<p>So I'm taking Chem 0001 first semester of this fall, and I'd love to get the opinions of older Jumbros who've taken the class and their thoughts on everything: lectures, P-sets, labs, and exams. I've never taken AP chemistry, but I have a pretty good background from my high school's honors chem class. </p>
<p>Thanks to those who answer!</p>
<p>Jumbos******</p>
<p>Sergei Kryatov is teaching Chem 1 in the fall as usual?</p>
<p>It’s a pretty straightforward class. Do the work, and you will be fine. There is a lot of it compared to some other classes; roughly 1 “MasteringChemistry” and 1 paper problem set a week if I recall correctly. Try to do them within a day or so of it being assigned. You may not get what is going on entirely, but trying to do them without the benefit of lecture notes will force you to figure out for yourself what is going on.</p>
<p>Labs are really easy. It is scheduled for a three hour block but only rarely will they take you more than an hour.</p>
<p>Exams are scaled up to an 80 and are usually on Tuesday evenings (at least that is how it was one when I took it a couple years ago). You get three full practice tests up to a week before the test; if you can do those cold, you’ll be set for the exam.</p>
<p>I (and all of my friends) personally found recitation worthless, but other people I knew thought it was useful. You’ll figure this one out for yourself.</p>
<p>You can sign up for whichever lecture section works better for your, but I would advise that you attend the early morning chem block regardless. Not having Friday afternoon classes is an excellent situation to be in. Lecture isn’t mandatory, but almost every bit of content you need to know you will be taught at lecture, so you should go.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask for further specifics; that’s just what I could think of off the top of my head.</p>
<p>Do you think that without an AP chem background will put me at a disadvantage? Is the material really that difficult where I wouldn’t know what’s going on?</p>
<p>I was in the same boat as you; I had taken an honor chem course but had never taken AP chemistry. A lot of the folks will have AP credit, but a lot more will just be in your same boat, as those kids will often gravitate towards Chem 11, Chem 2, Chem 51/31, or will wait a semester to take Chem 2 with everyone else. I ended up doing fine. The first test wasn’t terrific for me (I think I got a B), but it helped me realize what and how I needed to study. The material is not at all that hard; you just need to sit down and do it to understand.</p>
<p>TuftsStudent, your posts are very helpful! New students would appreciate your inputs!
Have you taken Bio13 or Bio14? If you have, what do you think about those courses?</p>
<p>I took Bio 13; I used my AP credit to place out of Bio 14. </p>
<p>Bio 13/14 each have three professors for lecture. I hear they restructured Bio 14 a little bit last semester, but not all that much. When I took 13, there were four exams and a final exam, which is much more than a usual class has. The exams were not all that difficult, but they were generally unfair. Each was 20 multiple choice questions (except for the 30 question final). The questions would often be written poorly, ambiguously, or with multiple correct answers, and often tested minutia (though not to the same extent as other classes). The professors made a big deal about how they stressed “critical thinking” with their questions, but frankly, that wasn’t particularly true. Lab was just not good either. It was the same mentality of “we aren’t going to make things too hard so we are going to try to trick you in as many ways as possible to reduce your grade.” The labs themselves were also just not that fun to do nor were they particularly well designed.</p>
<p>The class requires a decent amount of work and like Chem 1, they are so much easier if you keep up with every lecture. However, I frankly learned a lot more in my high school AP biology classes. Upper level biology classes are a lot better than the intro sequence, but Bio 13/14 are unfortunately not very good overall. Sorry to be so negative. I’m sure you can learn a lot from those classes, and I did, but they just are not that great.</p>
<p>thank you so much!!! heard that bio13 is hard. now we know what to do to keep the good grade.
Do you think for the 1st year student, taking bio13 and chem0001 is reasonable? or too much? got bio AP 5, did not take chem AP as you.</p>
<p>What is your intended major and/or pre-professional status?</p>
<p>premed? maybe.</p>
<p>I would recommend just starting with Chem 1. You’ll hear Dean Carol Baffi-Dugan explain in detail why during orientation, but it’s definitely a lot better to get your feet wet. After all, you have seven more semesters after that to finish your premed requirements. Also, only taking that one science class plus English plus presumably a foreign language gives you room for 1-2.5 more electives. If you’re taking two science classes, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunity to explore the various departments that you would never have been able to take a class in prior to college.</p>
<p>TuftsStudent, what do you mean exams are scaled up to an 80?</p>
<p>If the class average on an exam is a 74, everyone gets +6 to their exam grade. Because labs and homework are graded quite generously, this makes the end of the semester grade distribution quite nice.</p>
<p>^Awesome. So is it as long as you’re conscientious, you can get an A/A-/B+?</p>
<p>Chem is definitely a class where change in effort is highly correlated to change in final grade, at least as I have observed it. So yes.</p>
<p>TuftsStudent, have you taken intro to computer science class? Comparing to chem01, is it much more time consuming or harder or about the same when the student does not have much computer language skills?
Or can anyone comment on this class if you had taken it?
thank you!</p>
<p>I haven’t taken it, no, but I have a bunch of friends (like 4-5) who have taken it and had it change their majors to CS. Comp 11 (and in the fall, also Comp 50) is not an easy class, but neither is it incredibly difficult. It’s also designed to teach folks who have limited to no programming experience.</p>