Girl, so confusing…

Teaches tough material well. The class is set up to provide a lot of value. You will be studying on the evenings and weekends to keep up. She is respectful with regards to making mistakes on tests and will change test scores. Respects her office hours.

Very professional. Lectures directly cover homework materials. No exams or quizzes. Office hours are extremely useful-all questions get answered.

Silvia is a great professor. She may make you work for your grade, but she wants to facilitate your learning and puts a big emphasis on that.

Problem sets make you think and are good exam prep. There are a ton of opportunities in discussion and office hours to ask questions. Overall, Silvia is so sweet and very willing to help all students. Her lectures are organized well and she walks through many examples. She also offers extra credit opportunities. My favorite chem class!

CHEM 665 is a conceptually demanding course, especially for students who do not have a strong background in chemistry or biophysics. However, Dr. Silvia's teaching approach made a significant difference, she has a remarkable ability to break down complex topics into clear, understandable explanations.

Spent first half of class at a snail's pace reviewing probability, could have been 1 lecture and a handout. Spent last 4 weeks of class actually learning about thermodynamics at lightning speed, should have been at least half the class. She is a kind person and cares a lot about research and her students, but her lecture style is awful.

Silvia is brilliant at her work, but not the best at teaching biophysical chemistry. Tough material and unclear instructions. Silvia often missed hands raised for questions and consistently spent 1-3 minutes overtime on lectures. Much of it was self-study, and discussions weren't helpful—they were more like office hours, just reviewing problem sets

Lectures can be dry, but Silvia does a great job explaining complex topics. Utilize her office hours, and Unstuck study can be a helpful study tool. Overall, a challenging but rewarding class.

Prof. Cavagnero is a great human and a very nice teacher. She really cares about her students and wants them to succeed.

Silvia is a fantastic professor. Class was very lecture heavy, but Silvia does a great job explaining really challenging topics in thermodynamics. She is one of the best professors I have had and genuinely cares about student success. She is super kind and willing to help you succeed.

Silvia is a good lecturer and paces the class well to help student understand concepts. Problem sets are well written, and the exams are very fair. Although this is a required class for most Biochem majors, she did a good job making the material interesting.

I thought Professor Cavagnero was an effective teacher. She was able to get me interested in topics I had not been before in biochemistry and even though I needed to take this class to graduate, I enjoyed this class more than I thought I would coming into it. Exams were fair, definitely worth working through and understanding problem sets.

Definitely difficult but very reasonable if you were willing to put in the time and effort. Extremely receptive to student input and suggestions. She genuinely wanted us to understand the material to benefit us in the long run. She was an incredible lecturer and just the sweetest lady ever. Honestly maybe my favorite professor I've had so far!

Silvia was one of my most kind and generous professors, if you want to do well she will provide you with every opportunity, her lectures while on difficult material make understanding the concepts buckets easier. One of my top 3 professors overall, I love her so much, and she genuinely cared about the students too.

Professor Cavagnero is one of the best professors I have had. She really wants her students to do well. She cares about helping students and making sure they understand the material. Make sure to utilize office hours and ask for help. Her lectures are amusing because she makes little jokes which help with the dry chemistry material.

lectures are not particularly engaging and must learn material yourself

Professor Cavagnero is a very nice and thoughtful professor. I thought lectures could run a little dry and long; the material could be more succinct. Exams are fair; there is a lot of material to know and definitely review everything to do well on the exam.

Jumps in between resources. Doesn't understand or prefers to explain hard concepts with a PowerPoint. Reads off the slides.

Lots of homework, and the homeworks are unrelated to the lecture. Switches between reading papers / lecture notes / book 3 times a week. A class with 40 students, so she calls you, be prepared. She does make you to wear a t shirt with a color you like. Be ready to explain why you wore that t shirt and how it is related to spectroscopy.

It is a quite useful course. Both conventional and cutting-edge techniques are included in the curriculum. Silvia is one the most patient professors I have ever met. She explains everything clearly and is happy to talk about course materials if students have questions.

