<p>I have the vague impression that Chem 1 is for biologists and most engineers, while Chem 4 is for chemists and chemical engineers.</p>
<p>In reality, what's the difference? If possible, please comment on material learned (depth and breadth), class size, difficulty/curve, cutthroat-ness (pre-meds present?), etc.</p>
<p>Which sequence would be the better choice for a freshman accepted into the engineering college who wants to keep his options open for transferring into chemical engineering or chemistry later on?</p>
<p>take chem 4. If you take chem 1 and later switch into college of chem, you might be forced to take chem 5......which is pure hell. When I took it, the average grade assigned was a C- or a C. If you take chem 4B, you can waive out of chem 5. So take either: chem 1A then chem 4B OR chem 4A then chem 4B. Either way, be sure to take chem 4B your 2nd semester. Chem 5 is Quantitative Analysis, by the way.</p>
<p>Bump.</p>
<p>Are there any other Berkeley students on this forum who can speak to this topic?</p>
<p>In terms of material.........chem 1A-1B cover the same topics as chem 4A-4B but the 4 series goes more in-depth than the 1 series and emphasizes quantitative analysis more. I.e. The lab write-ups are longer and the labs require more analysis of data than in the 1 series. Chem 1A tries to integrate more topics relevant to biologists, and chem 1B tries to integrate more topics relevant to engineers, but in the end, the differences between chem 1 and 4 are negligible. In short, chem 4 is graded on a nicer curve, but requires more work than chem 1. Whatever you do, take chem 4B your second semester.</p>