Ihsan Erden

I feel the pain of those who ended up in one of ihs lecture courses - yes, it's one thing to be a brilliant researcher, and it's another to be able to talk about chemistry at a level that people coming in with no knowledge of the material can understand. I think he'd be wonderful as a seminar lecturer, because he truly knows his organic chemistry. However, with his sprawled notes all over the board and his very fast lectures, it's really hard to understand the material when it's prsented like *that.*

With that said, lab is a different story. Most of the people who take the 338 class have some knowledge of organic chemistry and are willing to go the extra mile to look things up and do extra research when they can't understand something. There's one midterm and the rest are reports. The midterm was easy, but if you're not willing to spend a good deal on lab reports, then forget it.

Dr. Erden should not be allowed within 100 meters of a classroom. It is one thing to have difficulty in giving students a coherent, thorough explanation of anything in the course. What really makes him so horrible, however, is his unbelievable attitude toward students. He really wants people to drop or withdraw from his class. He doesn't care at all if students succeed or learn anything and seems to prefer that they don't. He gave us our first test only two weeks into the semester after having zipped through four chapters at manic pace. That, in combination with the fact that he never actually explained anything thoroughly or slowly enough for people to be able to comprehend or write down, led to the majority of the class flunking. By a lot. Instead of viewing that as at least somewhat of a reflection of his poor teaching, Dr. Erden announced that those students with low grades should drop the course because they would most likely get an F. He didn't want to help students improve, he just wanted them to quit. I think he is one of those professors who got his job based on his research ability and has no interest in teaching. I truly believe his goal is to make his students as miserable as possible so they will all drop or withdraw and he won't have to teach. Dr. Erden is also clearly not interested in helping students outside of class. Trying to ask him a question after class is a laughable experience. He seems to be unaware that walking away from someone while you're still talking to him/her is really not a good way to interact with people. If he doesn't have time to answer questions right after class, that's fine, but then he should say so instead of just trying desperately to run away from students. I actually did reasonably well on the first test, but am transferring to another section because I don't think anyone can really learn anything in a class with a professor who has an attitude like Dr. Erden's. I know there are a few people here and there who actually like this guy as a teacher, but for the life of me I can't imagine why. In case anyone is thinking that the problem is that I'm just not a good student, that is not the case. I got an A in Chem 115 last semester and in fact my GPA at State is 4.0. Honestly, I think I could have gotten a pretty good grade in Dr. Erden's class, but I saw no reason to spend the entire semester miserable and pissed off, not to mention having to basically teach myself the material because he doesn't really explain anything. My advice to you: absolutely avoid taking a class from Dr. Erden.

Prof. Erden is supposedly a brilliant chemist but unfortunately was slated to teach O-Chem II this semester. I withdrew from his class at the end of the semester along with about 15 other people I knew as we were all failing. There's something to be said when people are having panic attacks during tests and are lining up to drop a class. Granted, O-Chem is a difficult course that requires careful integration of the material but from what I've heard from other people teachers such as Berkman and Gronert are the two top dogs in this department. The semester starts off right where Ochem I left off, and goes right up until the end of the book which means nine chapters are covered in about three months. Prof. Erden was extremely unorganized, not following the syllabus and stopping in the middle of a chapter to stick to a test date. When approached for clarification his response was that we were to do the problems up until the end of that chapter section we stopped on, 17.8 or whatever, but what about the unassigned problems in the back of the book?? Also, you can't teach an ENTIRE chapter on Friday and test the class on it on Monday. The tests looked like they were written in Greek, most people did well on the first test and then quickly plummeted, those students who went to his office hours were encouraged to drop the class, those who went and talked to him could see that he wanted them to fawn over him, and when they did to play along they were given preferrential treatment and inflated grades. Not that I blame them but not everyone gets this treatment. His ego was apparent, as he frequently informed us of this or that synthesis he was trying to achieve in the lab the night before, his lectures would go off into tangents of chemistry that had nothing to do with the subject matter. The weird thing is that he was incredibly nice to me when I went to drop his class and did everything to help me feel better about not completing it. All in all, might be a brilliant chemist but his lack of organization and subsequent favoritism is the kiss of death for your grade.

