<p>I plan on majoring in Biochemistry & Cell Biology and got a 5 on my AP Chemistry test, so I got credit for Chem A/B/C. But I took AP Chem in junior year, and I'm sure college chemistry is more in-depth than high school chemistry, so would I be unprepared for taking 140 A Organic Chemistry this fall? Should I take the Honors Chem A/B/C courses to review my knowledge of chemistry first?</p>
<p>I don’t think you would unprepared. That’s why UCSD lets you skip the classes. OChem doesn’t directly take from the Chem 6 series as much as you might think, although of course the concepts still apply. I don’t think it’s anything that you couldn’t fill yourself in from the OChem textbook though.</p>
<p>I was exactly in your situation: majored in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, got a 5 on the AP Chem test, and took AP Chem in junior year in high school. I went straight into 140A (although I started it my second year, rather than my first) and didn’t have a problem at all. Although I took the 140 sequence my second year, I know many people who took it their first year and they never had a problem. Unless you struggled through chemistry the first time, you could always relearn things as you need to.</p>
<p>I’d suggest taking a few weeks to read through your textbooks and past material so you can refamiliarize yourself with the material, but other than that, as the others have said, ochem only borrows the general concepts instead of specific equations or formulas in a class like 140A. As long as you understand the basic concepts behind bonding and reaction thermodynamics, you should be fine.</p>
<p>As I recall, only a small portion of CHEM 6C/6CH is relevant to ochem. The thermodynamics and bonding theory was useful, otherwise the 6 series was virtually unrelated to O-chem. You’ll be fine. A handful of my colleagues / friends jumped from AP Chem in high school → CHEM 140 series at UCSD and fared well.</p>
<p>@mikey750</p>
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<p>The funny part is that the average UCSD student doesn’t study for a few weeks in their regular classes. :P</p>
<p>Do you want to go to med school? If so, med schools require one year of general chemistry with lab. Only take the honors series if you are genuinely interested.It has ruined quite a few GPA’s. </p>
<p>That being said, ochem and general chemistry are fairly unrelated, so I don’t think you’d be at a great disadvantage if you were to jump right in. Still, ochem is pretty intense, so if you want to give yourself time to adjust to college and to enjoy your freshman year you might want to delay it.</p>
<p>I am a Biochem/Cell bio as well and I got to skip chem6abc and chem7l (after submitting my chem ap lab notebook). I heard that for honors chem, it’s super hard but most students get either an A or a B. If you are above average then you are likely to get an A, if not then B.</p>
<p>I just took ochem (chem140a spring quarter with albizati) and even though I took ap chem in high school and skipped general chem courses at ucsd, I personally didn’t think I had to retake chem again. (by this I mean, it’s unnecessary for you to take honors chem)
And I feel like if you got a 5 on AP test then you shouldn’t worry that much.</p>
<p>If you are premed then med school will want you to take chemistry courses in college but you can always come back and take them later.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice! I don’t think I’ll take the honors courses then. Probably not going to med school.</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj, I didn’t know we could skip Chem 7L by submitting our lab notebooks. Did you send in your lab notebook to UCSD yourself, like when you had to choose classes in August, or did your teacher automatically send it in for you? (My teacher kept all of our lab notebooks.)</p>
<p>You have to submit it on your own at chem dept. in York Hall. They actually said to submit everything from your high school chem ap course, like hw, notes etc. I think you have to go back to your teacher and ask for it.</p>
<p>Oh shoot. I don’t think I have my hw and notes anymore… most of it went into the recycling bin after school ended .__. oops.</p>
<p>I actually only submitted my lab notebook and nothing else cuz I didn’t have my hw and notes left at all.</p>
<p>Even if you don’t have a lab notebook or HW assignments, a syllabus might suffice which you should be able to get from your teacher. I only submitted my old syllabus which listed all the experiments we did and I was awarded the petition. Granted my situation was a little different in that I initially didn’t get credit from a chemistry class I took at a community college whereas yours seems to be regarding AP classes in high school.</p>
<p>I got a 5 on the AP test and I want to go to med school. The adviser I spoke with told me that I have to take the honors series. Is there really no other option? I would rather not take the honor level because I’m worried I wouldn’t be able to do as well and I can already skip out of the regular series</p>
<p>I believe you can take the regular series, but you won’t receive credit for it, since you already have credit because of your AP score.</p>
<p>So there would be no point in doing that, right? Is there a higher level chem option that I could take? I have to take ochem anyway so that doesn’t count</p>
<p>I believe if you take CHEM 6ABC it will still show up on your transcript–you just won’t receive any units. So med schools will see that you took the course, but you won’t receive units and it won’t factor into your GPA. Back when I was a freshmen, my adviser told me this “You may always choose to take courses you received credit for through AP, as long as you know that it will be a duplication of credit. Therefore the courses will not earn you units towards graduation or factor into your UC-gpa.” through the VAC (it was a while ago, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be valid any more).</p>
<p>You could take inorganic chemistry (CHEM 120A-120B) and then take inorganic lab (123) or I suppose bioinorganic chemistry (125). Or you could take physical chemistry (CHEM 131-133). But by that point, you might as well just take the Chem 6 honors series, if you’re concerned about GPA (unless you’re a chem major).</p>
<p>I’m a biotech major so I just need to take chem 6abc and 7L for my major. What’s the difference between the material in the honors series and the regular series? If the classes that you listed offer different material that might be useful to know later on, that might be a more beneficial route</p>
<p>I didn’t take either series but you can read the course descriptions in the general catalog ([Chemistry</a> and Biochemistry Courses](<a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/courses/CHEM.html]Chemistry”>Chemistry and Biochemistry)). Someone more familiar with the gen chem series may be able to comment on this.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend taking the other chemistry courses, unless your major requires it. You likely aren’t going to need that information unless you are a chemistry major, and if you need more advanced chemistry information, your major likely has those courses worked into your curriculum. As a biotech major, it probably isn’t necessary.</p>
<p>Well, first of all, you wont need to take chem abc for bioengi:biotech major because of your AP score. Yes it is a requirement, but you already satisfied the requirement because you received credit for it. Med school is an entirely different story.</p>
<p>The regular series is just mostly AP chem stuff (plus a little more stuff). The honor series is like of doing their own thing; 6AH is kind of like p chem.</p>