in his classes. He's incredibly intelligent, passionate, approachable, and fair. Don't get me wrong- you can easily fail this class if you don't try your ass off, but its not impossible like a lot of people make it sound.

Welch has been my favorite professor at UVA. He's an engaging and funny lecturer, and makes seemingly dull topics interesting. If you read the textbook and pay attention in lecture you'll do just fine.

Let me tell you how much I LOVED this class. I was terrified of taking college level chemistry but Kevin Welch totally turned that around. Lectures were informational, coherent, and even fun. Clicker questions aren't graded, and he never made anyone feel bad about asking stupid questions. Exams were extremely fair, and he only asked about things we explicitly covered in class. Concepts are tough, but you can absolutely be successful in Welch's gen chem 1 if you're willing to put in some effort.

I struggled with this class, it is one of my more difficult classes and first semester of my first year. I have no prior experience with AP chemistry, and I took chemistry in high school my sophomore year, much of which I didn't remember at all. Welch is a good professor to take Intro Chem. He made the room feel smaller in his entertaining lectures. Clicker questions were used for attendance and often I didn't attend lectures and didn't feel too left behind thanks to slides being posted and pretty predictable. Grades consisted of Weekly Questions, Participation, Mastering Chemistry, and Tests/Exams. Welch is a good teacher and gives out amazing slides that look really good, but he sometimes would go on tangents which often confused me. His lectures were interesting however I felt I wasn't prepared fully for the tests with lectures and classwork alone. Readings are crucial, especially for understanding the math behind many of the problems, due to only broad concepts being covered in class. (meaning I used an of Organic Chemistry Tutor youtube videos to understand concepts fully) (really recommend his hybridization video because Welch explained it horribly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otYj92d7rB0) Mastering Chemistry was often frustrating with the lack of help from the book and class. Thankfully Mastering Chemistry wasn't due until the end of the semester (in December) so we didn't have to worry much about getting that done by the end of the week. Weekly Questions acted as a quizlike grade, open book, and open note, and open friends. However, questions were extremely difficult. I would recommend getting friends to work on them together with to get them done. Tests were quite difficult and often tests far beyond the concepts taught, asking students to know things beyond class concepts. I would recommend studying the Mastering Chemistry and grey areas in the margins of the book. I also strongly recommend checking back on the tests and requestion resubmissions, which I found out about late in the game, due to many errors on the test and errors in grading. I didn't find the TA's discussion times especially helpful, due to silly busywork and it is a waste of my time often. At each discussion, you could get a half point extra for your final grade for participating and filling out a card. I didn't receive my full credit I guess due to errors in the collection about it, whatever. I won't be taking with Welch again because I didn't like how he left out the math part of chemistry and I have heard a lot of amazing things about Linda Columbus and her much higher averages, so we shall see.

I succeeded in AP chemistry in highschool, but decided to take this course instead of 1810. I personally thought AP was MUCH harder than this course with Welch. I barely studied and only missed points for significant figures on each of the exams. All of my friends in Morkowchuk and Metcaf suffered so much in this course, while everyone in Welch had a pretty good experience. I like chemistry a lot so I though all of the lectures were pretty interesting, sparsely boring. This year, Welch's exam averages were around 84 each exam, Morkowchuk 78, and Metcaf 70, to give you a little insight on the discrepancies of the classes. Take chem with Welch if you can!!!! PS here's a tip for the discussions: they're extremely boring and they take attendance at the end, so I would show up 45 minutes late every week just in time to write my name down to get those extra credit points ;)

Kevin was by far my favorite professor this semester. If you are not taking Chemistry with him I'm not sure what you're thinking unless theres an EXTREME schedule conflict. Vey knowledgeable about the material and he is very fair knowing how difficult chem can be.

Welch is by far the best teacher for Chem 1410. He's a really goofy guy and makes lectures fun. If you put time into weekly questions and mastering chem and pay attention in class, you should be successful on the tests. I've gotten As on every test and and ending with an A in the course.

Welch is the best CHEM 1410 professor. Hands down. Highest averages among Lisa and Metcalf. He covers mainly class material on the exams and is a pretty good lecturer. He will help you understand the material a lot more if you go to his office hours. So if you have trouble, try and meet with him. He's a pretty funny guy and is real understanding. If you are going to take Chem I, he's pretty much the way to go. Exam averages speak for themselves to be honest.