Mr. Jim Holtz
Classes taught[edit]
- General Chemistry I (3 hours)
Style & personality[edit]
Professor Holtz lectures from his notes and writes examples on the board. He is hard to follow, though. He may go over material, but a lot of the time it's hard to notice he is. He tends to give examples, but not really tell what he's doing and/or why. This is especially annoying to students who like organization. Some days his lecture is entirely boring, but others he can keep the class awake by some of the corny stuff he says. Sometimes you may not have an idea where he got it, though... He also REALLY likes questions and when you work the problems out on the calculator with him.
In a semester there are 4 exams, one of which can be dropped. Each exam is worth 100 points and then the final (cumulative) is worth 150. He also likes to assign a lot of OWLs. At first we had 30-some OWLs, and then it increased to 40. For the last exam we had 52. The completion of OWLs is worth 70 points. However, if you finish 90% of them, it's just like finishing 95% or 100%. If some are giving you trouble, you can just skip them and get full points.
Student opinions[edit]
Jessica: I almost wish he would have taught from Powerpoints. It would force him to put in some more obvious organization... I recommend to read the sections of book to be covered before he starts to lecture. This would probably make the lecture a lot easier to follow. He generally does follow the order of the book as well.
Also, take the first tests as seriously as you can. If you get mid-B's on the top 3 exams, when the final you may have to get something like a 98% to get an A in the class (like me).
I would also suggest not waiting until the last minute to do OWLs... However, they provide a good way to review for the test. I took a lot my notes from the book and OWLs. The notes Mr. Holtz put on the board were (for the majority of the time) not useful for me.
Angela: Listening to Holtz is like listening to poetry. He makes it sound all exciting, and you feel great about Chemistry, but mostly you just listened to the pretty imagery of comparing atoms to fat people, instead of learning how to balance equations.
