<p>Okay. This is my first time posting. I have never been challenged academically since college. I'm taking Chemistry 3A but I got D-/F+ on both of the midterms, which is about 50% of the grade. </p>
<p>So can anyone tell me what my options are from here on? Suppose I drop the class right now, if possible, what will happen? Or what if I take the final and end up not passing this course? What happens? And how will this reflect on med schools? Is it over?</p>
<p>You cannot drop a class unless you have a <em>very</em> good reason. I know that for the college of engineering they are very strict on this.</p>
<p>The best thing you can do now is to work something out with your professor.</p>
<p>Frechet's class? That's what I am taking right now. Hey, the average on the second midterm was below 50 %, so don't worry too much about it.</p>
<p>I heard about the Frechet mid-term. That's brutal.</p>
<p>I'm not in that class, but I heard from someone that "in prior classes, 50% was a B-." Now I can't tell you if that's 100% true or not, but if it is, I hope that comforts you. Good luck!</p>
<p>Frechet is a notoriously lenient/easy o-chem professor, it is the subject matter that is hard. I though chem 3b was much harder. Vollhardt :(</p>
<p>You do have to complete Chem 3A/B (or the equivalent) to apply for med school... only you can be the one the decide if you are capable of completing the classes with a respectable grade.</p>
<p>Yeah, I heard Frechet was easy compared to Vollhardt. Freceht seems to grade pretty easy. But the material is hard.
Hey Ducky Dodger, how is Vollhardt? Im taking Chem 3B next semester with him and haven't heard too many good things about him.</p>
<p>He is a pretty odd person, his accent is different and takes just a little getting used to. During the first class he comes off as quite a egotistical person, all of his lectures are powerpoint and posted online. Looking on some of the websites that review professors, many of the comments paint him as a bad teacher. I felt that he was a decent but not outstanding teacher with a daunting task of teaching alot of material, he can't teach you everything you need to know in class.</p>
<p>He is the person that wrote the textbook, thus his lectures are quite sequential and generally stick to the book. There are a couple instances where you skip a little material. </p>
<p>He essentially reads from his powerpoint slides while interjecting supplemental data. For the first couple classes there was alot of students (some people had to sit in aisles), but I think that alot of people just end up webcasting as alot of seats open up later (myself included). The material is difficult but as you know it is a matter of understanding and some memorization. Webcast is especially useful in this matter as you have time to pause and think about what he said; this was especially helpful for me as I have a long commute to school everyday. My only qualm with watching most of the lectures is that you obviously miss the class atmosphere, it is sometime a little hard to see where the little laser pointer is aiming when he says something and his voice is odd in that it fluctuates from kind of soft to quite freaking loud, my volume button got a workout.</p>
<p>As for studying it depends on the person. I personally decided to watch lectures every week and take notes but not really do the reading until about 2 weeks for exams. This worked for me as the material was fresh in my mind, but everyone's study habits vary. I personally did and understood EVERY single problem at the end of the chapters and all of the practice exams. I did well in the class (A-).</p>
<p>The exams are quite difficult as he focuses alot more than Frechet more on spectral analysis (1 question on exam) and usually 2 or 3 synthesis problems, there was a section of nomenclature and also some reaction & product fill-in-the-blank. If I remember correctly the 2 midterms are 25% apeice and the final was 50%.</p>
<p>I hope there is something in there that can help you. Tell me if you need some clarification.</p>
<p>where can i get info like that ^^^^ with other classes!??!</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>This premed route sounds daunting. Do finals usually contain material that has not been covered in the class curriculum?</p>
<p>No, material is generally covered in class and the professor generally states if he/she expects you to fully know the material in the book, sometimes things are mentioned in passing but it is all generally mention at some point or another. I meant to say that he can't make you understand, you have to do that by yourself, O-chem isn't a subject that just clicks.</p>
<p>As for more information about classes, make sure to make another thread. I feel kind of bad for hijacking this one, if I see another topic and I can help I will.</p>
<p>ahhh. He uses PowerPoint slides? I am going to miss Frechet's handwritten notes. Those are the most awesome things ever. Every science professor should handwrite their notes.</p>
<p>elcamino, how was the grading on that midterm?</p>
<p>I've heard that it was rather strict. It's either all or nothing, no partial credit. I haven't gotten mine back yet.</p>
<p><em>*. i just heard from my roommate about the shiitttty curve Frechet's giving us.. the average is 67 out of 150 and he's curving it out of 138(apparantly the highest score)????????????????
oh noooooooooooooo i thought the curve was gonna be more lenient!!!! *</em>*fff</p>
<p>Curving with respect to the highest score is absolutely stupid in my opinion, especially for a fairly competitive school like Cal. Many of the very top students enter classes with some prior background knowledge in that subject area, and it's simply unfair to the rest of the students to have one person mess up the curve. If the curve were determined based on the top X scores (where X > 1), or just plain rank-based (e.g. top 25% get A's), it'd be a lot fairer to everyone.</p>
<p>it's curved out of 138? Oh ****.</p>
<p>so, if the average was 44%, then is that a solid C? And what do you mean by curving it out of 138? Can you clarify more, why it is so bad?</p>
<p>It just means that someone did quite well, when I took it in the Spring 06 alot of people scored high also. From what I remember he still creates a class curve ie. 20-25% of the top scores under 138 get an A. </p>
<p>This is not unusual at all, I see the same thing in all of my classes (Bio, Physics, Chem). I'm probably missing something though.</p>
<p>Don't worry they won't curve it to 138 and then make it straight scale based off of that. It's against university policy to fail most of the class.</p>
<p>According to Frechet in lecture today:</p>
<p>A - ~70%
B - 60-61%</p>
<p>Average is usually around a B-.</p>
<p>elcamino, a 50% would probably be a C or so.</p>
<p>nanday, are you talking about raw percentage after including every test?</p>
<p>I'm talking about cumulatively, or after adding both your midterm scores together and dividing by 300.</p>