Difficulty Ranking (Chemistry)

[gochi]

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Hey,

How would you guys rank these courses in terms of difficulty ? (1 being the most difficult and so on)

Analytical Chem
Physical Chem
Organic Chem
Inorganic Chem

thanks

 

[ingemar]

Physical Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry
Organic Chemistry

Well...the last three are all pretty much equally as easy...but for me, p-chem topped them all.

 

[zoom12]

depends on the level and what you determine is easy. If you're taking 300 lvl inorganic or your achem lab is a monumental time suck like mine i'd rank it like this..

pchem
inorganic (300 lvl)
achem
organic

 

[jackbauer!]

i never took inorganic, but this is how i would rate the other 3 in terms of increasing difficulty..

analytical < organic < physical

jb!🙂

 

[onamission]

i never took inorganic, but this is how i would rate the other 3 in terms of increasing difficulty..

analytical < organic < physical

jb!🙂

How'd you get accepted into dental school without taking inorganic chem??

 

[SanOnofre2002]

How'd you get accepted into dental school without taking inorganic chem??

I don't get why this is, but when d-schools say inorganic chem what they really mean is Gchem. Inorganic is a seperate class, usually only taken by chem majors. And I agree w/ previous rankings w/ Pchem at the top of the difficult list. People that are good at Pchem, I bow down to you.

 

[jackbauer!]

How'd you get accepted into dental school without taking inorganic chem??

inorganic chem is not the same as general chem...

general chem is what you need to get into dental school.

jb!🙂

 

[PChemGrad]

I was a Chem major and got my M.S. in P-Chem so I took a LOT of classes but this is how I thought it went

Inorganic < Analytical = Organic < Physical

Physical isnt that bad if you are good at math, it also depends on how much and what topics you cover.

 

[onamission]

inorganic chem is not the same as general chem...

general chem is what you need to get into dental school.

jb!🙂

And to think all this time I thought they were the same!

 

[jackbauer!]

And to think all this time I thought they were the same!

some dental schools list "inorganic chemistry" as a pre-req, but what they really mean is general chemistry. general chemistry is the lower level course, while inorganic chemistry is an upper level course. the two are easily confused.

jb!🙂

 

[PChemGrad]

some dental schools list "inorganic chemistry" as a pre-req, but what they really mean is general chemistry. general chemistry is the lower level course, while inorganic chemistry is an upper level course. the two are easily confused.

jb!🙂

i dont know why they dont just change the pre-req to Gen. Chem., but why they must list it as inorganic.?

Ya for pre-reqs Inorganic = Gen

 

[simplyome]

Physical Chemistry is definitely the hardest of them all I had to do a lot more work for this class than the others. For the other three, they are pretty much the same difficulty. Organic is a lot of memory work of mechanisms. Analytical is a lot of straight forward calculates and Inorganic is only difficult cause typically its really hard to visualize what you are learning.

As for grades when I took all four the rank is the following but I'm a type of person who hates memorizing mechanisms and is better at math lol:

1. Analytical
2. Inorganic
3. Physical
4. Organic

Amount of work to obtain the grades:

1. Physical
2. Inorganic
3. Organic
4. Analytical

However, I only took all these classes with lab since I am a Biochemistry major and it is required. If you have a choice, just take what is required for dental school which typically is only the Organic I believe. General chemistry counts towards your inorganic credits.

 

[pmantz]

I remember the first time i didn't pass a test, it was my third Pchem test i got a 59. i was distraught and then my biochem teacher told me the ACS actually sells bumper stickers that say " I survived P-chem".

P-Chem
Analytical
Inorganic
Organic

 

[gochi]

Thanks for you're opinions.

Analytical Chem is just too weird. We have 4 hr labs each week, and they seem very complicated (I wonder how hard the calculations will be).

Organic Chemistry is somewhat interesting, but its alota memorization.

Physical Chem is essentially thermodynamics which is very fun.

What do you guys mean by saying that p-chem is difficult ? Is it memorization, time consuption, random questions... I mean shouldnt practicing problems make it easy ?

 

[Forum Lurker]

Thanks for you're opinions.

Analytical Chem is just too weird. We have 4 hr labs each week, and they seem very complicated (I wonder how hard the calculations will be).

Organic Chemistry is somewhat interesting, but its alota memorization.

Physical Chem is essentially thermodynamics which is very fun.

What do you guys mean by saying that p-chem is difficult ? Is it memorization, time consuption, random questions... I mean shouldnt practicing problems make it easy ?

I don't think anything will really make p-chem "easy", except maybe if your a genius. If you don't like math and are worried about the calculations involved in analytical chem then your probably going to hate p-chem. On the other hand, you did say thermo was fun so you may get into it. I only took the quantum section but my experience with p-chem is that it actually requires real thinking, not really any memorization. You really have to examine problems and be able to apply calculus and other fun math to weird and abstract concepts (electrons behaving as waves and particles, you're unable to accurately calculate the position and momentum of a particle at the same time, etc.).

With that said, I thought p-chem was really interesting and even fun. It definitely took a lot of work, but I'd recommend it to any fellow nerd. Also, is there any reason biochemistry was left out of the list of chemistries? I thought that class was pretty brutal.

