@bernie12 and others. How is taking chemistry 142 or biology 142 at Emory over the summer compared to taking the full length course in the fall or spring? Is taking a compressed version of the course more challenging? How is the teaching in summer science classes at Emory?
@MyOdyssey : Given the importance of biology if you are pre-med or pre-grad for life sciences, take that during the year. The summer instructor (Campbell) I would say is probably not equivalent to a top instructor during the year at either Oxford or main. You’'re better off pushing your luck with chemistry where often Mulford, Weaver, or a decent outsider usually runs it. Be warned however, that if the new gen. chem/first year chem. courses are to roll out fall 2016, it is possible that chemistry may not be offered the upcoming summer. Either way, I think it is more important to take a top gen. biology instructor than a top gen. chem (most people do not retain the relevant parts of gen. chem no matter what. Even many A students will end up forgetting material…that isn’t just Emory, it is pretty much gen. chem everywhere…with biology, instructor differences and teaching style can make a huge difference because the content is generally better and more relevant than a lot of stuff in gen. chem) instructor and you’ll only get tops in biol during regular semester. With chemistry, a lot of your problem solving skills will honestly come from ochem, and thus if you solid instruction in that, it should be taken during the regular academic year (and it yet another class that may not be offered during the summer-And believe me, the quality of summer ochem is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than during the year. Not even top instructors can teach at the same level due to the time crunch).
@bernie12 Thanks. That is very helpful though I note that at Oxford, it’s difficult to get into Bio 141Q because of the small class sizes and limited number of sections.
Have you heard rumors that summer school 2016 will not offer Chemistry 142?
How is the organic chemistry instruction at Oxford College vs. that at Emory College?
@MyOdyssey Gen. chem and ochem summer offerings likely depend on how/if implementation of the new curriculum structure will happen. Chem 142 will probably not exist if it is implemented next cycle. Whether this will effect summer 2016 or 2017 remains to be seen. Emory college has the top instructors for ochem, Soria and Weinschenk. If Gallivan was back, I would likely put him ahead of Saddeine (sp?) who teaches ochem at Oxford. W and S are FAR ahead however and prepare exceptionally well for those who need to know the MCAT material and transition to biochemistry. Though McGill is fully switching back to “gen.chem” (they are working on the curriculum this year and kind of piloting how the new gen. chem class will be taught so she has to be a part of that), she would also have been ahead if she had taught ochem. They tend to at least attempt to focus on concepts rather than reactions and also emphasize a solid dosage of biochem and life science relevant material at a fairly high level. Saddeine is “good enough” but is very traditional in his emphasis. I would call his class a “standard level” organic course when compared to other competitive or selective universities. Most lecture (and some tenure) instructors at Emory just adopt a different philosophy.
@bernie12 Thanks. Very helpful.
Are Oxford students who’ve had Saadein for organic chemistry first semester able to adjust to the different approach taken by Emory College’s organic chemistry classes?
@bernie12 Another chemistry related question. How does one find problems/questions that are as hard as what you might get on a general chemistry or organic chemistry exam? The ones you find in book are typically much easier.
Yes, I would say so…ochem is not the only determining factor. Other classes at Oxford such as biology, general chemistry, maths, physics, and many non-sciences build a work ethic that easily compensates for lack of content knowledge or problem solving skills in a particular area. For example, Oxford students tend to like and adapt to Organometallic with Soria just fine. I would imagine that there is a slight advantage in biochemistry (chem. version which is…way better than the biology version) for main students as main campus students will likely be used to being thrown curveballs or dealing with more tedious chemistry related problem types after they took someone like W or S…which is most of them.
@MyOdyssey : If an instructor intends to put harder, tedious, multi-concept, or applied problems on their exam, then they usually assign harder problems that have higher numbers. Most general chemistry instructors will actually have bunches of standard (medium-somewhat challenging but predictable or expected) level problems and then 1-3 problems that fit the bill of those that I just mentioned. Some of these problems will be “good” (actual application toward a cool scenario-usually a derivation of an expression or giving an explanation to explain the phenomenon) and others will just require you to jump through lots of hoops (such as very tedious unit conversion processes) before plugging and chugging. In my opinion, the latter is much more annoying though the former often feels “unfair” at first. Students also tend to be taken by surprise when many multiple choice and some short answer questions have a heavy emphasis on conceptual understanding of various graphs and figures that then lead to some mathematical relationship. Often these types of problems are not as common in the book, so it is up to you to read chapters in depth or simply select problems yourself that emphasize graphs,data interpretation, or figures. Also, usually instructors will release old exams.
