Pros: One of the easiest Orgo teachers.

Tests based solely of lectures.

His midterms are 100 percentable and I did so twice.

His final unlike many other teachers, does not combine topics, it's problems with molecules changed around from the practice exams and some basic stuff from the last week of class.

Cons: If you bought the book you wasted your money.



If you are passionate about orgo and are willing to spend a lot of time on it, maybe other teachers might be better because they require more practice apply more Orgo I concepts.

Michael Rathke:



3 Midterm Exams (ea. 100 pts.)

1 Final Exam (200 pts.) -If it increases your score, your lowest Midterm will be dropped and your final exam score will be out of 300 pts. instead.

[All standard cem251&252 protocol)



His 4.0=88%



His tests are based upon his lectures ONLY!



If you're pre-med and you don't get a 4.0 or maybe a high 3.5 something's wrong...

Strangely, Dr. Rathke came in to teach 252 halfway through the semester for us. Before then, we had Peter Wagner, who ... well, just go look at his ratings. He is horrible. I spent over an hour in office hours every week, and read EVERYTHING and took double notes on everything and still couldn't 4.0 his exams. Then Rathke came in... my guess is that everyone was failing Wagner's class, so the Cem Dept had to step in. Rathke is AMAZING and is one of the best professors I've ever had. I really wish I could have had him the whole semester. He makes organic chemistry very understandable and almost enjoyable! He is INCREDIBLE the way he comes to class with no notes and busts out a perfectly organized and structured lecture with examples to boot! Woh! What a guy. I'd marry him if I weren't a dude.

I heard soooo many good things about Rathke upon completing Orgo I with Chang. Everything people say about the man is true; he is very thorough, clear, and concise when explaining the material and making sure you understand it. However, I want to forewarn you. I made a mistake by letting my guards down a bit after Orgo I with Chang (since it was quite a bit of studying) thinking all of this praise for Rathke means the class is easier. Do NOT make this mistake, give the class the amount of time it deserves, because after all, it is STILL an Orgo class. His notes are gold, be at every lecture and copy them down, study them over and over. I never did the book problems because I found that his notes were useful enough, therefore I don't if doing the book problems are beneficial in this regard, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to do extra practice. Overall, I give Rathke a 3.5 only because I (personally) feel like I enjoyed Chang more.

Book is only used for the practice tests that he sends out before the exam. Rathke is very funny, and looks and acts a lot like Mr. Rodgers. Go to class and make sure you take notes. You can learn everything you need from his notes and doing the optional practice problems he tells you to do before the exam.

Pros: No homework

Not required to attend recitation

Curves like crazy

4.0 starts at 88%

Cons: No extra credit for attending recitation

Extremely difficult material

Talks REALLY fast - hard to take notes

Tends not to offer pneumonics (Walker does)

Very sweet man. Definitely cares that you understand the material and is very willing to help and understanding. This is not a blow-off course. Study your butt off - don't try to cram the day before an exam (trust me - it doesn't work well). There are a lot of synthesis questions on the exams, so you really need to learn how to do those. Three exams + Final exam. Drops lowest exam score and scales up final exam to 300 instead of 200 points if doing so would help your grade. Curves the class overall.

Best teacher ever! He is straightforward, well-organized, and a great communicator. Sure, you are going to be writing the whole lecture to keep up with him, but he's an amazing teacher. I was intimidated by orgo at the beginning, but he made it easy.

To do well, go through the notes and the practice problems he does in lecture! He also posts practice exams, which helps a lot too.

Pros: Very easy to understand

Cons: Superficial coverage of material

Rathke is a great professor - very clear, easy to understand, straightforward - if you go to class, know the reactions, and try some practice problems, the exams will be easy.

Pros: Very thorough and helpful

Interested in helping student learn and understand material

Exams are straight-forward and easy to prepare for

Cons: Speaks quietly

I loved Rathke. He was a wonderful professor and truly wanted every student to do well. HE TELLS YOU WHAT IS ON THE EXAM IF YOU GO TO LECTURE!

Pros: -Rathke knows his stuff

-he doesn't waste lecture time talking..class starts and so does the teaching

Cons: -its orgo..so alot of studying involved

Pros: Professor is nice easy to talk to and understand

Cons: Course is challenging

Do your book work and get a tutor if necessary. Go to recitation!!!

Pros: Its nice not having any homework

Cons: Our grades are just our tests and final exam which makes things a little difficult.

Pros: teacher explains well

Cons: lots of information to copy from slides

overall a good teacher

Pros: overall nice old guy

Cons: it's still organic chemistry, so still a hard

he's amazing! my second..[mayyybbee first] favorite professor here at state.

he's a very good guy. understanding and easy to listen to. he's unbelievably smart he can make up an entire review session right on the spot, out of nowhere. he really knows his stuff and you can tell he really loves organic chemistry. he never has to look at one page of notes... i don't believe he ever did.

you can either do really well in his class, or really bad. it's ultimately up to you. he can't make you succeed but he definitely gives you the opportunity to do well.

you have to decide yourself though in the beginning that you want to do well... not 5 days before the final!!!!

to succeed and get that 4.0.... GO TO CLASS- all you lazy asses who complain that they are failing or doing worse than they should... did you go to class? if not.. shut up. don't complain.