My ranking would be:
Physical Chemistry
Organic Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry

 

[zoom12]

Thanks for you're opinions.

Analytical Chem is just too weird. We have 4 hr labs each week, and they seem very complicated (I wonder how hard the calculations will be).

Organic Chemistry is somewhat interesting, but its alota memorization.

Physical Chem is essentially thermodynamics which is very fun.

What do you guys mean by saying that p-chem is difficult ? Is it memorization, time consuption, random questions... I mean shouldnt practicing problems make it easy ?

My school had two 4 hour labs a week for achem 👎 so it could be worse.
I think the problem that people may be having answering your question is that for many universities, the lower division pchem that some people take for dental school is 'easy' whereas the upper division pchem that biochemists and chemists take is substantially harder.

Here's a run down of chemistry courses at my school that may clear some confusion:

gen chem (100 - some call it inorganic)****
orgo 1 (200s)****
orgo 2 (200s)****
orgo 3 (400s - advanced mechanisms course)
orgo 4 (500s - grad level)
inorganic 1 (300s)
inorganic 2 (400s)
achem 1 (200s)****
achem 2 (400s)
pchem 1 (200s)****
pchem 2 (400s - requires diff eqs a.k.a. calc 4)
pchem 3 (400s - requires diff eqs a.k.a. calc 4)

I think the OP is referring to the starred courses when asking for a ranking

 

[SanOnofre2002]

Thanks for you're opinions.

Analytical Chem is just too weird. We have 4 hr labs each week, and they seem very complicated (I wonder how hard the calculations will be).

Organic Chemistry is somewhat interesting, but its alota memorization.

Physical Chem is essentially thermodynamics which is very fun.

What do you guys mean by saying that p-chem is difficult ? Is it memorization, time consuption, random questions... I mean shouldnt practicing problems make it easy ?

Are you taking the real Pchem or Pchem-lite (for bio majors)? I used to like thermo too until I took it in Pchem. I guess if you're good at calculus than it might not be as bad, but there's still nothing fun about stuff like the Schrodinger eqn and Eigenfunctions. The probability density diagrams still give me nightmares.

 

[pmantz]

Thanks for you're opinions.

Analytical Chem is just too weird. We have 4 hr labs each week, and they seem very complicated (I wonder how hard the calculations will be).

Organic Chemistry is somewhat interesting, but its alota memorization.

Physical Chem is essentially thermodynamics which is very fun.

What do you guys mean by saying that p-chem is difficult ? Is it memorization, time consuption, random questions... I mean shouldnt practicing problems make it easy ?

Oh man thats what I thought, you will go over that fun thermodynamics in the first half of your first class. Then you will use basic equations learned in gen chem(+ a lot more) and then derive them in every which direction. You will derive everything, and its impossible to memorize anything. Except for perhaps maxwell's relations, hope your good at calculusI,II,III. My hand and brain was very sore after my 8:00 am PhemI. And are you even asking about second semester Pchem/quantum chemistry.

 

[gochi]

Yea, Im taking about second semester Physical Chem, its a course number
3XX.

Perhaps I'll take it after I get into D-school (assuming I get into d-school)

Seriously though, does it matter if you take Phys Chem ? Id rather take an easier BIO class if Physical Chem had the exact same weight as the BIO class.

thanks

 

[SanOnofre2002]

Yea, Im taking about second semester Physical Chem, its a course number
3XX.

Perhaps I'll take it after I get into D-school (assuming I get into d-school)

Seriously though, does it matter if you take Phys Chem ? Id rather take an easier BIO class if Physical Chem had the exact same weight as the BIO class.

thanks

If you have all the prereqs and recommended courses, I'd say it would be good to take Pchem. Although it won't help you at all in d-school, it shows you can handle rigorous courses. If Pchem isn't hard enough for you and you want to show them how sick in the head you really are you could take quantum physics.

 

[PChemGrad]

you dont learn anything in pchem that will help you in dental school.

its not one of the "recommended" classes. so why take it unless you are a chem or biochem major?

the skills you learn in pchem you can develop in most other classes, so its not anything special, unless you want to learn about Thermo, Quantum, Kinetics, and Statistical Mechanics worst class ever, i know, I took a semester of it.

But if you like Physics, Math and Chemistry then P Chem is a great class, thats why I went into it.

 

[gochi]

I would love to take quantum physics, but i dont want to take the i donno 5-6 pre req classes.

I dont understand why the adcoms would consider p.chem as a rigorous course. I mean, I as a student consider Intro to English to be a freakin hard course and I may not consider P.Chem to be hard. It should all be relative. For example, I was looking at our calander, in the course description section, and it listed two courses AQUEOUS CHEM and ATM CHEM (the description is longer, but that is essentially the bulk of it). By the looks of it, it seemed relatively easy and the sample tests were very answerable, yet it was numberd higher then P.Chem was i.e PChem 360, AQ/ATM 380/381. This gets me to my next question. Does having a course with a higher course number imply that its more rigorous ?

 

[PChemGrad]

Does having a course with a higher course number imply that its more rigorous ?

No