Reviews of professor James Cahoon

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Tests can be challenging but the class is curved

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
P Chem 1 is going to be hard, but Professor Cahoon has designed this class to be as effective as possible. It's a flipped classroom, which is kind of annoying, but it's much better than the alternative, since you can pause and rewind the lecture videos. He offers plenty of office hours if you need extra help, and his explanations are always good.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
The class grade is 100% based on midterms and the final - no homework grade, no other fluff. The class is heavily conceptual. Dr. Cahoon writes the notes on the board so you have to go to class to get the notes. He curves the class a little bit since averages are so low. He doesn't give super clear explanations but overall a good teacher.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Asynchronous lectures were way too long and we barely did anything in class all semester. We got maybe four practice problems for each of the three units and they were not structured similarly to the test problems. Wait to take this class with another professor if you are able to!

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
What others have said about the format of the course not being very effective is true, but I wanted to add some positives as well. His exams were among the fairest Ive seen. He also curved at the end! All in all, hes a solid choice for pchemdef not the worst out thereand does also want to reformat the class, so that may be better in the future.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Prof Cahoon is a nice person, but his class left something to be desired. The assigned lecture videos are often 1-2 hours for a 50-minute class, and he gives few practice problems. He had us work in groups which I found to be pretty ineffective in terms of learning the material. Additionally, the exams are quite difficult and get longer each time.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I really like professor Cahoon as a person and think he's a nice guy, but he's not clear on what exactly we should be learning, and he gives very few practice questions. This was annoying since our grades are almost entirely based on tests. The tests are difficult but not exactly unfair.