As for ochem. I would say that Soria, Weinschenk, and the difficult instructors seen at some other schools are exceptions. With most, you can honestly get away with a pretty general understanding of the problem types in the book, lectures, or extra problem sets. Most teachers will not ask you to think much deeper or differently from what they have presented you. I find that students who say “the exam was harder than the book problems” for standard level instructors are often exaggerating a lot. The reality is, typical instructors in general chemistry and organic classes, especially at selective schools, are putting more medium level problems (usually from the book) and a couple of tough ones on the exams and then you are expected to complete them in a 50-75 minute time period in college (so if you were not solving the more medium problems fluidly or relatively quickly when preparing for the exam, you certainly cannot expect to when under pressure). In HS, often instructors populated exams with much easier prompts that required more surface level understanding or were less tedious conceptually and then still gave like 90 minutes (if on 4x4 block or some other system with 90 minute courses). What happens is: students don’t actually expect the college instructor to put a problem like the harder ones they assigned on the test so they blow it off when they struggle through them in practice and then boom! Something similar or identical shows up.
A sign that an instructor is even tougher than the typical ones I describe is when they move their exams to the evening and allow for 2 hours or more for the period. Weinschenk and Soria give exams that last from 2-3 hours for example. Dr. Mulford on main also gives 2 hour exam periods in the evening because he asks more tedious medium level questions and some challenging problems (I believe the other instructors will be joining him this year with evening exams because the new room for gen. chem is not ideal for testing. I don’t know if they will start giving 2 hours or not though. If they do, then they intend to give exams more similar to his).
For these, students are likely correct in saying that exam problem types have a little extra fire to them as there will be plenty more tedious medium levels and ones like the most difficult back of chapter problems that may or may not have been assigned, which is the reason they allot extra time for the exams. Soria and Weinshenk’s difficult sections have nothing to do with the book at all and are indirectly related to the lectures. They are mainly all derivation based problems that are developed from classical and contemporary primary research in the field (as in students are being asked to use basic concepts to derive or present models of very advanced ones that explain certain phenomenon in lab or nature). You have to be much more skilled, prepared, and sometimes very clever/creative to navigate their exams. The harder gen. chem instructors do not require the last attribute (creativity) to be successful. These instructors develop the mind well, but you have to put in more constant effort and consult things such as the Harvard database for organic problems and various other websites if you want practice outside what is given by the two. Usually gen. chem just doesn’t require this extra effort.
@bernie12 Wow! Eye opener. What is the Harvard database for organic problems and what other websites are you referring to?
@MyOdyssey http://evans.harvard.edu/problems/ Dr. Evans from Harvard (retired or going toward it now) established this.
In 221, the elementary organic (based off of chem 20/30 problems at Harvard and the courses at Cambridge, and Northwestern- very challenging but emphasizes basic models in organic that could are often taught to high caliber UG sophomores at schools with high throttle chem depts) is more relevant for W and S. In 222, Soria starts doing the most, and then the advanced/grad. course should be used sometimes because he starts introducing models not introduced to most undergrads at well…any school (except maybe Caltech, Harvard, and a couple of other places).
Many schools have their course websites open out on the web. I personally like Dr. Hardinger (sp?) from UCLA and one of the teachers from University of Texas (Austin, I think chem 310M/N). Also, Michigan’s (don’t know if it is still out there or not) is a good primer for challenging problems of the “synthesis class” (mainly ochem 2 though). WashU’s (chem 261 and 262) is almost out there and is good prep. for the likes of Dr. Soria as that instructor emphasizes some of the same concepts (that are rarely discussed in detail in sophomore organic classes, even at most elite schools). Yale’s freshman organic (chem 125) is Open Course and Dr. Weinschenk’s 221 material is loosely based on that one. A lot of the 221 material on molecular orbitals, hybridization, and chirality can be found in the chem 125 materials- Unfortunately the exams available on that site are not up to par with Weinschenk’s and it is honestly better to just use the Harvard database to practice after going through some of the content in chem 125. However, some of the slides do indeed have some case studies that were the base of the challenge section of W’s exam…though lately that section has gotten a lot harder (especially on the 1st 221 exam).
@bernie12 As usual, very helpful. Are there any similar resources for general chemistry?
No not really…I don’t know how Oxford does theirs, but maybe you can start from MIT for general problem types and materials. This may sound strange, but the general chemistry course available on their Open Course Ware isn’t bad at all. I would actually say that it is about the same as a more difficult section and the exams are actually less difficult than those (MIT, like most schools, puts more effort into intermediate and advanced courses because this is where the chemists and chemical engineers will get the most important training. Gen. chem is mainly just a service course like it is everywhere else and it isn’t serving as many pre-healths as it does at say Emory, so no need to make it high caliber as most don’t need to know it for the MCAT or future courses). Also, I have yet to fully understand how things are working on either campus. I can, however, confirm as of today, that main campus is using the problem based learning and case based learning technique. There is no lecture. I don’t know what that means for their exams and problem sets other than “they are basically on their own”. If you are taking it at Oxford and your teacher plans to ask some applied questions, MIT OCW course has several problem sets and handouts that emphasize research based concepts…so those can maybe come in handy.