I’m currently a high school junior and the career path I’m considering at the moment is becoming a doctor. I did really well in honors chemistry my sophomore year and I was planning to take AP Physics and AP chemistry this year but I dropped AP Chemistry about a week in for a honors pathophysiology class because the teacher was horrible at explaining and essentially flipped through PowerPoints and assigned textbook work. I know I need a strong foundation in chemistry and part of me is already regretting dropping despite the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be successful. Would it be a good idea to take general chemistry 1 during the summer session at my local community college. I think since it’s the only thing I’d be doing that summer, I could really dedicate all my time to it, but what’s the difficulty level? Would it be possible since it’s 4 days a week for 2 hours for an overall 6 weeks? I’m not really in it for the Credit, more so that I do well in chemistry at college since it’s required for medical school though I don’t a bad grade on my high school transpict either. Also, would that prepare me enough if I decided to reveiw and take the AP Chemistry test? Thank you in advance for any responses.
Summer STEM classes can be very intense. It’s the same amount of work in maybe 1/2 of the time. You need to allow two or three hours of of studying time per one hour of class time in college classes. I say do it at a normal pace at your four year college if you don’t get to AP chem in high school.
You should be fine with it. You don’t get classwork in college. No time wasting redundant worksheets or packets. You sit in lecture, and you get lots of homework. AP Chem is actually general Chem 1 & 2 combined, so you’re only learning half of what you need. Just a warning, colleges sciences work nothing like high school sciences. You will have labs at your CC and it will be treated like a seperate class. Labs take up A LOT of time. You have pre-labs, write ups, calculations, data tables, and post labs to worry about, as well as a seperate final called a lab practical in the end of the semester. Your lab grade is a large chunk of your final Chem grade. Dual-enrollment kids who have never taken a natural science class at the college level don’t seem to be aware of lab work.
If you applied to med school you would be required to submit a transcript from your local CC showing your grade in this chem course. (Even if you take it P/F or drop course, you’d still have to submit all transcripts showing any college courses you enrolled in.) The grade you receive would be like any other college course grade and be used by med schools as part of your GPA calculations, so do well. Any possibility there will be a different AP chem teacher senior year?
Thank you, I didn’t know that and sadly no, she’s the only teacher and has been so for about 15 years.