Courseload - good idea?

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Teleologist said:
Would it be a good idea to take both organic 2 and analytical chem in one semester?
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Organic 2 wasn't that bad, at least at my university. If anything, analytical will be your issue. I think you should be okay with both.
 
we have no idea of knowing how hard either class will be at your institution nor your work ethic/abilities.

you would be better off to talk to people at your school.
 
baxt1412 said:
we have no idea of knowing how hard either class will be at your institution nor your work ethic/abilities.

you would be better off to talk to people at your school.
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Do the two overlap to any significant extent? From what I understand orgo 2 starts off talking about not chemistry per se but instrumentation.
 
Analytical Chemistry should be a piece of cake if you know your gen chem and your Ochem I.
 
I did orgo and a chem together in a semester. Analytical generally has very little in common with organic and is not actually that hard; usually it goes a little deeper into things like sig. figs, equilibrium, electrochem, a few other gen chem topics, and how chemical instruments work (e.g. NMR, IR, GC, absorption/emission spectroscopy, variety of electrochemical electrodes, and a bunch more). Orgo 2 does talk about NMR/IR/UV-Vis but focuses more on using the data derived from those instruments to identify compounds; A chem, on the other hand, focuses on how these and other instruments work, so imo very little in common. I personally found A chem (as well as P chem) bland but that's more because I'm a bit more of a reaction/mechanism-based guy.

A HUGE WARNING though: the biggest thing I hated in doing them together was the labs. At least at my institution, they were both 4 hours, and I had to do both at night. Analytical chem lab is unique in that it focuses on accuracy of measurement, and I mean getting volumes right to tenth or hundredth of a millimeter. Some of that's up to chance too: in two attempts with extra careful measurement and very strictly following the procedure, I failed to get an absorption spectroscopy test within a certain range and straight up got a 0 on it lol. All in all, the huge lab time commitment is the biggest issue here.
I should add I was also taking Diff Eq simultaneously, so the two labs were a huge time sink at least for me.
 
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That sounds perfectly fine. It's not a sin to take more than one science class in a semester, people!
 
Aerus said:
That sounds perfectly fine. It's not a sin to take more than one science class in a semester, people!
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OP has a history of trolling. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one such post.
 
The Brown Knight said:
A HUGE WARNING though: the biggest thing I hated in doing them together was the labs. At least at my institution, they were both 4 hours, and I had to do both at night. Analytical chem lab is unique in that it focuses on accuracy of measurement, and I mean getting volumes right to tenth or hundredth of a millimeter. Some of that's up to chance too: in two attempts with extra careful measurement and very strictly following the procedure, I failed to get an absorption spectroscopy test within a certain range and straight up got a 0 on it lol. All in all, the huge lab time commitment is the biggest issue here.
I should add I was also taking Diff Eq simultaneously, so the two labs were a huge time sink at least for me.
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That's what I don't really like - the lab component. I'm fine with lecture; I just don't really look forward to labs of any kind. Especially not ones demanding precision. I'll have to brush up on that.
 
Aerus said:
That sounds perfectly fine. It's not a sin to take more than one science class in a semester, people!
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I know, but I'll probably be crushed. On the other hand I don't really have much of a way forward now without taking junk classes that do nothing to help me graduate (I've fulfilled all my elective and gen ed requirements). Right now even with two science classes in a semester I only have 9 credit hours. I really need to find something else quick.

I don't even want to think of what my schedule will look like next semester. Probably gonna have to take 4 sciences at once for a measly 12 credits.
 
Teleologist said:
I know, but I'll probably be crushed. On the other hand I don't really have much of a way forward now without taking junk classes that do nothing to help me graduate (I've fulfilled all my elective and gen ed requirements). Right now even with two science classes in a semester I only have 9 credit hours. I really need to find something else quick.

