Dental School Biochem?

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I am taking Biochem at my undergrad with the lab. It's a hard course, but they (department) go relatively easy on us. For example, we don't have to memorize the structure of the bases (DNA/RNA), or amino acids. We have to take the ACS, but it's curved to our class.

How hard is dental school biochem? On the boards, how in depth are the questions? Will I be prepared for this course? I always hear people talking about how hard gross anatomy is. But, Biochem is a pretty hard course that I haven't heard too many dental students complaining about.

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Our biochem course was basically a years worth of material in 4 weeks. The challenge was in the volume of material, not so much the details.
 
Our biochem course was basically a years worth of material in 4 weeks. The challenge was in the volume of material, not so much the details.

Come to Ohio State, our biochem class is an absolute joke. We will have to teach it to ourselves come boards time, though I'm sure I'd be doing that anyway regardless of the quality of this course, since boards are still over a year away for us
 
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I am taking Biochem at my undergrad with the lab. It's a hard course, but they (department) go relatively easy on us. For example, we don't have to memorize the structure of the bases (DNA/RNA), or amino acids. We have to take the ACS, but it's curved to our class.

How hard is dental school biochem? On the boards, how in depth are the questions? Will I be prepared for this course? I always hear people talking about how hard gross anatomy is. But, Biochem is a pretty hard course that I haven't heard too many dental students complaining about.

I had 2 Biochem. instructors in dental school one was OK at best the other was the worst teacher I had in my whole D-school time. HOWEVER---Because I had great Biochem instruction in college it was not a problem. (Thank you Illinois State University Chem. department!!!!)

The point of my post is this...
Learn it well now and it will not be a problem later.
 
I don't think it would be possible to fit the amount of material in my undergrad's 2 semesters of biochem into 1 semester.

In my undergrad biochems, we had to know the structures of AAs, nucleic acids, proteins, simple and complex carbs, lipids, etc. Plus all of the molecules structures, enzymes, and cofactors in the many anabolic and metabolic pathways.

Sounds like I'm complaining haha.... but it was one of my favorite classes.
 
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I don't think it would be possible to fit the amount of material in my undergrad's 2 semesters of biochem into 1 semester.

In my undergrad biochems, we had to know the structures of AAs, nucleic acids, proteins, simple and complex carbs, lipids, etc. Plus all of the molecules structures, enzymes, and cofactors in the many anabolic and metabolic pathways.

Sounds like I'm complaining haha.... but it was one of my favorite classes.

This was the same for my UG. Our prof. taught biochem for a med school in TX and used his same curriculum for us. A lot of our Essay questions came from the Step exam for MD. Our cumulative final in Biochem II was the ACS exam. You had to pass to pass the course. The ACS turned out to be easier than most of his other tests. That being said, I learned more in his class and I also enjoyed it more than any other class. He said that he taught it on the med school level due to the fact that most people in the class were pre (med, dent, phd, etc.) and would be seeing this material again.
 
I am taking Biochem at my undergrad with the lab. It's a hard course, but they (department) go relatively easy on us. For example, we don't have to memorize the structure of the bases (DNA/RNA), or amino acids. We have to take the ACS, but it's curved to our class.
This seems odd... Specifically the amino acid structures..After acid-base/ buffer chemistry review, this was the first thing we did. Amino acid structures/ side chains groups are of prime importance in biochemistry
 
do any of your schools offer the chance to test out of biochem? i'm currently doing a masters in biochem and molecular biology and it's comprehensive. I figured i'm taking my comp exam in july and going to school in august shouldn't be all the difficult to brush up and take a stab at testing out and save myself the trouble of taking that class. If anyone goes to Tufts and knows about this please inform me
 
do any of your schools offer the chance to test out of biochem? i'm currently doing a masters in biochem and molecular biology and it's comprehensive. I figured i'm taking my comp exam in july and going to school in august shouldn't be all the difficult to brush up and take a stab at testing out and save myself the trouble of taking that class. If anyone goes to Tufts and knows about this please inform me
this is prob not going to happen. even though you may know biochem and molecular cell stuff quite well, i'm sure your prof's will go in to more dental/medical related material/concepts that you may of never heard of. and you'll be surprised on the detail you have to know once you get to dschool.

(for me) 3rd day of lecture - quiz on AA structure, name, abbrv, physical properties, etc... and for tests, anything they even remotely covered was fair game. great way to break you in haha
 
My undergrad biochem was a joke as well. I'm starting d school in September and I think during this summer I'm going to re-teach myself biochem before school starts...
 
The director of admissions at one of the schools I applied to told me the biochemistry course in dental schools has the highest failing rate nationwide. That kind of scared me a little but it could be different from one school to the next I guess.
 
I don't think it would be possible to fit the amount of material in my undergrad's 2 semesters of biochem into 1 semester.

In my undergrad biochems, we had to know the structures of AAs, nucleic acids, proteins, simple and complex carbs, lipids, etc. Plus all of the molecules structures, enzymes, and cofactors in the many anabolic and metabolic pathways.

Sounds like I'm complaining haha.... but it was one of my favorite classes.

I wish I would have done the 2 semesters of biochem at my school...I'm doing "human biochem" specifically for pre health majors, which is 4 credit hours and basically includes everything from 1 & 2 squished into 1 semester. We had an amino acid and base structures test the 3rd week of class :( I am surprised at the fact that I kind of enjoy the class, especially since I despised organic.

At least you and I will be prepared when we get to Nova! :)
 
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