<p>Orgo and biochem both suck.</p>
<p>My dad apparently liked orgo in college. He also said the only math he ever liked was calculus. The only math I've ever liked is calculus. maybe there's a pattern. Maybe I'll like it. Hopefully I will b/c I'm planning on premed (isn't everyone though...)</p>
<p>It's orgo at Harvard, spread no lies cbreeze.</p>
<p>O-chem at Chicago. FWIW, D, a bio major still thinking about med school, liked O-chem enough that she took the honors sequence (including an extra quarter) and was the curve setter against all those chem majors. The honors sequence was pretty theoretical, so I don't thing you can really compare it to the regular course.</p>
<p>^well, orgo is very different from general/physical chem. a lot of people who do really well in sciences in HS struggle in orgo. the kind of typical advantage that science kids have in other sci/math classes seem to vanish in orgo. i'd seen that many humanities/social sciences majors or people who didn't look particularly sharp in gen chem/phys did better. my HPME (chose it over Harvard/Stanford) friend got B+ two quarters in a row while my sociology friend got A/A- (at northwestern, the mean is curved to C+/C so that's quite an accomplishment). orgo is kinda weird this way. i doubt your D was worse off with all those chem majors. the funny thing is honors sequence could very well be a better choice (not sure that's the case at UChicago); the material is more advanced but the grading isn't as harsh. it's a bit like SAT II math level 1 vs level 2.</p>
<p>Sam, in case you haven't noticed HPMEs take it very easy at school. My friend finished his freshman year with a 3.5 taking classes like human sex; he always says a B will suffice. I've actually heard Feinberg is considering getting rid of the program because the HPMEs are consistently proving to be some of the most under-performing students their first year at Feinberg.</p>
<p>As for orgo, I have noticed it is much less "chemistry" than it is being able to visualize and understand organic molecules and reactions in 3D. This, I think, comes more intuitively for some than it does for others. But anyway, it's fun stuff. Here at Northwestern, it sucks more because students usually have to take it with our bio sequence (unless you're a cop out and take orgo at Harvard in the summer or something) which includes ridiculously outrageous genetics and biochem. Doesn't help to have two labs to be at all year long either, meh.</p>
<p>SL,</p>
<p>As a chemistry major myself many a year ago, I agree that in general o-chem is indeed different as it is most commonly taught because it is very factoid driven - learn lots of reactions, pathways and such and you will survive fine.</p>
<p>But more advanced courses are not taught that way. They stress the theory underlying the chemstry. </p>
<p>So it is difficult to generalize. I can tell you though that as a chem major as an undergraduate, when I went to graduate school in molecular biology, things like biochem were a breeze. I just thought about the underlying chemistry.</p>
<p>gd016,</p>
<p>My HPME friend took his classes seriously. He got As in other courses. He LOVED learning and he even took the MCAT just because he's curious how he would fare (he got 36). His mom gave him a hard time the whole summer over the two B+ he got when he went back home in Korea. It's crazy! What a mom with such unreasonable expectation! We were not very close and we knew each others at a local church. I left the church not long after he went to Feinberg. The last time we got together, he just finished some midterms and he got the 2nd highest score in the class for one of them.</p>
<p>Anyway, it's not just my HPME friend. I was chemE and quite a few of us (including myself) didn't do well on it either even we did well in gen/phy chem/math. Granted, we did it with other chemE courses (bio on top of that for the premed+chemE) so I guess we were in a bit of a disadvantage. The HPME friend was just one example.</p>
<p>We say Orgo or Organic .
East coast son.</p>
<p>Okay, so I enjoy organic...but I suck at it.
It's interesting material though and I love the class.</p>
<p>Goldshadow
When you do your med applications, have someone check your grammar.</p>
<p>ps The Chem majors will tell you that P Chem makes organic look like underwater basket weaving.</p>
<p>
[quote]
ps The Chem majors will tell you that P Chem makes organic look like underwater basket weaving.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not sure what that even means. So pchem makes orgo look... harder? Because weaving baskets underwater sounds really hard. I'm pretty sure pchem is supposed to be harder than orgo.</p>
<p>ps. Sam, just out of curiosity, are you in med school right now? Or are you planning on applying?</p>
<p>no, i am not in med school. i was never a premed. i just knew a few HPMEs.</p>
<p>P Chem was definitely harder conceptually but I got better grade on it than orgo. So relative to other classmates, I was having a tougher time to compete in the "easier" class.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Goldshadow
When you do your med applications, have someone check your grammar.
[/quote]
Hey now! Just because I type this way on CC, doesn't mean I speak similarly in real life (or type in that fashion on papers). Actually, I think I have the best grammar out of everybody I know in real life.</p>
<p>"Whenever me and my friends would get together to study for a test,"</p>
<p>I know, I realized that's the sentence you were referring to upon looking back at my first post. When I'm on CC, I'm not really thinking about grammar so much as getting a point across (eg, that whenever my friends and I studied, we'd go about it a certain way). As long as my post is readable, I have no problem with it.</p>
<p>gold
as an adcom member, let me tell you how many people get negative points when that "slips out"</p>
<p>Princess'Dad: </p>
<p>Yes, because how GoldShadow post on an Internet message board is exactly how GoldShadow will write when submitting an application to medical school. God forbid someone slip up in a casual posting on the Internet! GoldShadow's post was easily understandable. There's no reason to make a big deal out of it.</p>
<p>If we're going to be consistent about critiquing other people's Internet postings, you should consider your own messages first. You've left out punctuation marks and failed to correctly capitalize, and that's just in message #36 of this thread. I'm sure if I were to go back through your posting history, I'd find more mistakes. Given your "apparent" poor grasp of the mechanics of English writing, do you deserve to be on an adcom in a position to evaluate others? My point is that this sort of criticism is ridiculous - your Internet postings have nothing to do with your ability to fairly evaluate the applicants you see, and GoldShadow's Internet postings have nothing to do with how well they can write come application time. </p>
<p>Regardless, there's no reason to continue hijacking the original intent of this thread.</p>
<p>LOL I agree that one's writing in internet forum doesn't reflect one's real writing ability. Nevertheless, I try to avoid making any writing mistakes in my internet posts. :) (You'll see "Last edited by ysk1" below most of my posts. This is because I usually notice some writing/grammatical mistakes after posting things and I go on to fix them.) I don't know why, but I get a sense of guilt or shame when I make a writing mistake, regardless of whether it's for school assignment or internet forum.</p>
<p>shades
my point is only that we do decide between one person and another...if one states "me and my friends" in the interview or tour, it is noted...that note can make the diff between a yes and a no...whether you like it or not is totally "who cares".</p>
<p>data has shown that kids who use poor grammar while casually writing or talking slip and do it when they shouldn't. </p>
<p>thus ysk1 gets a plus and shadow gets a minus ... that might be all the diff that is needed for one to get accepted and one not.</p>
<p>It's a good thing this isn't my application then.</p>
<p>What the data show does not affect me. I know this because I don't "slip" in real life, especially not when it counts. I appreciate your warning and advice, but believe me when I say that I have perfect grammar on papers, on assignments, at interviews, and in formal settings.</p>