Zahra, Alghoul  

Alghoul is a really adorable little professor. Her notes are really good and her quizzes and tests are always directly related to in-class material. She's not awesome if you directly ask her a question, but I found that the TA helped a lot with that. Would overall recommend her.

Alghoul is the bomb! if you have to take a chem class at 7 AM....... like i did she is the teacher you want. She makes you laugh and is very entertaining. Personally i felt like her test got progressively harder throughout the quarter and the final was sneaky difficult. It was on 50 questions but took a while because of calculations and there were a ton of little minute differences in the answers that could have easily screwed you up. Overall, i would suggest her to anyone wanting to take chem and i will for sure take her again if she teachers 125 in the fall.

Very nice and sweet teacher. She wants everyone in the class to succeed. The workload was far less than I expected it to be, as we never had any homework other than the occasional lab reports, which were all fill in the blank questions as opposed to full on write-ups. All of her exams had questions that were very similar to what we covered in lecture and there were never any trick questions. I highly recommend her! There is finally a great teacher in our chem department.

ZAHRA is the turn up! she is so polite and concise when it comes to the lectures she gives! she is amazingly sweet and super polite. CHEM 124 is an easy class if you had possession of a brain in high school chem. but don't slack of at the end of the course, material gets harder and takes a lot more technical as the quarter progresses. she was a joy to have at 7:10 One of my favorite professors at cal poly and will get to know you by name if you are active in the class

I had Alghoul my freshman year. She made the class easy to pass but hard to get an A in. Almost everyone who I talked to got a B in the class. She does not know the material as well as other teachers. If you only have to take Chem 124, then take her. If you have to take Chem 125, then don't. She does not prepare you for upper-division classes at all. I remember asking her multiple questions in lab, and she never knew the answer. Her most common response to my questions was "Um, I don't know. Let's ask the TA." Hopefully by now, she understands how to teach the course a little better. I am in Chem 125 now, and I am honestly not prepared for it at all.

Take Alghoul! I had her class my first quarter and it was a great experience. I felt very comfortable asking her questions and she always had a good answer for me. The workload is on the light side and if you study you can do well on the quizzes that are about once a week. The midterms and final were more difficult, but it's definitely possible to get an A on them. The lab reports were kind of a drag but I felt they were graded rather leniently. The only reason I got a B is that chemistry is my worst subject, but there's no reason anyone can't do well in this class!

She was really sweet and overall the class was really easy, but she's not a good teacher. The textbook also isn't required, which is nice. However, don't learn much. Her lectures consist of her simply reading off the slides which are on PolyLearn anyway. I'd look around the room and 90% of the class would be asleep or on their phones. There's no point in going to class except for the labs, which are graded. Also, she shoved 4 lectures (including an intro to o chem) and two extensive labs allllll into dead week which I did not appreciate. I mean, take her class if you only have to take Chem 124 and have something else you can work on during lectures, otherwise avoid.

Zahra is such a sweet woman. Although her ability to preform as a CHEM teacher is not as great. Her lectures she reads right off the slides and her accent is thick but understandable. If you are looking for an easier CHEM 124 class this is it. I had much less work for labs than other students with different professors, however this lack of work subtracted from my understanding . For the common final I did really bad because her tests were formated much different and had an emphasis on calculations vs. conceptual knowledge. I suggest taking her if this is the only CHEM you need, however if you need to continue further with chemistry this class will not prepare you as well as others.

As nice as Alghoul was, her lectures and experimental activities were always very confusing and poorly executed. There was never any homework for the class, and she encouraged to do problems out of her online workbook, which didn't have answers, so I never knew if i was doing anything right. Her class examples were always easier than the tests and the book questions differed from the tests. Also, she seemed like she never knew what she was talking about. The TA's had to correct her lab/lecture because the information or instruction was false. I learned most of this class from youtube videos and online help. Its not a hard class, it was just challenging to learn with an under-qualified professor. Its not the end of the world if you get her. I suck at chemistry and got a B, I just had to put in a little more effort.

Professor Zahra was excellent!!! She posts all the lectures notes which makes it easy to keep up with her lectures and to study for the quizzes. Her midterms were decent if you studied for them and the final was fair. I was disappointed when I got a B, but it came down to the labs. I never knew what quite to do and I did not have the best lab partner. Also, don't be afraid to go to her office hours, she really does help. I would really recommend her for chem 124. You do however have to study and GO TO EVERY CLASS. Also the practice problems that she gives do help so make sure you check your answers with the solutions. She will often give suggested problems on the lectures and I recommend doing them. The problems for her midterms are sometimes similar to those of the suggested problems. TAKE THIS CLASS!!! AND STUDY!!!

