<p>My son will be starting at UT this fall in mechanical engineering and wondering if anyone out there has any advice regarding CH301 and/or M408C (the required chemistry and calculus classes in the ME curriculum), in particular which teachers he might try to get or avoid and also any tips for doing well in the classes. He is a little rusty on the chemistry (will review this summer) and just finished AP Calculus with a B. He will register on June 12th, and I appreciate any and all advice you might have. I am a bit nervous about the whole freshman transition thing for an out-of-state student who has not developed picture perfect study habits just yet...(and as an ancient French/English major with a fear of math, just reading the ME curriculum kind of makes my head want to explode).</p>
<p>Your best bet would be to look at sites like Ratemyprofessor and MyEdu. I personally like MyEdu because you can see the grade distribution for each class and professor, as well as reviews from other students that have taken the course. They did go through a big sweep last year and remove all of the negative comments, but it is still a pretty good judgement.</p>
<p>UT doesn’t teach some of the basics in chemistry, and the student is expected to either know it already or learn it on his own. So this summer I strongly suggest your son learn/review:</p>
<p>Balancing equations. This is a simple thing, but a lot of kids struggle with it. Make sure you only change the coefficients when balancing a chemical equation, never the subscripts.</p>
<p>Stoichiometry. This kills a lot of students in 301. Stoichiometry problems are ones where they give you information about one substance in a chemical reaction and ask you for information about a different one. You ALWAYS have to calculate moles, then use the balanced equation to convert from moles of A to moles of B, then usually to grams of B. Stoichiometry problems also include limiting reactant problems.</p>
<p>Naming compounds. Covalently bound molecules use one naming system (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc), and ionic compounds use a different naming system (sodium chloride, magnesium hydroxide, and iron (II) oxide, for example). If your student can name compounds based on the formulas and write the formulas based on the names, he’ll be way ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>Calculating molecular weights. I’m guessing that since your son is in honors engineering, he can already do this in his sleep. Just be careful about chemical formulas with parentheses, like Ca(NO3)2, or compounds with waters of hydration, like CuSO4·5H2O.</p>
<p>There’s a lot more to CH301 than this, but these are some basic concepts that will underlie the material all semester long. If he’s got a good foundation here, he can learn what he needs to. If he struggles with these, he’ll be struggling with everything. Realistically, though, engineering majors tend to be among the strongest general chemistry students at UT, especially in 302 where things become more quantitative.</p>
<p>MyEdu was bought by UT (at least that part that has UT information), and unless you are a student your activity there would be very limited. </p>
<p>There is another site besides myedu and ratemyprofessors, but it’s banned here, I don’t know why. Ask on facebook, they will give you a link.</p>
<p>Also,
1.if there is no professor assigned to particular sections you will not know who will teach it until probably 1 week before classes start.
2. some sections will never open because they are reserved for special programs like FIG, and students register using PIN</p>
<p>gsm-During the advising session at the summer orientation, the academic advisor will highly recommend your son to sign up for a suppl Instrution for CH301 (GE 206D) taught by a TA. They do homework in class and TA will provide additional help.</p>
<p>spdf-My current high school sophomore struggled so much with the Stoichiometry unit (actually the entire year of chemistry). Don’t know what went wrong but he just can’t test well…Fingers crossed for his final otherwise he may end up with a C. Sigh…</p>
<p>Thank you all SO MUCH for the advice - especially spdf’s specific advice on what to review - I know this will be a big help. Again, thanks for taking the time to reply!</p>
<p>Surveys are handed out to students the last week of every class. The main results of those surveys can be found [url=<a href=“Sign in with your UT EID - Stale Request”>Sign in with your UT EID - Stale Request]here[/url</a>]. I doubt that he’ll have access to this website until he upgrades his UT EID, but I have found it to be very reliable. In general, an average professor/course rating >4.5 is outstanding. Between 4 and 4.5 tends to be a solid bet. Between 3.5 and 4 means you will probably have legitimate complaints about the course, though it will be manageable. Less than 3.5 and you should definitely try to avoid signing up for it.</p>
<p>Combined with the information found on MyEdu, he should have enough to go off of to make good decisions about which classes/professors to sign up for.</p>