Every student has dealt with what he or she considers to be the hardest professor ever. That professor is the one that only ever seems to fail his students and whose tests are always harder than any other class. Thanks to Pick-A-Prof.com, a website that grades teachers based on the grades of their undergraduate students, you can find out just which professor is truly the hardest.

According to the website, that professor is John Russell. Russell has one of the lowest undergraduate GPAs at Sacramento State, with a GPA of 0.98 for students of his Organic Chemistry Lecture I course (Chem 024). For the history of the course, 54 percent of the students received an F grade and only two percent received an A grade. The course had a 12.16 percent drop rate as well.

Russell has been teaching at Sac State for 37 years. He graduated from Purdue University in 1963 with a bachelor’s of science in chemistry, and in 1968 he graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. He finished his Post Doctorate Fellow in 1968 at Ohio State University.

Russell said he was a “Sputnik kid” from the 1950s. He went to college thinking he would be either a chemist or an engineer, and decided on chemistry when engineering became too technical. Chemistry gave Russell the freedom to take other courses, which involved more literature and were less technical than engineering, he said.

The hardest part about teaching one of the most difficult classes is trying to explain abstract material in a way that can be understood by students, Russell said. On the flip side, chemistry “keeps one on your toes,” Russell said.

And it’s fun. Teaching the subject keeps his enthusiasm up for the subject.

“It is a stimulating intellectual challenge,” Russell said.

For junior Megan Bunce, chemistry was simply too tough. The health science major dropped her Chemistry 1A course after failing the first test. The professor told students if they didn’t do well on the first test, they wouldn’t do well in the class.

“You have to spend all your time studying for chemistry and be very focused in order to succeed,” Bunce said.

Russell said students should spend at least nine hours per week studying and preparing for the chemistry course. Russell said the key for doing well in his class is simply putting in the time. The recipe for getting an A in his course includes reading all the material, taking good notes, going over notes after class and recopying them, working out practice problems, “lots of problems,” asking him if there is a question on something one doesn’t understand and then going back and working more problems, Russell said with a laugh.

The Pick-A-Prof records are obtained directly from university records, and are not from student opinions or ratings. On the site, you can also read reviews from students about various professors on campus.

Although Russell’s record may paint him as being a tough professor, it does not mean that students can’t learn from him, or that he is not an excellent professor.

“Sometimes the hardest grader is the best professor to take the class from, as you would learn the information,” Karen Bragg of Pick-A-Prof said in an email.

If you are up for the challenge of taking one of Russell’s courses, his Chem 024 class is offered in the spring semester.

Amy Ball can be reached at [email protected]