So I’ve always been wondering what physical chem lab would be like. I know that it counts as a continued writing course, but just how much lab reports does it require? The lab sessions themselves only last for 50 minutes so I’m not sure how they provide enough content for such large quantity of writing…or do we research the materials ourselves on our own time?
@Astantine: That is not how credit hours are allocated (number of lab reports? There are some labs with 2 hours allocated and there are no lab reports. Physics has 1 hour allocated and there is a report due every week. Pchem is like every other week or per module) and the actual lab sessions are NOT 50 minutes (but some can be). The 50 minute sessions are just lab lectures (I do not know why, but for pchem they only list the lecture in the course atlas and don’t make it clear that there are separate lab sessions where you perform the experimentation), so that counts as one hour. The CWR is one hour, the weekly lab meetings which can last up to 3 hours counts as 1 hour. This totals 3 hours. It has nothing to do with how many lab reports you write. In fact, before pchem lab received the CWR designation, there were more reports due per semester (because it had weekly due dates when I took it). A class with the CWR label just formalizes the writing process. Instead of just turning stuff in, you have several sessions outside of lab where you review experiments or discuss with TAs how to analyze data (AND you also will often go to the computer lab associated with pchem lab to do the data analysis).
Pchem lab can be a lot of work, but lab report size has nothing to do with how much content they provide in the lecture. Nothing whatsoever. That is much like speculating that a thesis’s or publication’s size is dependent how much introductory material you have or how long an experiment took you to perform which makes no sense. It depends on how much data you have and how many analysis techniques you are using. Some lab reports will get very lengthy and some will be shorter. It is a decent deal of work and often you will spend more time writing than you will for any given lab module. Some lab techniques may take very little time from your day to perform but will often yield lots of data and things to analyze. This is the nature of science and science writing (as I learned this spring/summer). And you research and analyze what you need to in order to make a good paper. The TAs will be there to help your endeavors so take advantage of those extra out of lab and lab lecture sessions.
You took 151/151-L right so wrote lab reports (I know that no chemistry lower division and intermediate courses sadly do not require any reports, but they really should to prime students for pchem).
Oh wow I see…that makes a lot of sense if they don’t include times for lab and out of lab sessions on course atlas. It sounds like a lot of work! Do you know what kind of computer program is used for data analysis? I don’t have that much experience with coding except a little bit of R Studio but I’ll be taking CS 1371 the summer before taking Pchem, which mainly utilizes of Matlab. Would this class be of any help for Pchem?
@Astantine Back in the dinosaur ages when I took it, Mathematica was used. They will teach you what you need to know, but knowing some coding will certainly help. What is most helpful is a STEM lab or class that has you write reports or proposals with the scientific method in mind. Again, did you take physics 15X series. All chem BS people should honestly be taking that one as it helps get you used to applying calculus to a STEM subject and because the lab has you write reports. For those who have not taken it, pchem and its lab may be “shock therapy”. This is why I never recommend the physics14X series to Chem BS majors. It isn’t as useful in terms of building skills needed to make a smooth transition to a weedout like upper division course such as Pchem. Writing (frequently) in STEM is more important than the coding you’ll need to analyze data.
@bernie12 I’ll be taking the series next year. I have a final question: Did you take multivariable calculus before Pchem? I noticed that it is recommended to take calc 3 prior to Pchem and I was just curious as to how extensively the knowledge is applied in Pchem.
No, I did not but it would have been useful. Differential equations and linear are most useful, but multi certainly helps.
@bernie12 Thanks. Were you a chemistry major at Emory? It sounds like at least one of your concentrations must have been chem. It’s really helpful to have the most active member in Emory page answer questions relevant to my major. Thanks a lot for your efforts, really.
@bernie12 Bio BS with a heavy dose of upper division chemistry courses (including 2 graduate courses). Effectively a chem BA on steroids.
Also note that even though it is no longer required, the Simon and McQuarrie(Big Red!) text is awesome and they have math chapters at the end of each chapter that should help with the following content. You can try this and then maybe find an online resource (like a whole textbook, Georgia Tech has a free pdf based textbook covering multivariate concepts) that fills in gaps. You just need to know MV. You need not take a course.