<p>Georgia Tech is a top notch engineering school, that I know. However, I got accepted as a Biochem major.. How are the life sciences and chem at Tech? Are they as competitive as engineering? Are the professors good? Is the faculty excellent, decent, average, or bad?</p>
<p>Being an engineering major, I can’t speak to the quality of higher up chem professors, but there are several good professors for gen chem, inorgo, orgo and biochem. Check ratemyprof and sga course critique for specifics, but if you pm me when its appropriate, I can give you some names. </p>
<p>As far as I know, GT’s biochem department isn’t nationally top 25 or anything; it’s certainly not comparable to how good the engineering is nationally. It seems good enough though.</p>
<p>I think if you are going to be pre-med biochem, then GT will work fine; if you want to do grad school or phD in biochemistry, then you should look for a more highly ranked or reputable school.</p>
<p>US News ranks the chemistry department #26 overall, and #14 in physical chemistry. Tech has produced a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (Kary Mullis for discovering Polymerase Chain Reaction) and currently has faculty members who have either recently been Nobel finalists or are expected to be in contention for the prize in the near future such as Dr. Schuster and Dr. El-Sayed. </p>
<p>Since the program is small, it is a very tightly nit community and advising is much more personal compared to many larger engineering departments. Advisers are also actual professors rather than people employed merely to advise students, which is a plus if you are looking at grad school and for finding research opportunities (which are very available to interested chemistry students.) Teaching in the department is very strong, and the faculty are well regarded. </p>
<p>While Tech may not be ranked as high as some other schools in chemistry it is a top tier program, with great teaching, access to undergraduate research, and provides a strong foundation to be competitive for ANY medical or chemistry graduate programs.</p>
<p>InPursuit, aren’t those graduate school rankings? I don’t know how well grad school and undergrad programs’ qualities correlate.</p>
<p>I remember trying to find rankings for undergrad physics, with no such luck.</p>
<p>@ 1081736, I got accepted as a Biochem major, too. I was wondering the same thing you were because I heard GT is top for science, engineering, and tech, but I have never heard about its chemistry and biochem specifically. Also, I wonder about Org. chem because that will be my hardest class by far when we start next fall.</p>
<p>@majord14 nicee! I’m happy to know i’m not the only one on CC that got into biochem at this school lol…
Isn’t org chem hard in any school? or do you think it’ll be particularly hard at GT? </p>
<p>Is it hard to switch majors at GT? like if i decided suddently that i wanted to do architecture or like business…is it easy to change?</p>
<p>1081736: No. Orgo. can be easy at some institutions. Depending on the testing style, it can become a mere game of memory. Orgo. is particularly hard at some schools like Tech for example.
It basically depends on the nature of the questions on the exam. If they are more like: Guess the major product, name the molecule, or draw a mechanism for a molecular transformation of a relatively simple organic molecule or to synthesize a relatively simple molecule, it’s easy. It also depends on how in depth the course goes when regarding stereo/regiochemistry, the more the more difficult it is. The NMR could get tricky too. Also, if many conceptual questions are asked (such as “why is this observed when this is not?”), then it gets harder. Also, is organometallic chemistry heavily emphasized? My friend showed me an exam, and it’s a hybrid. The molecules are not that complex, but you must understand why stuff happens, and be able to memorize quite well for the synthesis. Also, the stereochemistry can get quite involved. These things make it already more involved than most schools that basically only do the first 3 type of problem types I mention. At said schools, you don’t need in depth understanding. One thing that you should know is that Tech teaches toward the ACS standardized orgo. exam (end of 2nd semester), which isn’t tough if you understood the material (I wish I had it. The finals I took at the end of each semester were extremely difficult. The ones before it were already very difficult, as in way worse than Tech). Also, from what I know, none of the sections there teach orgo. using frontier orbital analysis. That would make it harder also. No organometallic was heavily emphasized either.</p>
<p>With this said: You should be able to do well. Hopefully you have plenty of friends taking the course b/c they can help as the course is more or less standardized there due to the ACS testing.<br>
I don’t know anything about Tech and majors, so I’ll leave that to someone who goes. I only know orgo. lol</p>
<p>I did you a favor. I know most schools make course content available through some source affiliated with the school. In this case, it was Tech’s search engine. Here’s the summer orgo. stuff at Tech. This should give you an idea of what you are getting into. You guys course seems to be NMR heavy (so was my profs. section, and often you’d have to derive the molecule and then do a mechanism. If you can’t read NMR, you’re screwed lol). It also integrates some mathematical concepts. Our courses are huge on reactivity. They are both hard though. This is way harder than say UGA. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.chemistry.gatech.edu/undergraduate/tyson/CHEM2311SUMMER/2311home.htm[/url]”>http://www.chemistry.gatech.edu/undergraduate/tyson/CHEM2311SUMMER/2311home.htm</a></p>
<p>@ 1081736, yayy! I’m glad to. From what I’ve heard, anything is hard at GT; we just have to adjust like at any other top school. But I hope it isn’t hard to switch majors. haha…congrats</p>
<p>Bernie12 Thanks so much for the info. That link was really helpful! haha now i got a taste of georgia tech academics.</p>
<p>Yeah, here is more orgo. stuff from one of the LL conferences here to validate my comparison. Feel free to use it for pre-prep, or intellectual curiosity. I don’t know if it will work because I had to log in. Just let me know. And maybe I can arrange via PM to e-mail you some material (I normally just give my e-mail first because I know many people would be weary about such an exchange, thus I volunteer to be first in taking the risk. OYOs are PSets normally adressed at SI sessions. Back Zams are older exams used for prep. And “Exams” are the exams they had this year. If this doesn’t work. I’ll just send you 3 exams from last year.<br>
Once you are in the class, feel free to ask me for help via PM or w/e. I’m quite good and pretty much understand most of the stuff covered at Tech too. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.learnlink.emory.edu/Login/FAV1-00152370/FAV1-0000D0CF/FOV1-0000D0D1/FAV2-00011835/FOV2-0001940B/[/url]”>https://www.learnlink.emory.edu/Login/FAV1-00152370/FAV1-0000D0CF/FOV1-0000D0D1/FAV2-00011835/FOV2-0001940B/</a></p>
<p>I only did this b/c I don’t know how to do attachments via CC. I don’t think you can, and I don’t think that link will work. Pretty sure you’d have to log into my learnlink.</p>
<p>Perhaps if I create this link right to a pdf, it’ll work: Just check it out. If it works, I’ll send the other two.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.learnlink.emory.edu/Login/FAV1-00152370/FAV1-0000D0CF/FOV1-0000D0D1/FAV2-00011835/FOV2-0001940B/I4A15054E.0/221-09[/url]”>https://www.learnlink.emory.edu/Login/FAV1-00152370/FAV1-0000D0CF/FOV1-0000D0D1/FAV2-00011835/FOV2-0001940B/I4A15054E.0/221-09</a> Exam %233.pdf</p>
<p>file:///Users/bernardscott/Desktop/classes/Orgo/221-08 Exam %232.pdf</p>