Thanks for a good semester

[Zellmer, Robert]

I hope your finals have gone well.

I want to say thanks for a good semester.   We're pretty much
back to normal w/o masks, for the most part.  At least we were
able to have all in-person lectures.  I like being able to do demos
and getting to interact with you in class.

I know I didn't get to know most of you or learn your names but
don't be surprised if I remember some of your faces (at least if I
saw you in class or office hours).  I may even remember some of
your names if we had the chance to speak on more than one
occasion or I got multiple e-mails from you throughout the
semester.  If you run into me somewhere in the future, please
don't feel bad if I don't recognize you or remember your name.
Please say hello.  As the years go by, I often don't remember
names for very long.  Hey, I've had close to 30,000 students so
far in my career.  That's a whole lot of names and faces.  They
say your life flashes before your eyes when you die so I figure it
will take awhile for me to die if I have to go through all the faces
I've come into contact with.  Besides, my stubborn side will make
me hold on as long as possible.  There's so much I still haven't
seen or learned.

Thanks for your cooperation at the final.  We got set up pretty
quickly.  I can't say much about the final or average since they
haven't released them.  They will not be releasing the questions
and your answers.

I want to say a special thanks to those who continued to come to
lecture.  I'm grateful for that.  It's much easier to lecture when people
are there.  I enjoyed the personal interactions being in person and
doing demos.  I hope no matter what the outcome, you can say
you learned something.  I think there were times we actually had a
little fun and laughed a little, even at my bad jokes.  Hey, I'm not
getting paid enough to come up with good ones.  Whoever thought
you would be able to laugh during a chemistry lecture.  Maybe you
even learned something new and found a few things interesting (why
geckos can walk on walls, or you can drink boiling water, or the fact
the m.p. of water increases as you apply pressure, or there are other
forms of ice than the one we're used to, etc.).  Sometimes even the
simple and mundane parts of life can be really interesting when you
know something about the underlying reasons.  Please continue to
learn as much as you can and educate yourselves about your life
around you.  That way people can't take advantage of you.

A shout out goes to those who asked questions in lecture.   We
had quite a bit of that this semester.  Asking questions in lecture is
good.  I will say I got more questions when lecturing remotely than
when in person.  Perhaps people feel more comfortable participating
when not in person.  I can understand that.  Get over that.  You
learn by asking questions and if you have a question, it's a sure bet
someone else has the same question or maybe didn't even think
about it.  It also lets me know what you don't understand and
hopefully do something to fix the problems you're having right then.

A special shoutout to those who came to office hours.  That keeps
me on my toes and I don't get so lonely waiting for people to show
up.  It helps me realize what people are having trouble with and
when time allows, go over it again in lecture.   Plus, I get to know
you better which is good if you ever want me to write a letter of
recommendation in the future.

A very special shout out goes to those of you who helped with
demos.  I hope you had fun.

Finally, thanks to all of you who caught errors in the textbook, the
solutions manual and Mastering.  It helps all of you when I can send
the corrections out and helps Pearson make things better for future
students.

I know this course is tough and we cover a lot of material in 14 weeks.
Chemistry is done so you can all rest a little easier.  I know some of
you are done for good and are probably really happy about that.
Most of you have to take 1220.  You'll use quite a bit of what you
learned this semester.  Review material from chapters 9 (polarity),
11 (attractive forces and how they affect properties), 12 (the 4 types
of solids and their att. forces) and 5 (enthalpy, Hess's law, enthalpies
of formation) before you start 1220.  You'll be using this in Ch 13.

I know some of you may have to repeat.  That's not the end of the world,
as you may think right now.  It is not the worse thing that will happen to
you in your life.  It happens now and then, even to the best of students.
If you will be retaking the course, please speak to me before you do,
even if I'm not your instructor.  I'm sure if approached properly anyone
can pass this course and do well.  I don't want you to have to repeat a
second or third time. Repeating a course will not put an end to whatever
your dreams are.  Believe me, I know.

You can go on to 1220 with a D in 1210 but you could struggle if you
don't make sure you learn the material better.  Also, once you go on to a
subsequent course in Chemistry and later repeat a previous course to get
a better grade, the grade in that course isn't forgiven.  Keep this in mind
if you plan on going on to 1220 with the intention of going back and
repeating 1210 for a better grade.  Your original grade in 1210 would
then not be forgiven and still factored into your GPA.  Besides, it doesn't
make sense to go on to 1220 if you plan on repeating 1210.  Repeat
1210 first to make sure you know the material.  If you don't, you could be
setting yourself up for failure in 1220.

I know it feels like forever to get your grades.  I realize it can be excruciating
wondering what your grade will be.   You should have access at this point
to all your scores except the final.  Once that has been processed, they
will release your scores for the final and total score for the course.  You
can get a rough idea from the grade scale given in the syllabus what your
letter grade might be.  Keep in mind, the score for recitation and the final
course total will not reflect taking account of the fact our course had quizzes
or any possible differences in scores for the on-line homework.  Once
everything is done, the Vice Chair will get the grades.  He and I will then
discuss how to account for the quizzes.  If there's a big discrepancy in the
on-line homework scores that will be considered as well, but this isn't
usually the case.  I wish I could give you details on how but I'm not sure
just yet, maybe by simply adjusting the scores needed for the grade cuts.

Your grades probably won't be in Carmen until next Monday when the
grades are due to the registrar.  They will not make it to BuckeyeLink until
next Monday.  Please be patient, it's not an easy task for the office staff to
get grading done for ~4000 students in our first-year courses in just a few
days.

Keep a couple of things in mind if you're wondering how you did relative
to the class averages.  When you look at the average for a specific quiz
Carmen will average in scores for all students, even though it might be
one of the lowest 2 quizzes for some students which would be one of
their dropped quizzes.  That means the average for a specific quiz is
artificially low.  The same applies to lab and exams.  While we don't
drop any labs or exams, there are some students still in the course who
haven't done much of anything, including not taking some of the
midterms.  That affects the averages for everything.

If you wish to inquire about your grade, you can but again think about
what it would have been on a "normal" grade scale.  There is no extra
credit.   I will try to answer e-mails as quickly as I can, even though it
will be break.

Finally, our lecture section has done relatively well compared to all
1210 sections.  I can't give details but good job overall.

It was a pleasure this semester.  It certainly was a lot more fun than
when we were all online.  Things are pretty much back to normal.

Have a good break.  Enjoy yourselves and rest up.  Good luck next
semester and in the future.  Maybe I'll get to see some of you in
1220 next semester.

Go Bucks!  Win it all!  That could apply to football and the men's
and women's basketball teams as well.   Women's volleyball came
close.  I just heard we'll be w/o TreVeyon Henderson for the game
against Georgia, too bad.

Dr. Zellmer

P.S.  One more bad dad joke I heard awhile back.  You might have
to think for a few seconds.

What did the bear say to the bear hunter when they met in the
woods (scroll down)?





Moo!
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