Reviews of professor Austin Scharf

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Scharf is very empathetic and clearly cares a lot about his students learning experience. He's very accessible outside of class and responsive to emails, and his tests are very fair and do a good job of accurately reflecting the content taught in class (and the content he explicitly states that he expects you to know).

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
This class was so hard, and I feel like he does not care about your learning. He speaks to you in a way that makes you feel dumb and does not give clear feedback. If you want to end the semester with good self esteem take chem with another professor.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Scharf is an exceptional professor and conveys the material very clearly. He provides plenty of worksheets and material for review before tests. While the tests are notoriously difficult, I always felt well prepared

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. Scharf is a great professor when it comes to lectures. He explains things very well and makes the lecture fun. His tests are impossible. There will be questions only briefly mentioned once in lecture and not in the book, and questions only in the book. The questions are more difficult than discussed in class. Everything is fair game on exams.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
detailed lectures

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
His lectures are very entertaining and he knows what he's talking about, but his tests ARE SO HARD. He tests on content you haven't seen and expects you to pull several concepts together, but he really thinks that we can think on the level that he thinks at... his final was horrid too.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
In lecture & in lab Dr. Scharf has high expectations and demands excellence. Yet, he is one of my favorite professors at Ox as he brings a new level of difficulty and excitement to his classes. He is NOT easy, but is very kind and clear in lectures. His quizzes/tests are harder than other chem profs, but they're fair. Take him if you love to learn!

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
I love Dr. Scharf! He is an amazing professor, but his class is the hardest class I've taken here. He teaches well, gives good feedback, and is available for office hours, and keeps the class engaged. His tests are just incomparably difficult but possible to not get below a B if you study hard.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
He isn't always clear with his grading criteria so beware of that. If you want an easy A, definitely don't take a class with him