Michael Montague-Smith

School: Duke University
Department: Chemistry
Location: Durham, NC
Overall Rating
rated by 20 students
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Easiness
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Pros: goes over mech's
Cons: hard tests/ grader
need to study a lot
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Montague-Smith is a great story-teller, and an even better teacher. He keeps the class captivated by telling stories related to his experiences and what we are learning in class. "I was really mean when I was younger... Until I took an arrow to the knee."
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Pros: Very enthusiastic in lecture
Cons: Exams are tough and grading is tough too
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Pros: He is really easy to listen to
Cons: His tests were so hard! He did not give any partial credit. He honestly made it nearly impossible
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Pros: Great at teaching
Cons: You have to put in hours and hours of studying before the exam to apply what he has taught to materials on the exam
He's a great professor, but his exams are difficult and this could really hurt your grade.
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Pros: nice guy
Cons: tough exams
go to office hours
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Pros: Good teacher
Cons: Very difficult tests
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Pros: Very engaging, very detailed and the clicker questions are easy points. You get full credit just for answering!
Cons: If you've already taken Dixon for orgo 1, I would recommend you stick with Dixon. She has a similar teaching style and she will have you better prepared for her class.
Dr. M-S is by far the best professor I've had for a chemistry class; he takes each section and explains everything in detail what you need to know in an engaging way. He has great notes and does a good job explaining mechanisms and reactions, which are the most important parts of the class.
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Pros: exams were not too bad, but some were tricky and required reading the questions very carefully, had interesting stories to share in the beginning of each class
Cons: didn't teach the material very thoroughly, never showed how to correctly answer the clicker questions
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Pros: -really funny and emjoyable professor
-lecture goes at a nice pace
-relates class to real life and has 'stories'
Cons: -hard exams!
-horrible handwriting
-pretty harsh with partial credit and regrades
At first, the class doesn't seem too bad because he goes over the material concisely and focuses on some easier or non-intimidating examples, but he expects you to apply them in different ways on the exams and it screwed me over. When he says do a lot of practice problems, he means it! He won't go over every kind of different problem or trick questions he'll throw at you.
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Pros: he is very enthusiastic and excellent at explaining things. he always tells funny or interesting stories that connect orgo to the real world
Cons: his tests are incredibly difficult. He gives A LOT of synthesis problems
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Pros: He gives you a basic understanding of the information you'll need. Uses funny stories of his experiences to try to relate the material back to real life.
Cons: He's the most sexist, rude, egotistical man I have ever had the displeasure of being taught by. And he makes frequent remarks about student-teacher affairs, making at least myself extraordinarily uncomfortable. And he doesn't teach well. He assumes you know more than anyone going into an intro class should be expected to know, and skips over a lot of important material because of that. I felt my grade was compromised because of his lack of understanding for the level his students were at.
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Pros: He is very engaging
Cons: may come off like he doesn't want to help, but ignore it
he is a great teacher and the exams are pretty much straight from his notes, go to class and take good notes!
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Pros: If you have trouble staying awake in a big lecture hall, you won't with him. Tells interesting stories but also teaches through everything.
Cons: Awful handwriting, it takes getting used to.
Tests are somewhat challenging but not impossible, plus theirs a curve so you just have to beat out everyone else.
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Pros: He's funny. He has these little anecdotes about green M&M's, and graduate school. He teaches okay but his handwriting isn't that great, though it's legible and if you ask nicely, he'll rewrite it. He's like this huge nerd (huge because he's really, really tall) and looks 30 when he's like 50. Refers to his wife as the spouse/spouse-creature and his child as the offspring.
Cons: I'm personally not too found of his teaching style. He assumes that everyone's taken AP Chem and skims over material, especially stuff on the first test he thinks you should know. But go to class because he sometimes says quesitons that WILL be on the exam. One question on the last exam was about Arrhenius and the score he got on his dissertation. He told us the answer once/twice in class.
It wasn't hard but you had to be careful with stupid mistakes and there was one question on an exam that most of the class got 2/11 points on because we used g instead of kg in the calculation. So study, read the book if he can't get with his teaching style. Use your TA's if they're cool. I figured out that the one that I DIDN'T have was awesome during his office hours at the end of the semester :(
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Pros: He's an interesting lecturer, and definitely keeps you entertained. I laughed at least 3 times daily in his class, at his awkwardly sexual jokes.
Cons: He doesn't really teach at all, and does almost nothing to prepare you for exams. The discussions didn't help at all. I feel as if I went into every exam having no idea what was going to be on it.
He seems like a nice guy, but isn't the best teacher for CHEM135. I've heard Dixon and Vederinov are much better. I have, however, heard good things about him for orgo.
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Pros: engaging
good analogies
Cons: can not write legibly
goes off on tangents
scribbles unrelated things on board all class
overall i did not care for him. his tests were difficult and his teaching style was not effective.
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Pros: lots of energy and has good stories to tell comes up with good examples to clarify material
Cons: can not read the jiberish he writes on the overhead very annoying!he jumps around and isnt very clear what will be on the tests.
MS can be very annoying and it seems most of the students either have a love or hate relationship with him. the course requires a lot of outside reading to comprehend what he is teaching in class
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Pros: He is an awesome teacher. The best of all the Orgo I professors. He teaches the subject really well.
Cons: His exams are hard.
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Presents Organic Chemistry in a fun way, lectures are never boring. Exams are hard unless you put in the time.

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