<p>Can someone give me a summary of what each class is like, i.e. what did you like about it? what did you not like about it? how much work is involved? how difficult it is?</p>
<p>physics</p>
<p>biology</p>
<p>chemistry</p>
<p>organic chemistry</p>
<p>That's really dependent on the school and on each individual's tastes.</p>
<p>Have you taken those classes in high school? If you have imagine each of them amped up on steroids, and there you go. You do what would take you 1 year in high school in one semester.</p>
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Have you taken those classes in high school? If you have imagine each of them amped up on steroids, and there you go. You do what would take you 1 year in high school in one semester.
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<p>When I took college chemistry, the prof gave a 20 page handout the first day. He said that was what HS chemistry covered. If you didn't take HS Chemistry, make sure you know everything on it before next class because he will assume you do and go on from there.</p>
<p>personally, i took a bio course, and it wasn't that difficult, just do your readings!</p>
<p>audiophile: wow. where'd you attend?</p>
<p>I think organic chemistry is the trickiest of all the subjects. I have yet to meet a student who picked up ochem from the very start!</p>
<p>well, then I may introduce myself to you.<br>
I never liked general chemistry, but when I got to O-chem, SURPRISE, everything suddenly made sense when seen from the molecular point of view, with no formulas.<br>
I loved o-chem from the start and had no trouble at all making good grades on all of my exams.<br>
That's just me, I guess, because everyone in my class is on the verge of failing.</p>
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audiophile: wow. where'd you attend?
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<p>Rutgers, class of '77. Professor Boikess. Chemistry was known as a pre-med weeding out course. Average exam grades were usually in the 50s (though there was a curve).</p>
<p>What is so hard about O-chem</p>
<p>I agree with bigndude. It's like high school, only WAY more information in a much shorter time. </p>
<p>I thought OChem 1 was hard because of all the memorization. I am much more math/engineering focused, so learning lists of stuff is not my thing. Plus it is just a lot of information. Probably it would be best to keep up with the work throughout the course.</p>
<p>I also agree with norcalguy, depends on the school and your tastes.</p>
<p>Organic is a lot of memorizing. I breezed through Chem, Physics & Calc, but really had to buckle down for o-chem.</p>
<p>So it depends on whether your better at analyzing or memorizing. Medical school is mostly memorizing which is why they place so much emphasis on a good grade in Organic.</p>
<p>If organic chem was only about memorizing, it would be much easier. We typically have three main types of problems on our tests:</p>
<p>1) Given the reactants, predict the products (regurgitation)
2) Write out the mechanism for a reaction (regurgitation)
3) Organic synthesis</p>
<p>For me, #3 is the hardest type of problem and yet organic synthesis is basically what organic chemistry is about. Not only does it require you to know the reactions (reactants, products, catalysts, reaction conditions, etc.) you also have to know which reactions give mixtures of products and low yields and avoid those in doing organic synthesis problems. Sometimes you get the problem in 5 minutes, sometimes you sit there for half an hour without working out a viable synthesis of the target molecule.</p>