Reviews for Theodore R. Kirkpatrick
Average Rating:| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: B+ December 21, 2012, 7:28 am | He is not as completely awful as the other reviews make him seem. His homework is not on mastering physics which makes it easier. He tells you most of the questions that will be on the tests and lets you have a notecard...hence you can write down the problems. He also is a nice guy in office hours. Overall he is not terrible. |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: C January 26, 2011, 10:34 am | He teaches a lot of senseless differential equations and proofs. He is boring, but he knows what he is teaching and is fair. His tests are easy due to the fact that he tells us what is going to be on the test and we can use a note card. Most people cramp everything in the note card and get a decent grade on the exams. The quizzes in discussion were pretty hard at first, but then they just got to the point when it was easy math and plugging into equations. I believe he is blind from one eye, so if you sit on the left side of the lecture hall he will not see you. (I'm guessing his right eye is blind) His experiments in class are really fun and you will probably learn a lot from them. |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: C December 10, 2010, 4:16 pm | Dr. Kirkpatrick may use some complicated math in 260 lecture that a quarter of the class will know what it is, but he never requires any of it on the exams. The homeworks and quizzes aren't too bad, provided you study, and there are no pop quizzes so no surprises. He's incredibly knowledgeable and a nice guy. When people asked questions in class he was always willing and able to re-explain himself in order to help the students understand. All in all, he's a good professor; not great, but by no stretch terrible! |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS270 Grade Expected: May 20, 2010, 8:38 pm | I thought these reviews were a little misleading. He is not at all as bad of a teacher as everyone here claims. Yes, lectures sometimes involve proofs and derivations which can be difficult. However if you write down what he does on the board and just listen to what he says you will learn something. The tests can be really hard if you don't go to class or the review. In class he does examples which he warns may appear on the test in almost identical form. Going to the review also gives you almost everything that you need for studying including at least one identical problem. I enjoyed this class and I liked him as a teacher more than my other two physics teachers I had here. I'm done taking physics classes but if I had to take another one I would try to get in his class again. |
| akivah Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: A December 17, 2009, 9:24 pm | He was a pretty bad teacher, and I usually left his lectures a little more confused than when I entered, but the class wasn't so bad. His tests didn't really cover any material you can't get out of the textbooks, and he pretty much gave away 1 or 2 questions on each test. I just studied from the textbook all semester and got an A. |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: A December 7, 2009, 7:40 pm | I didnt think he was nearly as bad as the other reviews made him seem. For starters, the class before a test, he basically tells you half the questions that will be on the test, so no excuse there. While he talks about diff eq, i never needed it. He asked for a proof here or there, but thats only because to prove it, you had use one of the concepts/equations in the chapter, so its fair game at that point. i never had to prove any of the fundamental equations in the chapters. oh, and he drops a test grade. |
| jumpboyb Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: B September 12, 2009, 12:54 pm | HORRIBLE! taught with a lot of random proofs that are hard to follow since he used Diff Eqs extensively even though they were not required for the course. Massive curve at the end however. I flat out bombed the second test and final and still managed a B. Take anyone else. |
| Xinio654 Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: B+ April 16, 2009, 8:27 am | He's a horrible professor who lies to screw you over. Each lecture was 75 minutes of him writing cryptic proofs on the board that nobody understood because it contained a crap load of differential equations, which isn't even a prereq for the class. Like the other person said, he told us that we didn't need to understand the proofs just the general concepts, but the first question on the first exam asked for a series of proofs on oscillation. He also purposely designed the tests to be difficult so the class averages could be low. The test averages were in the 50s to low 60s. The book doesn't help either because his test problems aren't even like the book problems, even though he told us the test would have book-type problems. I don't know how I managed to pull off a B+ in the class but I wouldn't be surprised if I got a C because he purposely wanted people to do badly. Try to avoid him if you can. |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: C April 13, 2009, 10:10 pm | Agree wholeheartedly with person below me. terrible, terrible teacher. did a bunch of proofs involving god knows what, put one on the test and at least half the class got an F (not exaggerating). has the most ridiculous grading policy. purposely and knowingly makes his tests aggravatingly difficult (avg~60) and then expects to curve it to make it better. dont believe it. i got above the average on 2/3 tests, and he drops one; i did every homework/quiz and got an A in the lab class which is folded into your lecture grade. i ended up getting a C!!! biggest load of BS. and b/c of stupid phys dept policy, that means i got a c in the lab too. do not take him. i dont know who else you can take, b/c they all pretty much suck. oh and he's never in his office hours. the only plus is he doesnt use masteringphysics. |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: B April 11, 2009, 8:22 pm | The other two reviews for this class were right on point. He put a proof on oscillators on the first exam which no one could do being that differential eqns is not a prerequisite. I too got way above the average on 2/3 exams (like 70-80) and an A on the lab and still managed to pull a C. Definetly dont take him but between him and hill kirkp is the better choice. TRUST ME. Other than hill take any other professor over kirkp |
| Anonymous Course: PHYS260 Grade Expected: December 9, 2008, 2:34 pm | Don't take his class!! Seriously, this class was such a bad experience. Kirkp spent most of the time doing weird proofs with differential equations that no one really followed. When asked if they were important he said that the class didn't need to know them...this turned out to be a complete lie because the first question of the first test was a paragraph asking for proofs using differential equations (which isn't even a prerequisite for this course). He read everything straight off of these yellow note sheets that he carried around and, when asked questions about what he was writing, occasionally would squint at them and then respond with an indifferent "I don't know." Learning out of the book isn't even an option because his test questions usually involve proofs that he does in class. |