Chemistry overwhelms me?

College Majors Science Majors
1

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>So I'm a sophomore and got 4.0 my freshman year, but I was a psych major then (switched to Clinical Lab Science now) and had a lot more free time. Now since I'm an RA, long distance BF, on the University D1 Track team, and have a desk job, and having taken my first serious science class...this fall semester was literally the toughest semester of my life and I realized that my time management skillz..if I had any were very weak. </p>

<p>I went to TAs and studied a lot of Gen Chem. I'm a Clinical Lab Science Major...Towards the end of the semester I started to do well, and studied 2 and a half weeks for my chem final, but I realize it wasn't enough and have to revamp my study technique for sciences. I mean school and life is a learning process. I remember taking my G.Chem final and being so disheartened that my stuydying didn't pay off. I do realize that one can study, but be studying wrong. </p>

<p>But I have one major worry...</p>

<p>1.) if someone gets a C in Gen chem, is their career doomed? I mean don't all the other sciences build off Gen chem and then only getting a C in gen chem means one didn't master the material...so there are gaps of gen chem for that person compared to someone else who got an A. So when I would go to apply to a job do they expect us to know everything about chemistry? Let's say if I was a chem major. And obviously if I am continuing to do bad in chemistry classes...chem isn't for me and I should change my major.</p>

<p>To me, I'm just worried cause A=awesome, but anything less seems like that person just didn't learn the material enough, so how can they do their job? Know what I mean?</p>

<p>I feel like our grades define our careers which is awful, cause some classes are so hard for some of us.</p>

<p>I mean do we have to master everything? Surely a Med Student doesn't have to get 100 on everything, right? They learn by doing and by learning things over and over again and by doing over and over again, right?</p>

<p>I just don't get it. If I graduate school and don't remember everything I learned...it seems scary and almost sad. We study do hard, but don't remember everything, but don't we need to be more than Cs to do our jobs right, or would we learn on the job?</p>

2

<p>Doesn’t really matter for CLS. Just make sure you learned one thing, something, anything from that class. Get an A next semester.</p>

3

<p>1.) Nope. A professor at my college got a C in gen chem. A CHEMISTRY professor.</p>

4

<p>I always seem to have the hardest time when I take the introductory courses for the first time. I never took Chem in high school and I struggled to get a B- in my first Chem class in college, I mean really struggled. The next two Chem classes I took I aced them but that first class to any new subject is always tough.</p>

5

<p>I do not think you necessarily have to master gen chem to be good at a job you’ll have 5 years down the road if that’s what you’re asking. That’s not to say you shouldn’t strive to master everything you encounter in college but only few are able to master everything. Also getting an A does not necessarily translate to having mastered a given subject.</p>

<p>Also, I had the same worry about forgetting everything I was learning. I think its true, 5 years after you’ve graduate you’ll have forgotten most of the things you’ve learned, especially if it was rote memorization. This is why I switched from bioengineering which had a lot of biology (memorization) to physics/math which turns you into a problem solving machine. This skill is essential in any job and is not something you will likely forget how to do.</p>

6

<p>I hope you are studying at your student desk job, whenever possible. I don’t think getting a C in GenChem 1 will doom you, there are still chances for redemption, which may include Gen Chem 2, orgo 1 & 2 etc. Another factor is if you studied chemistry in high school. I took honors chem in high school, it makes relearning easier because I’ve had exposure. If you are a chem major and consistently getting Cs, you probably won’t get into grad school for your subject. But you will get a sampling from your core of what you like and which courses you do better in, have more interest in learning more about. </p>

<p>You can relearn whatever you forget after graduation. You will probably forget things you don’t use much, but one can always open a book and relearn topics. </p>

<p>People are also (employers, coworkers that help decide who gets hired) going to look at the difficulty of the courses you’ve taken; what they most remember about my transcript is that I went up to intermediate accounting 3 (my first bachelors I earned in accounting) and took courses that were almost at graduate level, sometimes I got an A, other times I got a C but I kept on trucking beyond minimum requirements. I am currently putting in a lot of time to review for chemistry; I even helped tutor an ex-boyfriend in chemistry. Maybe more time and study group/college tutoring can help improve. I work in a mathlab which is a good student job. I am horrible at remembering analytical trigonometry formulas and struggle with trig, but that doesn’t mean I’m bad at math, just trig takes me a lot more effort.</p>