She does own the academic position

Silvia was very responsive and helpful outside of class. Class usually went overtime. Problem sets had unclear questions or material we hadn't covered yet, but she clarified questions or extended deadlines when alerted to this. I felt like I was jumping through hoops and working for vague "participation points," but I learned stuff.

This course is a survey course of many spectroscopy techniques. The fundamental issue with the course lies in the fact that too many topics are covered but not in enough depth to actually understand them. Additionally, lots of the math required to understand the topics is incomplete. Slides are confusing and HW assignments are a waste of time.

Had her 2021 spring semester for Biophysical chem. Her lectures were not always engaging but they cover the material well. The class IS difficult but also laid out very straightforward. Silvia as a professor knows the material to a degree that other professors do not and it shows with how she teaches the class. She taught us how to apply it later.

One of the best professors I've had. Silvia is so genuinely caring and wants her students to do well. If you put in the effort, you will have no trouble in this class. The problem sets are like harder versions of the exams--learn to understand those and you'll be fine. She's also patient and understanding about the stress of virtual learning.

Silvia is one of my favorite professors. She's really caring, and is always available outside of class. Homework's usually harder than exams, but you have the answers to most of the homework questions. Exams are fair and are pretty much similar to what you learn in class: nothing new. There are a lot of bonus opportunities to improve your grade.

Silvia is an incredibly caring professor for her students. WIth COVID Prof. C made sure the lectures were fully in depth and comprehensive, at times a little scary. However, the exams were designed to test our general understanding and left out the nitty gritty. Much appreciated in a COVID sem. The lowered stress made it easier to absorb material

Silvia cares for her students a lot and is willing to help outside of class. The course is tough but she gives great lectures which covers all the things you need for exams and are interesting. Take notes by yourself and review them before the exam!

Silvia clearly cares a lot! Definitely a lot to do in this class, but she gives you the textbook homework key before the homework's due (and if the problem's not in the textbook, they'll give you answers during discussion).

Professor Cavagnero did a great job in lecture explaining all the topics. It was a pretty hard course and the homeworks and practice problems were sometimes really hard BUT the exams were very fair and were significantly easier than the homework. I felt like I was struggling understanding the concepts, but the exam questions were relatively easy.

Professor Cavagnero is great. She is very helpful and will work with you on problems until you understand the material. Her class is as difficult as other chemistry classes at UW that have a lab component. Attendance is mandatory for both discussion and lab but it's helpful because you're able to ask any question regarding the material.

I enjoyed taking Chem104 with Prof. Cavagnero. She truly cares about her students and wants to see everyone succeed in her class. She has an incredibly accurate grading system with every assignment and its points available from day 1. And after every exam, she posts a grading curve for the exam as well as the class and your letter grade trend :)

She is very willing to help you outside of class. She really wants the best for her students and is willing to make adjustments to make sure her students have the best success.

Professor Cavagnero was an awesome professor who was always available to help students outside of class. You can tell that she is very knowledgeable and passionate about chemistry. Also, she cares greatly about how her students are doing in class and in their lives. Overall, she was a great professor and I would take another class of hers again.

Dr. Cavagnero was a great professor of chemistry. Despite the class being online, Dr. Cavagnero still made sure that this class was a quality class. She was always open to meet with students when she was available. She had at least 6 hours of office hours every week and she was very responsive to emails. Her passion for chemistry is clear.

Silvia was one of my favorite professors at UW-Madison. Her passion for biophysical chemistry and helping students succeed is wonderful. She always asks for feedback from the class and takes it to heart. Silvia was great at engaging students and I truly enjoyed taking her course. The exams were a great reflection of the problem sets.

Overall, she's kind of nice but frustratingly disorganized. Professor Cavagnero appeared to have problems with TopHat or the projector every other class, students didn't really know their grades due to canvas not grading according to the syllabus, and final grades were given without even posting final exam scores. Try to find a different professor.