Professor Alghoul was great. I'm not a Chemistry person so the material went completely over my head, but I loved the professor. She demonstrated her passion for Chemistry through her understanding of the material in the lectures. The labs were okay. They definitely could have been explained more clearly, but my partner and I were able to figure everything out for the most part. I'd recommend Alghoul.

The best Chem teacher I've ever had (and I've had three Chem teachers before her)! I really appreciate the way she explains each concept in the simplest way possible, without going on any tangents and making sure to clarify important concepts. She assumes you don't have any Chem experience and doesn't gloss over any parts of lecture. Most HW (except four short online prelabs) are optional, though she posts a very reasonable amount of practice problems (with step by step solutions) that are indicative of what you'll see on a quiz/test. Speaking of stuff posted online, she also posts her lecture notes/labs in advance which is pretty nice. The only things I didn't appreciate were the unclear lab expectations (but I think that's more of a departmental issue, b/c each 124 has the same labs) and we covered an intro to O-Chem and chemical reactions a little too quick. But overall Alghoul is a great Chem teacher and a really nice person!

Alghoul makes this subject understandable. Before, I could easily say that chemistry was my least favorite subject. Now, I actually find chem interesting. Alghoul is funny, caring, and knows what she is talking about. Though the lab can be tedious, the lectures are very solid as the slides are all posted on PolyLearn. Highly recommend Alghoul!

Dr. Alghoul is the one and only chem savior in the chemistry department. 10/10 would recommend

Very clear in presenting material and what is needed of you in the class.

Really helpful instructor; highly recommend taking her. Go to her office hours!

Dr. Alghoul definitely knows what she is talking about, there is no doubt about it. She is a pretty serious person and lectures very fast. A lot of what she did never made sense in lecture but after reviewing the notes (soon afterwards) it often made sense. She rarely assigned outside homework, even for lab reports - she gave us lots of time in class to finish them. Her tests and quizzes sometimes got tricky, she really tested to make sure you understood the material rather than simply memorized it. We had 4 quizzes, 2 midterms, and a common final.

Alghoul is a really nice person, but her class is pretty boring. It was a 2 hours class (lecture/lab). If we had an experiment that day, she would lecture 1 hour and do the lab for the rest of class. Her lectures were basically just her reading off the powerpoint, which was fine, but it did get a little boring. There were 4 quizzes, each worth 30 points and they were all relatively easy, as long as you looked over her powerpoints before the quiz. Make sure you look at the syllabus for dates for the quizzes because I totally did not know about quiz 2 and failed it. She is very willing to help you if you struggle in the class. I would take a class with her again, despite her boring lectures.

Professor Alghoul is a very sweet woman. I liked her immediately on day one. Unfortunately, my warm fuzzies for her did not last. I had her in a lecture/lab combo environment. Her lectures were usually fairly bare-bones. Not much to them, and the few times she would go very thoroughly into a topic, it would barely be covered on the exams. Her quizzes were not terribly difficult, but the problem is the grading. Each quiz was 30 points, with multiple choice and free response. The multiple choice questions were worth 4 points each, and no partial credit could be received for them. So, yes, if you forgot an extra set of parenthesis in you calculator, you would automatically lose 4 points out of 30 - 13%! Her grading on the free response was generally very fair, but it made it very difficult to score well on the quizzes. We almost always ran out of time to finish the labs, and as such they became very frantic and sloppy in their executions. Her lab reports frequently have obscenely complicated problems unlike anything ever discussed in lecture, and she won't help you in any significant way if you ask her for guidance. I stayed up extremely late many times, trying desperately to finish the lab report before class the next morning. Luckily, the exams hardly ever featured information from the lab reports that had not also been discussed in lecture. The exams were fair, but don't think you can get away with little to no studying. She WILL ask questions that require you to know which scientist's name goes with with law/rule, and there WILL be long calculations in the multiple choice section. I got an A on the first one, and a B- on the second one because I got too cocky and thought I didn't need to study as much as I had for the first one. Don't be me, kids. Study, study, and then study some more. The final was the common Chem 127 final plus a short free response section unique to her class. It wasn't unreasonable, but it is a bit short, so every question matters. Also, some people have said that she didn't curve the grades at all, but she must for some people. I got an 88% in the class and she called it an A-. So I'm pretty grateful for that. All in all, if you can get someone better, go for it. But her class is survivable, if a bit frustrating.

