<p>Spring 2015 I am taking Trig and Fall 2015 semester I am taking Pre-Cal. Should I take Principles of Chemistry 1 in Spring 2015 with Trig? Or should I take it with Pre-Cal in Fall 2015? Would it be better to just wait and take it with Calc 1?</p>
<p>I’m going to assume your chemistry class doesn’t require calculus (most introductory ones don’t). If that’s the case, then as long as you’ve learned about logarithms before, you’ll be ready. Most of the math you need will be basic algebra and arithmetic, with a few equations involving logarithms here and there. It’ll be nice to see how, for example, the integrated rate laws come from the differential rate laws, but you don’t need to know this to solve problems in your class.</p>
<p>The math involved in introductory chemistry is nothing more than very basic algebra and arithmetic. There is a little bit with logarithms, as mentioned previously. It’s not even really necessary to have an extensive knowledge of them to do the chemistry problems though. For the most part, it’s really only necessary to have a calculator that can evaluate logarithms. </p>
<p>There won’t be any trig involved in it. A lot of the equations that are used in introductory chemistry are derived from calculus (differential equations mostly), but knowledge of these derivations or the actual calculus is in no way necessary for doing chemistry. In most respects, knowing the calculus isn’t even really going to help you do the chemistry. </p>
<p>All that being said, I’d say do it sooner rather than later. Math gets harder as you progress, so having chemistry on top of calc 1 is going to make for a harder course load than chemistry with pre-calc. </p>
<p>Do as suggested above. I had a year of easy classes and I was putting off chemistry. Now I’m doing Calc, Chem, and a bunch of other stuff and it would have been much easier to do it before. Especially if you have to go on beyond intro. </p>