<p>Hi, I am in L&S and was at first doing CS, but now considering doing MCB instead. I am a second semester freshman, and since i missed the boat to do chem 1a this semester, i was planning on taking it at my local community college over summer to get the credit so I could be on track and take Chem 3a sophomore year. </p>
<p>My question is is whether it is highly necessary to take Chem 1a at Berkeley to be successful in chem 3a? Is there alot of Chem 1a in 3a or are they very much different and unrelated as far as course material goes?</p>
<p>Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>completely unnecessary. chem 1a is much more calculation based whereas chem 3a is conceptual and almost like learning a new new language initially (with nomenclature, stereochem, newman/fischer projections)</p>
<p>just as long as you know what protons, electrons and neutrons are from chem 1a, youll be fine.</p>
<p>I skipped 1A and was fine. I did get a 5 on AP Chem though.</p>
<p>i completely disagree with W4C. if you don’t have a good foundation in stuff like electronegativity, acid/bases, periodic table trends, electron clouds and orbital overlaps, etc., you’re not going to understand what’s going on. i took it with frechet and he thought Chem 1A material was so important that his midterm 1 covered quite a bit of it.</p>
<p>also, i’m taking chem 3b right now and MO theory is featured prominently.</p>
<p>you definitely, definitely, definitely need to review it if you want to fully understand organic chemistry.</p>
<p>edit: lol oh, your question was whether or not taking it at berkeley was necessary, as opposed to a CC. probably not.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses guys, it helps alot.</p>
<p>Wait, just curiously, it would NOT be recommended to take Chem 1a and Chem 3a concurrently would it? Assuming that my other classes were easy p/np classes.</p>
<p>isn’t 1a a prereq for 3a actually?</p>