<p>I'm an incoming freshman at Emory. Right now, I'm taking General Chemistry I and will be taking General Chemistry 2 in a few weeks at the local college. I'm considering skipping CHEM 141 at Emory and going straight to CHEM 221z. I want to challenge myself and I'd work hard too. But I've heard so many people talk about how hard it is or how they take orgo much later. Can anyone give me an idea of what 221z is like or whether what I'm considering isn't crazy?
Thanks in advance :)</p>
<p>Transfer in the gen. chem class credit and ask Soria to put you in the class. The class is tough, but not impossible. If you want a discussion telling both sides, go to class comments on learnlink (chemistry) where me and this girl battle it out. She is against taking the course because of Soria’s less than orthodox teaching style (he doesn’t necessarily lecture, he discusses and the topics vary from day to day. They sometimes are not clearly connected in the normal pattern but you cover the basic material plus lots more special topics than other sections, so if you wanna learn way outside of the barebones pre-med curriculum, the class and teaching style work well) and the fact that she didn’t do well (in 222-Z she claimed to have gotten 50s on the first 2 exams). I’m beginning to think this chick was in my class and lots of people didn’t do well on the first orgo. II exam, but many got it together by then). Anyway, she complains that it screws over those who are pre-med as they end up having to fulfill inorganic requirements later (which you have from your local college). I call BS by essentially claiming that the other option is simply saving organic organic chem. for later and it still being hard. She also claims that med. schools don’t take AP credit so you have to take 141/142. She is right about not taking AP credit for the requirements, but she is wrong that you have to use introductory classes (which you have at your local college) to fulfill them. Most med. schools will take advanced coursework to compensate for when AP credit was used (I put it on her in the last post by countering all of her points and even providing links to prove it). Earlier on, she also fabricated enrollment data trying to claim that 75 start out in orgo. 1 w/him and then only 20-25 end orgo. II w/him. I counter by going to opus and getting enrollment data myself. I find that never has his class hit 75 (in fact since I’ve been here, even when I took it, it never hit 70) and his attrition is far softer than she describes. She said that like 75% drop each semester and Opus (and my experience, since I’m a TA for it and another orgo. section) indicates the highest attrition was maybe 33% (went from 65 to 45 by 222 final), and that was my year (we were weak, the class was much easier). The next year only declined from 68 to 57(16% attrition), and last year lost about the same amount as the previous year but only started out with 50 students (and declined to 33 by the 222-Z final). Some of this can be explained by some of them not liking the teaching style and the rest of it can be explained by them not staying on their toes and failing out of the class.<br>
I’ll describe why/when people started dropping each of my three years here:<br>
08/09 (my year)- Most people dropped in 222 after not doing well on the first exam (it really wasn’t that tough at all). I know why this happened. A lot of them had As first semester and got used to the format of the exams in 221. They thus expected a really easy 1st exam, and it was really more like the 3rd exam from 221 in difficulty. They didn’t prep. and they got trounced. Some people did not recover from the first exam shock and failed the 2nd exam also (some recovered, but felt they wouldn’t get an “A”, so they dropped anyway). That’s when they started fleeing in droves. They were afraid to have below an A-/A grade and certainly below B+. This is simple pre-med squeamishness. Again we were weak. Many to this day, who dropped, rather blame it on Soria than themselves (I do know a few people who legitimately couldn’t handle the teaching style, but many of the others were not complaining when they had an A first semester). There are other factors that played a role my year that made it pretty disasterous for many. An abnormal amount of people in the class were rushing for example that year.
09-2010- Students who dropped simply failed out (they were literally like to get below a C if they didn’t as opposed to the “oh know, I’m gonna get a B/B+” crap). This group was exceptionally strong.
2010-2011- This group was pretty strong too. Many wanted higher than a B grade for working hard (they noticed others in other sections that were much less rigorous), but he also apparently gave a pretty tough final for 221 last year, so that got most of the weaker, less motivated students out (they mostly got B grades, but didn’t wanna risk what would happen in 222 and went to other sections). The 3 who dropped in 222 this past spring failed out (I met two of them) of the class.<br>
With all of this said, losing 10-14 really isn’t that bad. I noted in my battle with the girl that Weinschenk also lost 16 students to easier sections. It is however, less noticeable because the class is much harder. Regardless, harder teachers on average, no matter what students think about the teaching seem to lose at least 10 people.<br>
Anyway the class is tough, but doable and I’m willing to help with it if you decide you should enroll (I recommend that you try 221-Z out and then go to another section if you don’t like it). I’m going to warn you. I talk to Soria and it seems as if his new strategy is to do what he did last year and design a final to weed people out by 221-Z so that he can shrink the class and increase the quality of interactions in 222-Z. The 222-Z students were very strong, but it was also tougher than normal this past spring. I’d advise you right now to consider the caliber of the harder questions on 221-Z exam 3 (exam right before final) and realize that about 80-90% of the final will be at that level (the “explanation” and mechanisms will be tougher than normal) and he’ll give you 10-15% easy/fluff questions. If you realize this, and prep. accordingly, you won’t do bad. 222-Z is the same w/o the fluff-level questions. It’s 100% tough problem types (amazingly, some of them, especially the explanations emphasize newly explored areas of research, so you’ll be proud). Instead of assuming that you know orgo. b/c performance on midterms like Weinschenk (who does not put any applied problems on finals. His finals are redemptive and only test to give weaker/moderate level students to prove that they got the basic concepts), Soria designs the final to see if you know it at a very high level. Not gonna lie, the 222-Z final this past spring, which he showed to me, was probably a a bit harder than the one I got for my graduate level course. However, admittedly, the freshmen had much better preparation for the difficulty, because they had problem and “synth-sets”. We, in the grad. course had nothing but books and research papers to learn the material. We also only had 1 midterm prior to the final whereas they had 3 exams each w/increasing difficulty, so they knew what level they were expected to be at by the final and many of them did fairly well (B- higher on the final and B higher in the class). Point is, a solid score (70 or higher) on in his 222 final is an Emory accomplishment, and he’ll remember and respect you if you do well on it (especially if you were like my friend who didn’t do well on exam 3 but got a B on the final. I told him to see Soria as soon as he returns in the fall). You can easily get a recommendation. In fact, he respects those who simply go through with the class (he works very close w/students and aids in them gaining research/internship ops, etc.)
