William Z. Plachy

At first I really hated and feared Plachy. On the very first day he was discussing things I had never heard of in General Chemistry I (but that's probably because I took it at a JC and they dumbed it down). Anyway I did have to work my butt off, including getting a long term tutor for the first time ever (it's a good thing SFSU has free ones). But especially after meeting people who were in the other section (McIntyre) and seeing how they had to sit in on our class to figure out what was going on because their teacher was totally incomprehensible, I began to appreciate Plachy. Also midway through he went on a short vacation, and left us with Simonis who was totally cuckoo. The whole class gave Plachy a huge ovation when he came back, we were so relieved. As to assignments, there was a quiz every Friday, 3 midterms, and the final. On the final you were allowed to bring in a small cheat sheet. The class had really low averages so he curved the hell out of the grades (at the time I was pre-med so of course I appreciated this). The exams have plenty of trick questions, just as the problems in the book do, so you really have to read carefully. Plachy gave really helpful study sessions before the exams -- definitely go to these if you can. We always spent plenty of time on each chapter and didn't rush through this challenging material. There were occasional things which I feel could have really benefitted from different teaching style, i.e. more visual demonstrations in class, but overall there were very, very few things I came away very confused about. I would take another class from Plachy.

Hopefully with the introduction of Dr. Mannion to the department Dr. Plachy will no longer be called upon to teach General Physical Chemistry. This semester really showed that it is time for him to retire. He made no attempt to make his lectures understandable, standing at the podium and talking quickly about such intricate subjects as quantum mechanics. Writing on the board in letters one inch high made it indecypherable to all but the first two rows (the room is TH327, a long and narrow room with an eight foot lecture platform). I was very disappointed in the class, especially after finding such an affinity with the subject in the first semester taught by Dr. Eden. I feel I would need to repeat the class to get a better understanding of the material... and I got a B+! Go figure.

good but not very supportive. I wish he would be more supportive of us students future perspectives. I felt he was a bit disappointed in our goals. He is a wonderful person and good instructor, but advisor-- no. Don't go to him for future planning advise-- to him everyone should go to grad school.