<p>211 usually ends up easy (last fall was an exception as they had someone ridiculous teaching it). Weinschenk’s class is just about figuring out the exams (they are very predictable as you’ll see if you just use his back exams. Normally even the more difficult questions come down to knowing some supplementary material he told you to review or remembering the approach to a particular back exam problem. And if you know all the terminology used in his lectures/notes, he’ll essentially be guiding you through those problems on the exam; as in literally telling you how to do it) and riding the curve a little. OFF isn’t too bad, but you have to be able to deal with somewhat open ended questions. D and B, lots of cramming (memorization based short answer exams). I think D and B will be the most annoying class (despite Niel being a good lecturer and all). At least the other 3 classes involve a similar style of thinking ( problem solving. Okay, well, in the case of Weinschenk, it would be best to memorize reactions and some basic mechanisms so as to move quickly through easy portions of the exam like T/F, predict the major product, basic mechanism problem, guess the pka, etc). The course schedule looks tough for a standard science major, but as a Soria freshman orgo. alum, I’ve taken and have seen people take much tougher loads. An example of a common first semester sophomore schedule among the last class of freshmen (those graduating in 2014) to take his course is like: Biochemistry 2, Cell biology w/Eisen, Physics 151, Analytical Chemistry w/lab, Insert GER of your choice. There were also variants of this schedule (most were in biochem 2 and physics 151. Some may have been taking like Diff. Eq, Lin. Alg., or multi instead of analytical, pushing analytical to semester 2. Some took a hard English course instead of cell biol or something). They did fine. If you actually enjoy science, you’ll be able to make the leap beyond the level of thinking required in the freshman courses and you’ll do well. Just manage time wisely. </p>
<p>If I were you, I would think about the fact that the intensity of those courses are not really near the same level as gen. chem and gen. biol (this was flat out easy). Again, 2 of them require two different ways of thinking about the subject matter that you may not be used to. Like biology was mainly about learning content off of a powerpoint and being able to answer recall questions on an exam (yes, they were cloaked in an application, but once you decipher it, it came down to being a recall question, and not an analysis type). General chemistry exams can be tough, but were in general predictable (from what I’ve seen from them) as the problems seemed to be like book, Aleks, or chem. mentor type of problems. Rarely would there be a surprise. Weinschenk is all about making the last 30-40 points a surprise. Your ability to anticipate the surprise will require what I mentioned above plus a higher level of understanding than required in gen. chem. Just doing a similar problem in the lecture notes, OYOs, or back exam and “knowing” that problem type may not be enough. A very conceptual understanding is needed to anticipate such curveballs. Exam 1 is usually most people’s learning curve. You’ll know if you’re making progress by your second exam results. Quickly change study habits if exam 1 isn’t near the mean or median grade (normally between 67-72).</p>
<p>If you wanna consider moving/dropping something, maybe make it D and B or OFF. One of them is usually taught in the spring (OFF?), so maybe you can move it to then. You can use fall as a test semester to figure out Weinschenk or something. If you move OFF, you’ll have one problem solving class and 1 regurgitation type. If you wait for D and B, two problem solving classes…</p>