chem majors, physical chem?

[wvupredent]

i've recently realized it only takes four chemistry courses beyond organic chem 1 and 2 to double-major in chemistry along with biology at my new university. two of those courses are physical chemistry 1 and 2 in the "core" curriculum. The two last electives will most likely be biochem and medicinal chemistry.

but anyway....to my question. i know organic and physical chem are two totally different types of chemistry, but how does physical chem compare to organic as far as difficulty and useful application for the DAT and in dental school? I know organic is considered a nightmare by some pre-dents/pre-med students. Is physical chem the same way? Of course, it was VERY brief and elementary, but the physical chem covered in my general chem 2 course was not horrific. Is physical chem worth bogging myself down during my senior year to get the second degree? I'll be taking it with my chem electives (one each semester) and two biology electives each semester, so it will lead to a pretty heavy schedule.

Let me know what you think of physical chemistry, good or bad. Thanks.

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[Nasem]

Ok, everything I tell you right now is not based on my personal experience.

But I have talked to a few students who have taken both Oraganics and both physical chems..... They basically said the following:
"Organic seemed a bit more difficult simply because it covers A LOT of material over short period of time.
Physical chem on the other hand is like... comparing Calc-based physics along with chemistry. If your the type of person who loved calc-based physics, you'll enjoy physical chem, if you hate physics, you'll hate physical chem."

I do need to add that the 3 guys I talked to about this are good friends of mine who all started off as engineering majors of some sort (electrical / mechanical) and they LOVE physics and did not have a hard time with p.chem

 

[PChemGrad]

"Organic seemed a bit more difficult simply because it covers A LOT of material over short period of time.
Physical chem on the other hand is like... comparing Calc-based physics along with chemistry. If your the type of person who loved calc-based physics, you'll enjoy physical chem, if you hate physics, you'll hate physical chem."

I will have to agree with this quote here. The P-Chem you do in gen chem is nothing like what you do in your upper division p chem class. It is applying the fundamental principles of physics to chemistry. P-Chem wont really help you at all on the DAT.
O-chem is nothing like the rest of chemistry, it takes a different type of person to understand O-Chem. you need to be able to think about the reactions and "see" the reaction occurring to understand how it is happening.

I just received my Masters in Physical Chemistry, almost got the PhD but decided dentistry was more my thing, regardless, I enjoyed both Organic and Physical chemistry. I found the graduate level O-Chem classes to be more helpful than P Chem when studying for the DAT, if only I would have done this a few years ago, when I cared about O-Chem.

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You are lucky you only have to take 4 upper division chem classes to earn your chem degree. I had to take 16 upper division chem classes for my degree including 3 lab classes.
I thought Advanced Inorganic was helpful.

Take it if you like Calculus and Physics. Otherwise it will be a pain in the rear.

 

[osuwannabe]

Ochem was more like the PAT, and Pchem was more like Quantitative Reasoning.

 

[wvupredent]

well, the university has two chemistry curricula. this is the "wimpy" one. it's still a B.S. in Chemistry, but it's aimed more towards pre-professional students and people wanting to double-major in one of the other sciences. They also offer the American Chemical Society approved B.S. degree, but there's no way I can fit that in....not that I'd want to, anyway. I don't plan to be a chemist, so it would be overkill.

The physical chemistry courses that I would have to take are for students that take non-calculus based physics. (again, remember i acknowledged "wimpy" ) I've taken calculus and received an A, but it seems most pre-dent/pre-med students I know take non-calculus based physics regardless of their math abilities.

So, that's an explanation to the post saying they were required to take more upper-level chem. This program is designed for double-majors, most usually biology double-majors. This option was not available at WVU (only had ACS curriculum), so it was a pleasant surprise that I can slap a B.S. in Chemistry on my applications and resumes someday with only 4 additional courses.

 

[IndianaAsh]

I'm sure a double major will look better than a single major anyday, but when I talked to the dental schools about it, they said it's not really that great if the two majors are closely related, like bio and chem. I think they understand that all of us have to take several classes in each section and with a few more classes we could all be double majors. I think it would be more impressive if you had a double major in bio and something random like classical civilization.

 

[lifeisgood]

All I know is that I switched majors at UCSD from Biochem/Chem to Biochem/Bio because of the nightmare stories I heard about P chem. We're talking 8 hour review sessions with the teacher before each test (yes outside of normal class). I'm sure it's different at every school though. And this is coming from someone who enjoyed calculus, physics and chemistry. It's definitely doable, but probably not fun and could be a potential GPA killer. Good luck.

 

[Ms.Dentista]

Beyond a doubt, Pchem was the hardest class I have even taken...the material that was taught, plus the amount of studying time I had to put into the course made it a bear to get through. But it was worth it for the A. Also I think that some p-chem does apply to the DAT with the quantum numbers and the detailed kinetics that you learn are helpful towards studying. Good luck in your decision making!