<p>I'm an intended MCB freshman and I've signed up for chem 1a in the fall. I want to take another semester of general chemistry in the spring before moving on to 3 A/B. </p>
<p>How is 4B? Is it OK to take it after 1A? I haven't heard of a lot of people doing it. </p>
<p>Also, what is 15 like? How does it compare to 4B, and which would you recommend after 1A?</p>
<p>Have you considered Chem 1B. The class focuses on material after Chem 1A such as thermodynamics and the physics parts and 1B wont be insane like Chem 4B. I think the only people I know taking 1B are certain engineers.</p>
<p>General Chemistry – Chemistry (Department Of) (CHEM) 1B [4 units]
Course Format: Two hours of lecture and four hours of laboratory per week.
Prerequisites: 1A or a score of 3, 4, or 5 on the Chemistry AP test.
Credit option: Students will receive no credit for 1B after taking 4B.
Description: Introduction to chemical kinetics, electrochemistry, properties of the states of matter, binary mixtures, thermodynamic efficiency and the direction of chemical change, quantum mechanical description of bonding introduction to spectroscopy. Special topics: Research topics in modern chemistry and biochemistry, chemical engineering.</p>
<p>Oh and I hope you are not considering 4B to fulfill the 1 year of general chem for med school because they know for Berkeley 1 year of general chem is Chem 1A and 3A and 1 year of o-chem is Chem 3B and MCB102 (biochem) with a bit of variance.</p>
<p>I know lots of people who took 4B immediately after 1A; it’s totally fine. Don’t see why you would want to do chem 15 though; the only people in that class are transfer students in the College of Chem who are required to fulfill a “quantitative analysis” course because they took an equivalent of Chem 1A at another school. 4B already fulfills the CoC’s “quantitative analysis” requirement, so if you take that then you’re fine assuming you want to transfer to CoC. But it looks like you’re MCB and thus are not required to take 15 at all, in which case I’d still recommend against taking because I heard the class is really stupid lol.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that med schools regard Chem 3A as “general chemistry.” So if you wish to have 1A and either 1B or 4B completed by the end of your freshman year, you would need a year of what the med schools consider to be “o-chem” in addition to 3A. Most premeds use 1A/3A for gen chem and Chem 3B+MCB 102 or 100 for their o-chem requirements. However, you sound like you’re pretty interested in chemistry so I’d recommend doing the 112 series instead of the 3 series, in part because 112A actually does count towards med school requirements, whereas 3A doesn’t, and also because it’s more interesting in the 112 series and it’s easier to get a good grade (in Richmond Sarpong’s 112B class, 37% of the class got an A of some sort). Then again I’m not even sure if you’re premed in the first place…</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch, calbear and cupola. I’m leaning towards pre-med and I was not aware that 3A counts as general chem. I’ll consider the 112 vs. 3 series issue next year I guess.</p>
<p>For some reason I’ve never even heard of 1B. It sounds like a class that I’d be very interested in, though. Any idea about how difficult it is, relative to 1A and 4B?</p>