<p>If I were to be a Chemistry major, would would my first year probably look like with all of my courses? What cores should I get rid of first?</p>
<p>All first years take humanities, and it's encouraged that you do math and foreign language your first year as well. And, of course, gen chem (or its honors variety). So, you're looking at something like this for your first quarter:</p>
<p>Hum- 2x per week
GenChem- 3 lectures per week, plus 1x lab per week (4 hrs) and discussion (1 hr)
Language- time depends on level
Math- 3x per week</p>
<p>If you place out of foreign language, you may want to take your Social Sciences core instead of that.</p>
<p>I would go for Gen Chem Honors and probably the accelerated Intro to Latin.</p>
<p>gracello, what about the rest of the year? or would it remain pretty stagnant?</p>
<p>Completely stagnant for the second quarter. You could conceivably drop math in the third quarter, although I think it's unusual for a chemistry major to do that. You could also drop Hum in the third quarter, but that would just create a need for an additional civilization or arts class later (or then). If you are really starting Latin from scratch, I think you would have to complete the full year to meet the college's language requirement.</p>
<p>I've taken Latin in high school, so I wanted to go for the accelerated. I have no idea how placing out of languages works, honestly.</p>
<p>You'll take a placement test in the language of your choice during Orientation Week, and can conceivably place out of every quarter until the end of the second year sequence, depending on your level. Latin, I've heard, is notoriously difficult, and most people who have had Latin in school don't wind up placing much higher than 102 or 103.
You are also welcome to start a new language if you'd like- there are over 20 languages offered here, and any of them will be appropriate in satisfying your language requirement.</p>
<p>Honors Gen Chem and Accelerated Latin is a very, very amibitious schedule, and is something that is good to think about, but your advisor will probably warn you against doing both of those (especially if you are in Honors Calculus). Even regular Gen Chem is very difficult at the UofC- I took AP Chem in high school, wound up taking normal Gen Chem here, and found it quite hard even so.</p>
<p>Uh oh. Thanks for the information!</p>
<p>Any thoughts on organic chemistry as a freshman? Given a solid AP Chem background, is it harder or easier than Honors Gen?
I was thinking it might be nice to free up schedule space by avoiding the Gen Chem sequences, but I don't want to explode during my first quarter.</p>
<p>About negative three people per year are invited to do this (edit: "this" being take organic chemistry as a first year). Organic chemistry is a very difficult and demanding class, and not something you'll want to take without prior actual college chemistry background. Honors Gen Chem is a very difficult class by itself, and, trust me, a class you'll want to take. With a solid AP Chem background (but four years between that course and college chemistry), I ran out my AP Chem knowledge in about the first four weeks of the first quarter of regular Gen Chem- intro chem sequences here, even the regular sequence, run through material very quickly and with the expectation that you'll be able to use and retain a lot of information with precision. The only person I've heard of having taken organic chemistry as a freshman took several chemistry courses at a college during high school.</p>
<p>So... Honors General....</p>
<p>good/bad?</p>
<p>Life consumingly hard. Don't take it unless you intend on being a chem major, and even then, regular is just fine. Not trying to scare anyone, but taking an "honors" class vs. a regular class at UChicago is NOT like the difference between honors and regular in high school- instead of high school classes having "honors" mean "not lame" and "regular" mean "for the brainless", "honors" here means "you will probably lose weight in the process of completing a problem set for this class".