Professor Cavagnero was great. I wish I had gone into her office hours more because she was super helpful and incredibly sweet and nice to talk to. I learned a lot with her and she cares so much about her students and their learning. Since it is your typical gen. chem class get ready to study for exams but her test averages were high for chem

She genuinely cares about her students and is a very sweet lady. However, her lectures are so difficult to follow and so dull. She sometimes works through problems for several minutes before the TA's have to tell her she's doing the problem wrong, and spends time on concepts that have no relevance to the test.

Super kind woman who obviously cares about her students and is passionate about chemistry in general, but is not very good at teaching the material. She often spends time on things that don't matter and then doesn't get to other material. Doesn't seem prepared for lecture. Sitting through her lectures is soo hard, not very engaging but she does try

She's super great at being personable. Definitely is interested in her topic. She does like to have group participation but she doesn't pres. Would love to have her again

Very clear lectures. She cares a lot about your success. Extended deadlines and made changes to make things more fair. One of my favorites. Averages are very high which have their pros/cons.

Great professor, knows her material and explains it well. Love Silvia!!!

Professor Cavagnero is a sweet woman who genuinely cares about her students. However, I felt her lectures were difficult to follow and didn't always explain the material properly. While the grading curve for exams (and the class overall) was pretty generous, I would suggest taking a different lecturer to get a clearer understanding of the material.

Such a horrible professor. I can't believe this university allows her to teach, I'd like to see the dean in one of her lectures and not fall asleep, or try to learn from her crazy hard to understand lecture rants. She made this class so much harder than it has to be. Teaches what she thinks is cool. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Very sweet lady, but I think I fell asleep in almost every lecture. She's a very slow and boring teacher, we spent an entire class talking about a certain reaction. The only good thing is that the exams are easy and the material comes from the class slides. Great person, not a very great professor.

Very sweet, tried to motivate students by having a "grand challenge": students who improved their score on each exam got a treat in class. Put lecture slides online for students to print/take notes on in class. Exams were not like the practice tests and didn't reflect hw practice. Pretty sure I only got a decent grade because my TA had pity on us.

Professor Cavagnero was arguably one of the sweetest people Ive ever met. However, also one of the worst professors I've ever had. Her lectures were confusing and all over the place. It didn't seem like she had a lesson plan most days. My class average was a 54% and I did most learning on my own outside of class because my TA wasn't helpful either.

Yo, what's up with you people? Professor Cavagnero was a great prof. The materials she'd post online are super helpful. Do the practice tests and answer the tophat questions. Preclass activities are a pain, though. Yes, it's a hard class - that's the case with anyone you take it with. If you seek help outside of class you'll do fine in 104.

THE worst professor I have had at this University. She hands out practice problems loaded with errors. I cant think of one lecture where her slides did not have a mistake. She may come off as an innocent, sweet old woman, however, her exams are BRUTAL and relate to nothing you have learned. The average in my class was a 54% if that says anything...

Cavagnero is passionate about the subject and her tests are reasonable and she always curves them well. The work load is similar to that of any general chemistry class, it's good to go to lecture, but that's all you need to do, no textbook work is necessary. Overall, she made the class really doable!!

Her lectures are very rudimentary, while her exams are very specific; You're going to have to teach yourself if you want to do remotely well. She devotes a lot of time to easy things, and skims over harder topics. Also her review materials, tests, and worksheets are frequently littered with errors. I would avoid her and find another professor.

Worst professor I have ever had. She does not know half the material, frequently makes mistakes, and gives the most confusing lectures possible. Daily pre-class activities and excessive homework add up to an unhealthy amount of time devoted to this class. Tests are difficult and frequent and the review material is littered with errors and typos.

Was hard to understand and her lecture slides always had mistakes in them, if you need to take chem 104, definitely don't take it with her. Pre class activities before every lecture, weekly homework, and labs. I spent too much time on her class

Easily the worst professor I've had. She is very nice but her lectures are extremely boring and hard to learn from. If it weren't for the top hat/clicker questions I would not be going to lecture at all and learning everything on my own.

Horrible professor. She is a very caring and sweet woman, but don't let this fool you, she's horrible. She was entirely unorganized and made countless mistakes that only confused you. The material covered isn't available in the book, and her explanations didn't help you, so studying was nearly impossible. Hope to god the curve is in your favor.