Also, the chemistry department is evil - when I went to drop Erden's class the Chemistry chair Ornberg told me that if I was so stressed out from O-chem then why don't I drop all the rest of my classes? The dean of the science department told me that if I'm not good at something maybe I should re-think my career choice. Terrrrr-fific! Thanks for the vote of confidence boys? I know, why don't you stop making Erden teach introductory classes and have him teach labs and upper division, which I heard he was much better at? Why torture undergrads with his inane lectures? Because you need the money he generates from his research!

Dr. Erden is a very interesting professor, you either like him, or you don't. I find myself totally interested in his lectures, yet the girl I quite often sit near doesn't like him at all. People expect Organic Chemistry to be just like General Chemistry. In General, you can pay complete attention to the lecturer, and thereby succeed on your exams. Organic Chemistry is almost like taking a foreign language course... you need to practice outside of class for anything to stick. Dr. Erden does a wonderful job of explaining the basics of Organic Chem... however, in this course, you just cannot teach everything in class. If you follow his lecture in class, and take the time to memorize the functional groups and organic reactions in your textbook, you will have no problem in the class.

Okay so he's np Berkman, but he is much more helpful one-on-one. If you ever take his class ask him questions after a class if something isn't clear. He knows his material -sometimes a little too much that he goes on these excursions. Don't be scared. It is actually respectful of him. Oh, and buy and do the the study guide problems.

Erden doesn't try to make the subject interesting. His lectures are like having the book read to you really fast. His tests aren't too bad, and the lowest grade is dropped. And he does do that "clearly" thing that one person mentioned. In reality, his lectures aren't very clear at all. Only take him if you have to and be prepared to read the book a lot to get any undertanding of the material. Other than that I can't call any particular evils upon him.

Very nice person and a pretty good instructor. His exams were multiple choice which is good and bad. Good cuz if you didn't study, you can at least take a guess. Bad cuz you're either right or wrong and there's no partial credit. They were a bit on the tough side, too. He makes jokes sometimes but they're usually corny. He did drop one grade out of all the exams and homework was not collected although it was assigned. Of course, in chemistry, it is strongly recommended that you complete as much of the homework as possible. One thing that some of the students had problems with is that he leaves the classroom immediately upon finishing his lecture. He doesn't dismiss us early, but he leaves so fast after he's done lecturing, that some students who wanted to speak to him were annoyed. On the other hand, he did have office hours immediately after our class so it wasn't like they would not get a chance to talk to him if they went to his office. Overall, I'd say he's a good instructor.

I agree with the dude who gave Dr. Erden the A-. (Although, I really wish he would have proof-read his statement.) Dr. Erden is entheusiastic, approachable and extemely well respected in the world of synthetic organic chemistry. We [SFSU students] are lucky to have him as a professor. High standards are a rare thing at SFSU, so its not surprising that people are shocked that the Chemistry Department doesn't inflate the grades it gives. If you can't take hard work, become a liberal arts major.

If somepeople want to evaluate a instructor, they have to know what subject they are studying. Chemistry is not a memorization class like Bio 240. If somepeople cannot catch up CHEM 130, the people should ask about themselves. Are you really want to think about chemistry or not. Just memorization is not enough in any physical science classes. You have to understand these classes base on calculus or higher mathmatic skills. Since CHEM 130 is basic Org CHEM, there is not so many things to go deeply. I took CHEM 335 with Dr Earden in 1997 spring. He was good and nice. He had enough office hours and he tried to explain more than what I asked. I recomend him for CHEM 333 or 335 or higher. Chemistry is not just memorization class. It is different to some bioloby classes based on memorization without thinking(Like Bio 240, anatomy and more), not every Bio classes(Some of Bio classes based on chemistry).