I really enjoyed Dr. Alghoul's class. She is honestly so sweet and kind and really wants her students to succeed. SUPER helpful during office hours, funny too, and learns your name if you go as well. I honestly dislike chemistry, but I learned everything pretty well and she is very receptive to questions and will stay as long as you need help during office hours. The labs are kind of confusing, but the LA's are there to answer questions and she helps a lot too. Just an FYI, her tests are pretty easy, but she doesn't curve them because of that. I could've gotten an A- in this class but I failed the final because it was harder than her midterms. However, I probably could've studied more, so this class is super doable. Highly recommend, take her class!!

Dr. Alghoul is one of the best professors at Cal Poly, even though she hasn't even been here a year. She has a bit of an accent, but you get used to it; doesn't hinder understanding the material. She's so sweet and cute and she's hilarious when she messes up! Definitely doesn't get all cocky when you point out a mistake or you keep asking questions. She's young and understands how confusing chemistry can be. She's so understanding during class and in office hours. She genuinely wants everyone to get an A, as long as you work for it. Her quizzes and tests were always straightforward and taken from the lecture examples and homework. I also had her for lab and she is soooo chill. Lab was so easy and we always got out within an hour and a half max on a "bad" day. I thought Dr. Bush was a great chem professor, but Dr. Alghoul is better. I got Cs in all my other chem classes because it never clicked, but with Dr. Alghoul, she is so great at explaining things and taking you through each step in class that you just have to rework the problem and you understand it. I wish I could take more classes with her. SHE'S AMAZING!

Dr. Alghoul is a decent chemistry proffessor. My first two chem proffessors were pretty awful so Dr. Alghoul was kind of a breath of fresh air for me. Her class is not too hard as long as you don’t let yourself fall behind. I really appreciated how she put the notes on polylearn the day before the lecture. At the end of most lectures, she also suggests a few book problems to do which i highly encourage because this way you’ll never fall behind. Her class consists of 4 quizzes which are straightfoward and fair. There are 2 midterms which are also not that hard if you study. I really did love how fair dr. alghoul was on the difficulty of the class. By the end of the year however, her notes were basically the textbook which was annoying because the textbook could no longer be used as a supplement. All the practice problems and diagrams she showed us in class were just scanned into her notes straight from the book. I would have preferred if she came up with new problems so the book could be used as additional examples. I also had Dr. Alghoul for lab. It was nice because she was pretty chill about everything and helped you through the lab if you needed it. Most of the time lab was only 1-2 hours. Most labs you are given an unknown and you have to preform a series of experiments to determine if your unknown contains such ions. Part of your lab grade is how accurate you are able to execute this. For me, this ruined my overall chem grade because I got so many false positives. When it came to grading, this professor was a bit annoying. She told our class that if she sees you improve throughout the quarter she will take that into account when calculating your final grade. I don’t think she actually did this though. Furthermore, she told us she would curve the class and never did. Dr. Alghoul is better than some chemistry professors but probably isn’t as good as others.

Dr. Alghoul is a very sweet person, but she isn't the best Chemistry teacher. Her tests and quizzes are fair for the most part (she sometimes will put exceptions that are barely touched in class on them). She is helpful in office hours but she is VERY strict when it comes to grading. She'll take off lots of point for the smallest errors. She also said that if she saw you improve throughout the class than she would raise your grade, but she didn't do that. I did well on the extremely well on the final, but she didn't adjust my grade. She also says that she will "most likely curve" the class, but she doesn't. No dropping lowest quiz score or replacing the lowest midterm with your final grade (most chemistry professors will do this). She also doesn't offer any sort of extra credit and doesn't explain the lab reports well. You will find yourself looking through the book teaching yourself the material in order to write the lab reports. Overall I was really disappointed in the class. I didn't have to take this class, but I wanted to finish the Chemistry series after Dr. Barua ignited my passion for Chemistry. But taking this class was one of the worst choices I made. It's super rare to have an A in the class, and most people I know ended up with C's or below.