I don't even want to think of what my schedule will look like next semester. Probably gonna have to take 4 sciences at once for a measly 12 credits.
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Take classes for fun then! Just because a class doesn't help you graduate or complete GE's doesn't mean they're necessarily junk!
 
Aerus said:
Take classes for fun then! Just because a class doesn't help you graduate or complete GE's doesn't mean they're necessarily junk!
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Eh I don't like the idea of paying for fun
 
Aerus said:
I'd certainly would rather pay to have fun than pay to not have fun! Wouldn't you agree?
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As a guy who's taking the bare minimum to graduate with a double major, I'm still taking 30 credits my senior year. But I wish I could take less and just take more research credits or internships and whatnot. Outside experience is helluva lot more fun than classroom material.
 
Too hard to judge courses simply based on names. I would talk to people from your school since their experiences will give you a much better picture of what to expect.
 
They'll be fine together but it depends what else you're taking/doing that semester.
 
It's incredibly important to define what level of analytical you plan on taking. If it's just the first course in the Achem sequence, then you'll probably be fine. Difficulty will greatly depend on your school. Quantitative analysis, instrumental analysis, general/upper-div analytical chemistry, and spectroscopics courses all fall under Achem.

For instance at my school, Quant Analysis is almost as easy as gen chem. The organic sequence is a little harder. But Achem2 with lab is the third hardest/most time-intensive course offered in the chem dept. (Pchem 4 lecture and Qualitative Organic lab are tied at hardest in case anyone cared)
 
nOchemallday said:
It's incredibly important to define what level of analytical you plan on taking. If it's just the first course in the Achem sequence, then you'll probably be fine. Difficulty will greatly depend on your school. Quantitative analysis, instrumental analysis, general/upper-div analytical chemistry, and spectroscopics courses all fall under Achem.

For instance at my school, Quant Analysis is almost as easy as gen chem. The organic sequence is a little harder. But Achem2 with lab is the third hardest/most time-intensive course offered in the chem dept. (Pchem 4 lecture and Qualitative Organic lab are tied at hardest in case anyone cared)
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I've looked; it's statistics mixed in with equilibrium analysis and instrumentation. Statistics I'm not okay with; EQ analysis I'm okay with. Instrumentation I've never dealt with before. I guess I'll just have to suck it up next semester.
 
Teleologist said:
I've looked; it's statistics mixed in with equilibrium analysis and instrumentation. Statistics I'm not okay with; EQ analysis I'm okay with. Instrumentation I've never dealt with before. I guess I'll just have to suck it up next semester.
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If you have a decent professor, the statistics are easy. It's usually to get you to understand accuracy vs. precision (which is paramount in Achem) and how to determine uncertainties in measurements/calculations via variance and so forth. For the most part you're only taught the statistics you actually need to calculate values and uncertainties as opposed to a statistics class where you learn a whole bunch of useless stuff😉. Instrumentation is usually one of the hardest parts of Achem because it requires a pretty solid understanding of gen chem and chemical/physical properties of light and molecules/molecular interactions.

What you've described sounds like it shouldn't be that bad; a standard introductory course.
 
nOchemallday said:
Instrumentation is usually one of the hardest parts of Achem because it requires a pretty solid understanding of gen chem and chemical/physical properties of light and molecules/molecular interactions.
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That'll be interesting. The only optics I learned from orgo was that chiral molecules in a solution can give rise to a net rotation of light. I still have no clue what a polarimeter is. Or how light interacts with the molecules. Thanks for the heads up; I'll have to ask around and poke around too on Google and I guess I'll see what happens next semester.
 
Teleologist said:
That'll be interesting. The only optics I learned from orgo was that chiral molecules in a solution can give rise to a net rotation of light. I still have no clue what a polarimeter is. Or how light interacts with the molecules. Thanks for the heads up; I'll have to ask around and poke around too on Google and I guess I'll see what happens next semester.
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Did you take Physics 2 Lab? You'll probably get introduced to optical filters in that course. They are pretty cool 🙂
 
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