General chemistry prereq

[DaisyT]

Hey everyone,

I just graduated from Berkeley with a major in Molecular Cell Biology. The thing is, our major curriculum doesn't require us to take Chem 1B. I just noticed that the schools require one year of general chemistry. I was wondering if I can substitute that one semester of Chem 1B with biochemistry.

Thanks!

 

[NDBeast]

General chem and biochem are considered 2 different subjects, so you probably not be able to substitute.

 

[Balki]

I was just wondering how you got a degree in molec cell and didn't take Organic. If you did then how did you manage to take it without General Chem (I or 2) These course are foundations for each other. I am simply curious. In my school these courses are given on after each other and General Chem and Organic are both pre-requisitetes for Molec cell and Biochem. Regarding your question I think the requirments are set pretty strongly but you can certainly contact the admissions and perhaps they'll let you, but you probably will have to show it to them with your G CHEM grades on DAT.

 

[DaisyT]

Yeah...our major has this curriculum where you just take one semester of general chemistry and they jump you to 2 semesters of organic chemistry. Most schools require one year of general chemistry...so I didn't know whether I had to take another semester for it. I asked UCSF and they said they know about Berkeley's curriculum so he said it was fine.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by Balki
I was just wondering how you got a degree in molec cell and didn't take Organic. If you did then how did you manage to take it without General Chem (I or 2) These course are foundations for each other.

Hmmm. Tell me you are kidding.

There isn't ANYTHING that inorganic chemistry teaches you for organic chemistry.

The two just aren't related. You MIGHT talk about relations (or notice relations) on the first day of class, but organic chemistry has NOTHING to do with inorganic.

Many students at my undergrad take the organic portion first.

 

[ItsGavinC]

And further, frankly, if a person has a strong grade in biochemistry then taking a single semester of freshman inorganic chemistry seems like a huge waste of time.

Adcoms will certainly realize this, although you'll have to verbally tell them that you don't plan on taking it. 99% of them won't care, especially if you have lots of upper-division classes.

 

[Balki]

No actually I wasn't kidding 🙂

Well by general Chemistry I was more speaking about it being general rather than inorganic. GEneral chemistry does not strictly teach inorganic , there is an orgo introduction including sugar chemistry, alkanes and other concepts. IN my experience (both educational and teaching) general chemistry provides, as I mentioned earlier foundation for organic chemistry. It would be really difficult for students to grasp concepts of organic without knowing what an stom is, for example. There is just so many thigs in ORGO that require GEN CHEM Background. (i.e hybritization, molecular orbital theory) While GEN CHEM introduces valency, Atoms and their names, acids and bases etc
Reading the responces , I agree that strong foundation in Biochemistry might let the admissions know that you might be good at general chem. Moreover, if Berkely is doing the described above program then I am sure they have their reasons and understanding.
Furthermore, I do not believe any chemistry course to be a waste of time., but then again it is just my opinion.

But , I think are discussing a different subject here and not answering the asked question.
DaisyT, I think your question was answered by several people and I hope you found them useful.

 

[NDBeast]

Originally posted by ItsGavinC
Hmmm. Tell me you are kidding.

There isn't ANYTHING that inorganic chemistry teaches you for organic chemistry.

The two just aren't related. You MIGHT talk about relations (or notice relations) on the first day of class, but organic chemistry has NOTHING to do with inorganic.

Many students at my undergrad take the organic portion first.

Yeah, but what school lets you JUST take one or the other?

 

[critterbug]

Originally posted by ItsGavinC
Hmmm. Tell me you are kidding.

There isn't ANYTHING that inorganic chemistry teaches you for organic chemistry.

The two just aren't related. You MIGHT talk about relations (or notice relations) on the first day of class, but organic chemistry has NOTHING to do with inorganic.

Many students at my undergrad take the organic portion first.

Gavin,

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one. If a college freshman coming into college with absolutely NO chemistry background, I find it hard to believe that they will be able to tackle Organic Chemistry. I'm not sure how your OCHEM class was structured, but at my college, we were expected to have a firm grasp on certain basic concepts if we were to survive OCHEM. Just a few off the top of my head were atomic structure, Lewis dot structures, Lewis acids/bases, orbital hybridization, resonance structures, molecular geometry, inter/intra molecular forces, etc. etc. These were all concepts we learned in freshman/general chemistry. Our first week of OCHEM we reviewed these topics, and then we hit the ground running.

A student would just be highly confused if he/she didn't understand these concepts. It seems to me an individual would be totally lost in lectures when the professor is just casually talking about these concepts and how they relate to Organic Chemistry.

 

[rsweeney]

Clearly there are differences in opinion based on each responder's experiences. Simply put, it is circumstance dependent. As for myself, I agree with Gavin in that Gen Cehm is not needed for organic (for the most part), only because this is what I experienced, hence where I stand on the situation. The first couple of Orgo 1 lectures toroughly reviewed atomic structure, Lewis dot structures, Lewis acids/bases, orbital hybridization, resonance structures, molecular geometry, inter/intra molecular forces, etc. etc. To tell you the truth, there is not much to know about the above anyway that cannot be memorized in a couple of hours; i.e Lewis acid accepts an electrom pair---not that big a deal. I think for the most part, the very LAST part of chemistry is what is important and professors (mine did) tell you "this is where Organic branches off"---at hybridizarion that is). The inter/intra molecular forces helped when deciphering physical properties (i.e boiling point of an alkane), but again that is trivial relative to what organic is all about. In my Organic class, I knew tons of people who never even looked at GChem and recognized right off what a joke Orgo was in terms of difficulty. What makes GChem so notorious are the equations accompanying second semester (orgo grazes first semester gchem BASICS in the first lecture and spends one second on second semester gchem hybridization. Also gchem has MATH and orgo does not). Orgo has no math and this is what make it unique. Orgo mainly deals with analyzing reaction reactants, products, reagents (memorizing them), intermediates, etc, etc. Orgo is totally different in that regard, but again it is dependent on what each professor per institution thought was necessary to teach and focus on. My professor and Gavin's professor seeminlgly taught us orgo in such a way as to minimize the gchem bridge construction. Other professors emphisize the gchem bridge.
-Cheers 😀