READ THE BOOK!!!!-the orgo book is very well written, has many examples and the solutions manual explains the correct answer for you if you get it wrong.

most importantly, READ AND RE READ NOTES!!!

if you do all 3, you can easily get a 100 percent on every exam. if you know your stuff and you tried you'll four point the class.

rathke is the best orgo prof anyone could ask for... he makes it very easy to understand so you won't regret taking it with him... and for those of you who do regret taking rathke.. just wait til you get the other professor like tepe. you'll soon wish for rathke back.

I came into orgo terrified, the moment little Prof. Rathke came in I immediately felt better. He's the nicest guy and he's obviously been teaching orgo for a really long time. He knows exactly how to present the material in an easy to understand way. His tests are extremely straight forward, if he didnt go over it, it wont be on the test. Plus the problems are exactly like some of the simplest examples he gives in class. If he ever says "this is the most complicated it could get" he wont give it to you on an exam. The 251 team gets the exams graded extremely fast, ususally the grades are up the next day which is nice.



There are only two negative things. One can be seen as both good and bad. Your entire grade depends on your tests. If you're a bad test taker (which is b.s. to begin with) you probably wont do well. But on the good side there aren't any annoying quizes or homework, you can spend your time focusing on the exams.

Two is that the class is 120 minutes long, and as adorable and grandpa-like rathke is, his lectures can be tiring and they seem to drag on FOREVER. You can make it through though.

I'd definately recommend rathke over any other orgo professor

(and if you get the chance to choose, Luis Sanchez is an awesome TA!)

I was so scared going into CEM 251 but Rathke really broke it down well. I ended up coming out with a 4.0. To those negative comments about him---Organic chemistry is a hard subject! You do have to study. Rathke will provide you with the tools to do well, but you have to use them and practice. He sends out a problem set before every exam and then he posts every old exam on his web page so you can use those to study for the final. His exams are VERY straight forward so as long as you know your stuff, you will do just fine.



Here are the things I did to do well in the class:

1. go to every lecture!

2. go to recitation

3. ask around for worksheets given out in recitation sections other than your own

4. scribble down everything rathke says during his lecture and then go back through to rewrite your notes in an organized manner and make sense of everything

5. do the problem sets before each exam, mark the ones you get wrong, and once you are all done with the problem set, re-do those problems

6. there are two versions of every exam, so for the final do one version of Exam 1, 2, and 3 and make a list of the concepts you are confused on, study those concepts, and then do the second version of the three exams

Pros: Funny guy. Shows lots of practices and examples on nomenclature, reactions, etc. Exam are pretty much closely from his practice problems which are from his lecture.

Cons: Duh it's organic chemistry it'll be hard.

This professor totally rocks. For an old man, he definitely still knows his chemistry especially a tough subject like organic too! He's very funny too as he'll tell some of his memorable experience. He shows a lot of examples on the topics he covers which be sure to take every notes of it since his exam is nearly like 95% from it. Of course, the only trouble is that the subject itself is pretty intense so be sure to read those notes and do those problems since some will require memorization like those nomenclature part. Otherwise, he's probably the best professor to teach this difficult subject and somehow make it least manageable to get a good grade. Also, his grading is pretty nice too. Don't remember since it's been 3 years I took his class.

Dr. Rathke IS THE BEST PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY. Brilliant, a born teacher. Copy his notes word for word, structure for sructure, COPY everything. DO NOT try to pay attention in class if that hinders the note-copying. Rathke writes very fast and if you fall behind, it takes the whole lecture to catch up.

When you go home and read over your notes, you will almost cry from joy as to how beautifully everything falls into place. His problem sets are fantastic. His tests are long and you will not have an oportunity to come back and fix errors or fill in blanks. So study hard for tests and you will have an easy 4.0.

Seriously, on a scale of 0 to 4.0, Dr. Rathke is a 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000...............

I had him for both CEM 251 and 252



The man is an artest with teaching..... He makes Organic chemistry, as you all know, the most dreaded class for majority of pre-meds an easy class.



He takes a very complicated subject and.... turns it into something that makes PERFECT sense.... its really hard to explain, the way he explains every mechanism of every reaction and how every nucleophilic attach (for example) takes place is just amazing.



However, the class isn't a wash, if you don't prepare properly, you will no do good, he doesn't curve, an 88% is a 4.0, and I think an 82% is 3.5 and so on. The best way to prepare is to do his problem sets before the exam, the exams are VERY similar to the problem sets