<p>Has anyone taken this? What' s the difference in material & difficulty between 140BH/140B? Thanks.</p>
<p>Ok this reply is sort of long and has info that you probably don’t care about, but I’m bored and I don’t think that very many people on this site have taken 140bh, so here it goes:</p>
<p>I took 140bh last year, obviously I didn’t take 140b so I can’t really compare it to that. I originally did not sign up for the class, because I was not super confident about my o-chem skills, but my roommate did and she was really excited about the class after the first lecture and so I just decided to sign up.</p>
<p>I did not really enjoy the class while I was taking it, mainly because I don’t really like o-chem that much - I’m more of a math/physics person (biophysics major), I enjoy working with numbers. O-chem just didn’t come naturally to me like it did to some of the other people in the class, which made me frustrated and lose confidence. I guess I shouldn’t have been comparing myself with my classmates but it just sucked to almost never be able to solve the problems by myself. The class also took up a lot of time, on top of discussion (where we would work in groups to solve problems) we had a mechanisms/problem-solving session where weizman would give us difficult (at least to me…) problems to work on individually. </p>
<p>ANYWAY, even though I did not like the class while I was taking it, I definitely did not regret it once it finished. In my opinion, 140B/BH is where you learn what o-chem is really about - 140A is mostly just studying the basics and foundation for o-chem. It was nice because I thought I had a MUCH better understanding of o-chem after I took the class…he really tries to make the class interesting and to get you to actually THINK and not just memorize things. And even though it was a heck-of-a-lot of work, he ends up giving everyone in the class either an A or A- (unless you didn’t put any effort in at all, but in that case I don’t think you would have taken the class in the first place). </p>
<p>So, if you really like o-chem and want a change from the humongous 200+ student lecture hall, then take the class. But if you don’t want to put in any more effort into studying o-chem than you have to, then just take the regular series.</p>
<p>twylaboo makes a good point for 140BH, but personally i would just stick with the regular class. that way, you aren’t committing yourself to the extra effort and work right away. getting a good foundation in ochem is essential if you’re planning to move ahead in the series, and if you do discover that ochem is something you like and want to do more of, there are plenty of upper-division electives to take. </p>
<p>that was my approach, anyway. i learned infinitely more ochem in my electives than i ever did in the 140 series – and i’m not just talking about new reactions and mechanisms; seeing ochem presented over and over really hammers the points home. i’m TAing a course on metabolic mechanisms right now and telling my students that the only way to “get” ochem is to do it over and over … which is advice that i would’ve laughed at four years ago, but hey, that’s life.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info twylabloo/astrina. I appreciate the first hand perspective.</p>