Professor profile for Joseph Lagowski
Student reviews of Joseph Lagowski
Review from a student who took CH 301 WB
I took the Web Based class and it was wonderful. its easy. You can work at ur own pace. the TA was great. She helps out a lot. and the group effort is a big thing here, the course will bring everyone together. Its lots better than a stupid class that u have to attend every other day. and u can talk ur problems out with the TA too, she gives a lot of time when u need her.
I took the Web Based class and it was wonderful. its easy. You can work at ur own pace. the TA was great. She helps out a lot. and the group effort is a big thing here, the course will bring everyone together. Its lots better than a stupid class that u have to attend every other day. and u can talk ur problems out with the TA too, she gives a lot of time when u need her.
Review from a student who took CH 317
Here is the deal: Read the following if you are nervous about this course. Scroll down to the "take home point" if you don't care and just want a general idea. It seems a bit silly to rate the professor in this case. The professor (Lagowski) is frankly an inconsequential part of the course. There is one lecture per week. I suggest you go, but in reality it's very relaxed. You don't need to take notes, but you need to sort of listen to understand what you're going to go in general The Teaching Assistants are the ones who grade all of your labs. They are the ones who control your grade in the class essentially. There is no curve for the class, so you must make a 90% or higher for an A, but it is very doable. The labs are not hard in the slightest. However, they are very time consuming. That is the only problem with this course. If you want an A, the amount of time you'll spend on the labs is quite a bit, so if you take this course, be sure to take it with an otherwise light load. Here is how the lab goes: First "Era": Qualitative Analysis of Unknowns Here, there are 5 experiments. In each experiment, you have 5 common ions (Mg2+, Ca2+, whatever), and 13 reagents. The first step is to react each ion with each reagent and write down observations. Next, you are given two unknowns. One unknown contains one ion, the other contains two ions. You react the unknowns with each reagent and figure out their identity. Second "Era": Quantitative Analysis This is much easier than the first era because there are no unknowns. It is purely following instructions and weighing things out in the end to get your percent yield. Third "Era": Synthesis Same as above, follow instructions, calculate percent yield. There are some unknowns to be found but they are not that bad. Fourth "Era": Mini project / Special Project These may vary year to year, but they are undoubtedly the hardest simply because he doesn't give you instructions. For our semester, we had to do a quantitative analysis on noble metals located on catalytic converter beads. The mini project was actually easy, going step by step. At the end of the mini project, we had a container of ions in solution. The ions were ruthenium, iridium, platinum, and palladium. The goal of the special project was to separate these metals and then do a spectrophotometric analysis on them. The spectrophotometry is not too bad; the problem was separation. He gave no instructions on how to separate and expected you to figure it out on your own. We pulled through eventually (with a lot of help from the TA), but it was nerve-racking to say the least. The last "special project" was the only problem in the course. My group came out with an A in the end, but it required a lot of "busy work." The intellectual ideas were not too bad. Take home point: This course requires a lot of work. It's not that intellectually taxing. The lectures are not useful but you should still attend. Don't take this lab with another lab.
Here is the deal: Read the following if you are nervous about this course. Scroll down to the "take home point" if you don't care and just want a general idea. It seems a bit silly to rate the professor in this case. The professor (Lagowski) is frankly an inconsequential part of the course. There is one lecture per week. I suggest you go, but in reality it's very relaxed. You don't need to take notes, but you need to sort of listen to understand what you're going to go in general The Teaching Assistants are the ones who grade all of your labs. They are the ones who control your grade in the class essentially. There is no curve for the class, so you must make a 90% or higher for an A, but it is very doable. The labs are not hard in the slightest. However, they are very time consuming. That is the only problem with this course. If you want an A, the amount of time you'll spend on the labs is quite a bit, so if you take this course, be sure to take it with an otherwise light load. Here is how the lab goes: First "Era": Qualitative Analysis of Unknowns Here, there are 5 experiments. In each experiment, you have 5 common ions (Mg2+, Ca2+, whatever), and 13 reagents. The first step is to react each ion with each reagent and write down observations. Next, you are given two unknowns. One unknown contains one ion, the other contains two ions. You react the unknowns with each reagent and figure out their identity. Second "Era": Quantitative Analysis This is much easier than the first era because there are no unknowns. It is purely following instructions and weighing things out in the end to get your percent yield. Third "Era": Synthesis Same as above, follow instructions, calculate percent yield. There are some unknowns to be found but they are not that bad. Fourth "Era": Mini project / Special Project These may vary year to year, but they are undoubtedly the hardest simply because he doesn't give you instructions. For our semester, we had to do a quantitative analysis on noble metals located on catalytic converter beads. The mini project was actually easy, going step by step. At the end of the mini project, we had a container of ions in solution. The ions were ruthenium, iridium, platinum, and palladium. The goal of the special project was to separate these metals and then do a spectrophotometric analysis on them. The spectrophotometry is not too bad; the problem was separation. He gave no instructions on how to separate and expected you to figure it out on your own. We pulled through eventually (with a lot of help from the TA), but it was nerve-racking to say the least. The last "special project" was the only problem in the course. My group came out with an A in the end, but it required a lot of "busy work." The intellectual ideas were not too bad. Take home point: This course requires a lot of work. It's not that intellectually taxing. The lectures are not useful but you should still attend. Don't take this lab with another lab.
Review from a student who took CH 304K
I took CH304K with Dr. Lagowski and found it to be one of the most stressful classes I've taken. The work isn't hard, but his lectures seem meaningless, and have nothing to do with anything that is on the test or on the homework. You have to either already know chemistry, or be able to teach yourself, because Dr. Lagowski doesn't show how to work any of the problems, and you are usually left completely in the dark about what you're supposed to know.
I took CH304K with Dr. Lagowski and found it to be one of the most stressful classes I've taken. The work isn't hard, but his lectures seem meaningless, and have nothing to do with anything that is on the test or on the homework. You have to either already know chemistry, or be able to teach yourself, because Dr. Lagowski doesn't show how to work any of the problems, and you are usually left completely in the dark about what you're supposed to know.