Reviews of professor James Townsend

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Townsend is a very unprofessional professor. Unwilling to help students unless you meet him at his convience in his office hours. His exams are impossible & no partial credit it given at all. There is no direction on to what material will be covered in exams either. He is by far the WORST professor I have ever had. Save yourself the time and money.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
The exams are impossible and no partial credit is given for them. You never really know what's going to be on the exams either. Nothing is curved even though the exam averages are failing. Take it with someone else if possible.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
There are many poor reviews for Dr. Townsend probably left by people who blame their poor performance on the professor. Organic chemistry requires many hours outside of class reading the textbook (very important!) and doing practice problems. Dr. Townsend is interested in student understanding, but if you don't put in effort you will fail.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Townsend is a witty professor with unrealistic expectations. Exams are a race against the clock and partial credit is never given. His notes are screenshots from the book and he puts his lower level classes over his upper level ones when prioritizing. To succeed in this class you have to teach yourself.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Unless you are going to be a doctor, this is not the professor for you. He copies his slides from the book, so I found his lectures low value. He is hard to reach and incredibly impersonal. Also, the only tests are a month apart so there's no time to drop if you're not doing well. Take CHM 550 with Rafferty instead; I wish I had.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Townsend gets a lot of flack, but he is probably the most caring teacher I have had at K-State. The material can be difficult and will require a good amount of attention. He is tough, but it's exactly what you want if you actually want to get into a professional school later on. I did just fine in CHM531 and am doing just fine in his CHM550 now.