Nice woman, but I stopped going to lecture entirely and just spent time with my TA. Her lectures are boring and she does a poor job at explaining the demos. The tests are designed to give low averages- the practice exams were not close to the actual tests. She said there would be no curve, which caused a lot of undo stress for nothing when she did.

She was a nice person but an awful teacher. Concepts that could be easily explained were dragged out and made way too complicated. I had to rely on my TA to teach me everything. She didn't know how to do any of the demos in lecture which wasted a lot of time. Test grades were always low and she didn't want to curve them. very very unsatisfied.

This was her first time teaching chem 104 and you could tell she didn't really know what she was doing. Her lectures were really hard to follow and there's almost no point in going. She is very willing to help though and seems to care about her students

An awful class. Her lectures, exams, quizzes had multiple mistakes in them. not enough examples were gone over in class that were comparable to questions you'd get on a exam. Pray for a good TA.

Extremely unsatisfied with this course. We spent way too much time on easy concepts and barely seemed to skim over the complex ones. There were far too few examples as well, especially for the questions we'd get assigned for homework and what we'd see on tests. Felt rushed and unprepared the entire time.

Professor Cavagnero was horrible. At first she seems like a sweet old lady who cares about her students, then you take the first test and its unlike any of the 3 packets she gives you to study from. Lectures are boring and explain only general concepts. She is very bad at explaining things. You better have a good TA with this one.

This class should not be as hard as she makes it. Everyone else who took this class with a different professor said it was relatively easy. She is extremely unclear in lecture, doesn't do helpful examples, and the homework is way harder than it should be. Avoid this professor at all costs.

She's very friendly and eager to help and for you to understand the material being taught, she even has cookies to entice you to visit her office and ask questions. Be warned though, her lectures are confusing and long and often include repetitive information that she doesn't test on. Homework is often harder than exams and quizzes.

The class is difficult. Didn't seem very organized and there are tons of assignments (which can be good or bad). I struggled with homework in this class. Quizzes were pretty straight forward but the tests were brutal. Test questions didn't relate to any other type of questions in class so you had to know the material very well.

Not the greatest professor I've had, teaching not the most interestinguseful chemistry class I've taken.

Horrendous professor. Very unclear lectures. You are better off just reading out of the textbook. If you are unfortunate enough to have to take chem with her then just pray that you get a good TA. This professor is embarrassing to this amazing university.

Awful professor. Jumps around so much that even if you knew the material nothing would make sense. Handwriting is atrocious, heavy accent. LOTS of errors in the hw, quizzes, & practice questions. You can tell she never reads over the emails she sends. Went to 3 lectures all semester. Read the book and pray for a good TA. this lady shouldn't be here

Took Chem 104 with her. Very unclear when it comes to mathematics relating to chemistry.

Professor Cavagnero is truly wonderful. She made p-chem so much fun for me. Her hw problem sets are do-able. Her exams are reasonably hard. If you have to take p chem, I recommend you to take it with her.

Very organized and straight forward. She is warm hearted and truly cares about all of her students and wants them to enjoy her class. Also very enthusiastic and makes the class interesting. Definitely go to lecture, it helps so much and most exam material is very similar to what she teaches in class and what is on the homework.

Her first 2 exams are mostly derivations taken directly from lecture/book. A lot of questions are taken from her study guides-so study those. The final consists of information drawn from papers we read/discuss in class so don't take those lightly. She's very nice and more than willing to help you if you ask for it.

Lecture was essential to attend as Professor Cavagnero was very good at explaining many of the difficult topics in Pchem. Exams and homework could be tricky at times but the TAs and Prof. Cavagnero were helpful understanding the concepts. Overall, great professor for a very challenging and advanced chemistry class. Class notes very helpful

Exam was super EASY 16~17 multiple choice in class exam.however, You do need to find good TA to learn more about chemistry. Take her class if possible! Easy A

Sylvia is a great professor. Her tests are very easy. She tells you everything you need to know during lecture and she uses the same questions from previous exams. She is a very nice person and very excited about the subject. I don't know why so many people don't like her. I would definitely take her class again.

bad professor. has trouble speaking english and cannot write. her letters are small and she writes in cursive so I spent half of lectures trying to figure out what each word was. she whizzes through lectures so unless you already know the material they are useless. tests are multiple choice but very hard and you cant use a notecard.

