Peter Ryan

If your instructor is Pete then you will likely hear a lot about soil types, geochem, and practice reading peer reviewed literature. Professor Lapin is a great lab instructor, who appreciates students being engaged with the readings.

I really enjoyed this course; it was awesome to have class outside of the classroom with labs. With Professor Pryzperhart in lab, we went to nearby farms and the knoll to look at sustainable agriculture, wetlands, and forests to measure carbon storage. It was very cool to see how things that we talk about in lab show up in real life, and because of this experience, I did not find writing the lab reports that difficult. Please make note of the fact that if you take this class in the fall or in the spring, from November to April, your enthusiasm for labs will dwindle because of the weather in Vermont. My issue, if any, with this course is that the lecture was often disconnected from the content of the labs, and it often just felt like I was being talked at.

I really enjoyed this course; it was awesome to have class outside of the classroom with labs. With Professor Pryzperhart in lab, we went to nearby farms and the knoll to look at sustainable agriculture, wetlands, and forests to measure carbon storage. It was very cool to see how things that we talk about in lab show up in real life, …Read more

This course was pretty fun; Pete Ryan is a good lecturer and clearly knows a lot about geochemistry as it is his field of work. I found the course pretty easy coming from the chemistry side of things and having never taken an ECSC course. The class had a lot of potential to be great, but fell flat to some extent because we covered too broad of topics in too little detail and all labs were dedicated to a research project from which I didn't feel I learned much. Can't say I would recommend the course unless you have a particular interest in geochemistry... You probably won't retain a whole lot of material unless you put in the effort to do some extra research and chat with Pete in office hours, which he is very receptive to.

This course was pretty fun; Pete Ryan is a good lecturer and clearly knows a lot about geochemistry as it is his field of work. I found the course pretty easy coming from the chemistry side of things and having never taken an ECSC course. The class had a lot of potential to be great, but fell flat to some extent because we covered to …Read more