Again yes, you will have to work hard (especially in 222-Z), and I and other mentors are willing to help you perform as well as you’d like. Note that on top of working hard, you will have to develop (if you don’t already have) a somewhat creative and open-mind. His harder test questions really require out-side of the box thinking (not Weinschenk out of the box, but Soria outside of the box, which is at a completely different level). You will have to be able to look at a hard problem and assess all of what you’ve learned and see which among the things is relevant, and “how”. And sometimes the relation will seem vague at first. Sometimes you don’t see the connection until one your peers tells you or you get the exam back. Weaker students construe this vagueness as evidence of his inability to teach. I think that’s ridiculous. He’s simply asking you to be able to extrapolate at a higher level than many of your fellow peers at Emory. Trust me, taking his course and picking up these skills will make other Emory classes seem easy along with giving you an ability to see deeper into topics in other questions. The rigor and classroom environment (very collaborative, free-flowing of ideas in class:he even lets students go down to the board to answer questions) will help create a thinker out of you. You’ll realize this if you see beyond any suffering that comes along w/orgo. You’ll be much better off than many of your peers.</p>
<p>Oh my goodness, that must have taken you forever to type out! Thank you so unbelievably much; I really, really appreciate it. Your advice helped me out a lot. In fact, I’ve read a lot of your replies and they’re always helpful. I predict I’ll probably be coming to you for help in that class.
I think I’ll go ahead and take it. I’m up for the challenge. Hopefully, if I do decently in the class, I can move on to more advanced courses and not have to worry about intro courses, especially since I plan to major in a discipline outside of science. I’m trying to balance my schedule to where my other classes shouldn’t be as hard as orgo, so my first semester I want it to look something like this:
CHEM 221Z
MUS 121 Music Theory and Analysis I
SPAN 101 Elementary Spanish I
SOC 190 Seminar
HLTH 101</p>
<p>Does that seem okay? If I can make it through 221z, in the spring I’d plan to take:
222z
BIO 142
SPAN 102: Elementary Spanish II
MUS 140: Jazz Improvisation
And a PE class.</p>
<p>also, another question: What lab component do you take with 221z?</p>
<p>1) I’ve somehow learned to type really fast since being in college 
.
2) That’s an awesome and balanced schedule both semesters. In the spring, do not worry about bio 142, it isn’t hard at all.<br>
3)Get into Soria’s lab, 226L (w/221-Z)and 227L(w/222-Z), it’ll optimize (in this case, minimization=optimization) your workload. Unlike 221-Z lab, it requires much less work and is less “cookbook”. Sometimes you come up with your own project and you do the outside research to accommodate it. Also, he creates additional free time because he very often cancels lab. He doesn’t make you come when he is busy (again, it’s literally his lab, he oversees you as opposed to some lab director that over sees like 5-10 sections of orgo. labs) or when there is simply nothing to do. Also, unless he’s mad, you always get an A in it (he’s never been mad yet, so everyone has gotten an A every year). What’s weird is, despite it being significantly less work, often learns more than the 221/222 lab counterparts (or at least more of it sticks) because of the personalized environment and because of the independence fostered in it. Also, he spends little time on simple topics in organic chemistry. Some of the topics your peers cover only in 222L may already have been adressed in 226-L for you guys. Plus, there are no lab finals. You simply keep a notebook and there are a few formal reports (which he grades, normally easily, and then gets all students around the table to discuss results and data as indicated in the report or notebooks) Basically, it’s like the research “progress” meetings where he gives useful feedback about not only the way you wrote it, but the way you approached the project.</p>
<p>bernie12 and I have posted some of the old exams for both soria and weinschenk in the other thread here on CC (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/emory-university/1133401-chemistry-171-172-a-3.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/emory-university/1133401-chemistry-171-172-a-3.html</a>). if you want, take a look at the format/style and see what ur up against (and pm me to get access). But just remember that both will change their curriculum and test difficulty slightly from year to year, so don’t assume their exams will be exactly like the previous ones.</p>
<p>Hi Bernie,</p>
<p>I was just on opus looking at the GER classes and all of the fresh sem. classes have no seats. Have they just not updated it recently? or am I in trouble? cause I heard that we were supose to choose our classes on orientation day. I need some reassuance cause i’m starting to stress out a bit. Appreciate the help.</p>
<p>frosh courses add seats during orientation. Also, some courses like English and Complit are completely closed until then to prevent sophomores and higher from enrolling in the first place.</p>