Not too clear but great professor. Very considerate and easy going. Exams are very easy comparing to other profs! although 16 mc questions! Very easy to get through. I'd take her again!

Hard to understand, writes letters wierd and uses a lot of wierd comparisons, lectures are boring, if you have to take her make sure you have a good TA

Lectures are a waste of time. Pray for a good TA. Her writing is hard to read and her tests are too few problems, avoid.

She has lots of old exams online... if you do these exams and can understand them, your fine. She even repeats questions from old exams. If you are good at teaching yourself she isn't that bad. You dont need to know more than what she teaches you in class.

She is sparatic in lectures and gves way to much homework! the tests are only 16 MC and and extra credit so if you get only a few wrong your skrewed. Not good at explaining and makes a lot of mistakes. Get a good TA...mine wasn't and I suffered

AWFUL! switch out if you can. The lectures are pointless. the midterms are just 16 multiple choice questions to be all done in 50 mins. Lots of hw. She doesnt explain things well. The homework is way harder that anything that is taught in class

sylvia was awesome. she did start whole new topics like five minutes before class ended, but still, she was really excited about the topic. i guess my TA was amazing, so that helped a lot.

well see, here's the deal. The lectures were pointless. I learned more and did better by not going to the lectures and teaching myself from the book.

The worst chem 103 professor at Madison. Switch out of her class if you can. She is Italian and her english is terrible, therefore she cannot write a decent chemistry exam in english. If you do have her, make sure you get a good TA!

Teaches irrelevant stuff, few examples prior to tests, very difficult tests, no notes or graphing calculator, really didn't like her, must memorize all formulas, but she's very nice, as if that makes up for her being incompetant...

Very nice person and good professor.I don't understand why people don't like her as a teacher.I had no problem comprehending what she taught and I am definately not smartest person in the world.Also,you don't need a good TA in order to do well in her class.Mine was horrible and I still did well

She was a very nice and sweet person, but overall I didn't learn that much from her. I had to figure out everything from the book, and her tests were nothing like the homework. You can feel like you know everything before a test, but then once you get it, feel like you know nothing.

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She is a very nice professor. The demos she does in class are interesting and she does a good job teaching the course. I would highly recommend studying the past exams, sometimes, similar questions (or exactly the same questions) pop up! =)

She is a very nice person. She teaches at a 5th grade level and tests at a college level.

Prof. Cavagerno assumes everyone has the same knowledge of chemistry as she does, and her tests do not reflect the material covered in the homework or lectures. Her teaching style does not parallel her nice personality, and her lectures are usually unclear and scattered. Not an easy "A!"

Mrs. Cavagnero is a very wonderful, nice lady, but your teaching skills aren't very good at all. Many times she writes way too many irrelevant notes on the boards. I have fallen asleep many a time. If you have her as a professor, then i recommend becoming good friends with your TA.

Ridiculously poor english skills for someone in her position. Lectures are a complete waste of time. Thank god for good TA's. If you don't get one, you're screwed. Exams cover irrelevant material at times. Overall, a good person, but a horrendous teacher.

lectures are pointless, we went through the material slower than I imagined was possible. Handwriting is confusing and hard to read, makes many mistakes, Italian accent.I do not recommend her as a teacher for 103, but she seems like a very nice lady.

She is pretty helpful and her tests aren't too bad... but she isn't very clear on somethings. I believe it was a positive experience to have her as a professor though.

sooooooooo nice, sooooooooooooooo unclear

She seems like a really nice person and she means well, but sometimes what she says gets too confusing and over analyzed. Plus since she is Italian her words are hard to read. Her first test is impossible but the others are pretty easy. It all depends on if you get a good TA.

Just not great at all. Doesn't seem to know what she's teaching, and she never seems to be able to answer questions.