Cornaire, Michael  

If you're not familiar with Chemistry, take another instructor. He makes Chemistry even more confusing by teaching you "techniques" different (and harder) than the text does, and he expects you to take his tests with the techniques the book teaches you instead. He gives 3 midterms (lowest one dropped) and 5 quizzes (lowest one dropped). His midterms are insanely long -- it's as if he's testing on how fast we do our tests, not how well we know the material. I remember when we got our second exam back, over half of the class didn't finish. And worst of all, he commented that he doesn't have to design a test that everyone can finish and that he can make it so hard on the next test that everyone fails it. He doesn't like feedbacks, and that just makes him look even more arrogant. He's pretty awful, so unless you like Chemistry and knows it very well, don't take him.

This man would be great if he were my next door neighbor, however, I had the misfortune of having him as a teacher. He is lacking the ability to successfully teach this course for the following reasons: he spends all of lecture talking about ideas and theories etc., hardly writes anything of use on the board and doesn't even bother to use an overhead or power point-so if you're "visual" like me, you're screwed. He NEVER brings a calculator to class and this results in his never quite finishing math equation problems, he tests out of the book and teaches something different, and he quite frequently transposes numbers, symbols etc. so as to completely confuse anyone who's not sure what's going on. I was more confused during his lectures than I was figuring out how to do this stuff by myself. Thank heavens for my tutoring assistance. Oh, and by the way, the book is terribly confusing and poorly written. I have suffered through each week of this course. I suggest you avoid this teacher and let your only headache be the awful text you have to use.

did he even graduate high school? i seriously felt like this guy came from kindergarten straight to our classroom. He always thought we were "so far ahead of schedule," but when it came down to test taking, he hadn't covered half the material. The lab and SI class actually made me somewhat interested in chemistry even though it was simply a support course, but i dreaded going to lectures. if you do have to take Cornaire, MAKE SURE YOU SIGN UP FOR SI. that is where i learned EVERYTHING

Cornaire was definitely the worst teacher I have had at Poly, seriously he's about as sharpe as a marble. This guy would take 15 minutes going over a problem everything would seem fine then BAM! damn the whole problem is wrong total waste of my time and everyone elses. He'd also put up his own theory on things and bring in new equations that were not it the book, and on top of all this he could NEVER get them right!! Thanks to that SI class I was able to pull a C without it I would of flunked. Good luck if you take this class, I can't believe my tuition pays this guys salary or that Poly ever even considered him to teach here. He did talk some about drinkin' though, so maybe invite him out for a beer and see if it helps your grade.

Professor Cornaire is perhaps the worst teacher I've had in my entire student career. I thought I had a pretty solid knowledge of chemistry from what I learned in high school (this was after all a basic chem class). This man basically destroyed that thought. I do think he knows the material. However, he is clearly unable to teach it to students. Throughout the quarter he used examples from the assigned text, which, as every student knows, are not as complex as the ones given on exams. He never quite finished his explanations, never brought a calculator, and when confronted by confused students he got very defensive. He does curve grades, but don't even think that means you can slack off in his class. I would definitely recommend that you sign up for the SI class. Also, ask your lab instructors for help. Good luck if you're stuck with him.

HORRIBLE PROFESSOR!!! This professor was by far the worst that i could have ever had. I was always lost in class and so many times he didn't even know what he was trying to teach. He was so unorganized and never really answered our questions. DO NOT TAKE HIM!!!

Business majors: A degree for the intellectually impaired, HA HA.