For example, in the process of taking <em>regular</em> Gen Chem,and I spend 3 hours a week in lecture, 1 hour a week in discussion, 4 hours a week in lab, plus an additional 1ish hour/lecture day reading the chapter in the book covered, 3 or 4 hours writing a solid lab report, and 4 or 5 hours per once-weekly problem set. And I got a B. :)
Honors Gen Chem is like this... but faster, and with more homework.</p>
<p>I feel like the grades here would destroy me.</p>
<p>I have just finished studying Organic Chem in my IB Higher Level Chem class. Will Chicago let me take Orgo to start off? Taking anything else would be so redundant since I've already studied the first two levels of Chemistry and Organic. ;-; (Although I'm sure college level Organic would pack a bit more punch than what I've just finished)</p>
<p>Gotcha. <em>swallows nervously</em>
What are the class sizes like in Honors Gen?</p>
<p>I would just like to offer a bit of a contrasting view towards chemistry at the college. While it's definitely not a blow-off class, and is probably one of my more challenging classes this year (OChem), it's definitely possible to succeed in these classes, obtain a great grade and enjoy yourself. As for my experience, I took General Chemistry last year and Organic Chemistry this year. I had taken 1 community college class in Chemistry, along with a highschool pre-IB chemistry class and I felt overly prepared for the General Chemistry class last year. Organic Chemistry has been a bit tougher this year, but I think that was just because I was in a bit of a sophomore slump, and I got my act together by the end of the quarter. </p>
<p>The thing is, for a lot of classes you will encounter on campus, you will probably find a teaching style that is very different from your highschool (at least for the majority of people, including me). For many that is very hard to deal with -- a change to a very conceptual teaching model where understanding why something happens is 10-fold better than being able to spit out what the end product is. An understanding of the foundations of whatever chemistry you are learning along with a good problem-solving ability is really what you need to succeed in the classes; this comes easier for some than others. I'm sure that as a prospective Chemistry major you'll have a better time than many others who take it as premeds or biology majors just because your probably innately a bit more interested in the subject.</p>
<p>I do have a good friend who took Organic Chemistry freshman year and she found it pretty challenging, but I'm sure she doesn't regret her decision. I know there are others that take it freshman year, and all I can say is that it is very case-dependent. She wasn't a chem major and was planning on double-majoring, which influenced this decision.</p>
<p>I would suggest, however, that if you are going in as a Chemistry major that you start with Honors General Chemistry. This way, even if you are ready for Organic Chemistry, you can get a feel for how the Chemistry department works and maybe even do so well that you are invited during the summer for a Chemistry internship. All of the chemistry majors I've talked to really have enjoyed their honors classes, and so I think going into Honors Gen Chem would be better than regular Organic Chemistry not because you wouldn't be able to handle OChem, but because Honors General Chemistry just has more to offer to you if you're an aspiring Chem major.</p>
<p>Sorry for the long-winded response, heh. Hope it helped :)</p>
<p>Concerning class sizes, I believe the Honors Gen Chem course is around 40 people, as opposed to Regular Gen Chem, a true lecture class, 110+ students.</p>
<p>I would also like to say that you should not automatically shy away from science Honors classes just for the difficulty. I know it's a major concern for many premeds about their grades, but when you get down to the facts, you are in college to learn. In many cases you will learn much more in an honors class relative to a non-honors class and you will have peers that are more interested in the subject matter, and MOST IMPORTANTLY smaller classes (and sometimes better teachers)! As a Biology major, I honestly can't imagine not having taken the Honors Biology course (AP5 Bio) -- learned a ton and got ahold of a great job from one of the teachers who taught the course.</p>
<p>Just wanted to make a note about going into the situation ready and excited to learn rather than dreading a low grade. It just makes the whole learning experience more enjoyable and if you're going into it with a good attitude you'll definitely do better than if you're constantly worrying and stressing about your grades.</p>
<p>Best of luck! :)</p>
<p>I would be here as a chem major, not looking for premed.</p>
<p>I don't have much to say about the chemistry department per se, but I absolutely agree about the grade expectations. (Wow! So punny!).</p>
<p>I am not in the least interested in becoming a chem or bio or any other type of science major, but you all seem so knowledgeable about UChicago science that I thought I'd ask here for confirmation for this idea (quite possibly inaccurate) that I got in my head....Reading the COURSES AND PROGRAMS OF STUDY and reading about the Core, I got the sense that if you're thinking about going into the humanities, you are not particularly expected to take lab sciences of any kind; instead you tend to take more discussion-based science classes (climatology, etc. for physical sciences and some ecology for biological sciences), and that there is a four-quarter sequence humanities/social science majors can take to complete both physical and biological sciences in one go.</p>
<p>Just curious!!</p>