<p>I am an incoming freshman this year and am interested in pursuing medicine. I did not take AP chem in high school and so the last chem class I've taken is honors chem my sophomore year. Consequently, I essentially don't remember anything from chemistry. I am deciding between CHEM 20D or CHEM31L. which one would be more appropriate for me??</p>
<p>Chem 31 is the right choice for the vast majority of entering freshmen. </p>
<p>I was a chem 31 recitation TA last semester and the thinking is that chemistry 31 is designed as a gen chem course for those who didn’t have a strong grasp of chemistry in high school and who need a refresher before organic chem to firm up the foundations so to speak. The class skips many of the basic topics like balancing chemical reactions, basic atomic structure, etc that many student find boring in the old intro gen chem course. Instead, it spends more time on concepts like equilibrium, thermodynamics, acid/base chemistry, etc that students might have forgotten. </p>
<p>The point is that if you can skim over a few chapters of the really basic stuff (balancing equations etc) and remember how to do it then chem 31 is the right course for you. If those things does not ring any sort of bells then you might want to look into chem 20D. </p>
<p>From personal experience, I can say that the vast majority of students who expressed doubts at the beginning of the semester of chem 31 did fine in the end. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that those people were also the same ones who took advantage of all the resources available to them such as lecture, recitation, office hours, free peer tutors, the course’s online question forum, etc.</p>
<p>thank you so much. i recognize the topics you listed as recommended material to know prior to entering chem 31 and i think with some basic review out of an AP chem review book, will find chem 31 an appropriate place to start. it seems as if those subjects would be easy enough to relearn over the summer. the AP chem teacher at my school also provided me with the 5th edition of the Zumdahl textbook, so it might be beneficial to look over that too. </p>
<p>thanks for your help, </p>
<p>i was just a little concerned that chem 31 would assume too much chemistry knowledge that would be hard to teach to myself</p>
<p>I was in a similar position this last year. I hadn’t taken any chemistry since my sophmore year in high school. I was seriously considering taking Chem 20D and the only reason I didn’t was because it conflicted with my math class.</p>
<p>They will expect you to know some basic about chemistry. I pretty much read over the first five chapters of the textbook as a refresher, but I think you can get away with not doing this and still do fine. Some advice: go to office hours and talk to the professors about your doubts if you are still worried. They can give you some advice about how to study for their tests or what to consider if you do want to drop to Chem 20D.</p>
<p>yeah i feel like chem 31 will be fine. i’ll definitely need to review the basics over the summer, but it seems like it would be doable information to teach myself</p>
<p>Are you scheduling courses already?</p>
<p>no registration isn’t until mid july. i’m just trying to get a good idea of what classes would be appropriate for me to take for 1st semester, so that i won’t have difficulty choosing when registration windows open up in july.</p>
<p>Oh, that was a close one. Hey, can’t we call the advising office? I was thinking the same thing (not specifically about chemistry, but yeah).</p>
<p>yeah you can. you can also email certain professors who deal with placement and stuff. the blue book will give you most of the information that you need concerning which classes to take first semester but sometimes with the sciences and placement issues it’s a good idea to ask other students and such</p>
<p>Chie: so, do you think chem 31 would be a good place to start? the basics seem to be veryy basic chemistry</p>
<p>Chem 31 is a perfectly good place to start. By basics, I mean things like the ideal gas law, some basic properties of matter, etc. They will give you a sort of “placement test” at the beginning of the class for people to judge their knowledge by. They have a sort of system where if you get x number of questions right out of the 10, you are/aren’t ready for Chem 31. </p>
<p>This test is pretty useless, in general. I got 3 questions correct out of the 10, which advised me to consider going to Chem 20D unless I was sure I was just “very rusty”. My final grade was an A in the class at the end of the semester, so it didn’t really mean much. I had to work harder than others who had taken AP Chemistry, but I also probably did better than some of them. Chem31 is a hard class, but don’t worry too much about your background in Chemistry because you can catch up pretty easily with just a little more work.</p>
<p>thanks so much! you’ve been so helpful</p>