How bad is P-Chem

[americanangel]

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Well how bad is it really? I know that a bunch of ppl at school same I'm insane for being a biochem major because of p-chem. I know its a hard class, but what I hear even from the chem majors is that its impossible. What they tell me is this semester, no one is even getting a C.
Now nothing for now, I figured next year (which is my junior year) I would do biochem, i-chem, a-chem and micro and another bio course over the course of the year and worry about MCATs and then worry about p-chem when I'm a senior! They all tell me I'm crazy because p-chem is so hard that I wouldn't be able to graduate!!!
Now come on, whats the truth hear????

 

[rtmcad2319]

It's not that bad if you like theory based/math classes. The key to the lab is to find a good p-chem pub(sci finder) and model your reports after it! Good luck!

 

[americanangel]

I'll keep that in mind!!!
Thanks!!!

 

[cytoskelement]

it really depends on how much math you've had and the p-chem topics you'll need to cover. thermodynamics is all integration, not all that bad either. i remember quantum as being pretty surreal, heavy math - and not real easy to wrap your mind around. its not impossible. its one of those classes that you really need to cover the day's material that day, work A LOT of problems and actually use office hours (eww... what the hell are they?). good luck.
i second the last poster on the lab. usually, you can find someone that took the lab in a previous year and model after their reports.

 

[skiracer90]

One of the grad students in my lab are taking it and she seems to be doing pretty poorly. She's rather intelligent and I do believe she's currently getting a C in that class. I think her main difficulty is with the math aspect of it though...so if you are great with calc, you'll probably do reasonably well.

 

[Medikit]

It probably depends on the professor like most classes. This means if I were you I wouldn't go into it expecting an A.

The class itself bothers me more than anything else. During an interview I was told by my interviewer that the lab really helps make the class enjoyable. This might be true because I'm really not enjoying the material. I'm taking the quantum portion right now. At first I was doing so much math it felt like a math class. It's kind of cool to see where all the spectroscopy came from but I'm looking forward to thermo since I think I will enjoy that more.

 

[JDAD]

PARTICLE IN A BOX



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH



Never again, PCHEM is worse than worse. It's infinity worse.

 

[wxl31]

i took biophysical chemistry at uc berkeley. i agree with what the other posters said about the math being the hard part. i did well but only with the help of my genius boyfriend who helped me translate word problems into math eqns.

 

[ShyRem]

I took P-chem the same time as O-chem and advanced calc. Of the three classes, p-chem was DEFINITELY the easiest (the hardest and biggest pain in my a** being advanced calc). I thought it explained a whole heck of a lot. As for quantum, I didn't think it was that bad either, but I had complex variables, so the math was a piece of cake. Thermo? Loved it.

Having said that, I am a math major (but after p-chem I added a chem major, too), so the math thing was definitely the easiest part of the whole package for me. Everyone else in class, tho, definitely had a hard time with doing the math AND concepts at the same time. And, yes, about 1/3 of the class failed. About half got a C or D. I got an A, and I credit that mainly to my math background. This year's class average is about 53 I hear.

If you have a reasonable math background and really GOT physics and chemistry, you'll do fine. Put your time into it, and you'll get your bumper sticker at the end "Honk if you passed P-chem!" 🙂

 

[KiKat37]

Pretty bad... Terrible... Arrg... My stomach hurts just thinking about it again. 😱 Good luck!

 

[BAM!]

it's a lot of "tricky math." I felt like after taking pchem I was really good a doing chem problems... but is that what you want to get out of taking a class? you won't learn anything worth remembering in this class unless you want to go to Chem grad school. And yes, it is really hard.

Cheers!

 

[oniwindu]

it's a lot of "tricky math." I felt like after taking pchem I was really good a doing chem problems... but is that what you want to get out of taking a class? you won't learn anything worth remembering in this class unless you want to go to Chem grad school. And yes, it is really hard.

Cheers!

my thoughts exactly. It has been a while since I thought about those classes. I think Thermo is pretty manageable, but once it got to quantum, with rigid rotators and particles in a box and all those other random orbital theory things that I can't even remember, it was very very heavily abstract. You are basically doing math the whole time (Eigen functions, integrations, solving for multiple variables) My prof was awesome and made the pain worth it and he actually related the theory to real-world chem and engineering applications, but seriously, unless you are interested in theoretical chem, the applications you learn in this class are basically useless. The classes were an exercise in perseverance. I HATED math, too!!!

 

[Khenon]

I agree with everyone that basically said it's a math based class. So if you're good at math, then you'll be fine in p-chem. And this is coming from someone who got B's in all her chem classes, except p-chem . . . I got an A. I really believe it's because I'm more "math" minded, so it was easier for me then the other chem classes. But I've also hear that p-chem is what makes chem majors stop being chem majors, so I know it's not for everyone. Best of luck.

 

[PhysicsDoc]

The problem with the quantum half of pchem is that it attempts to cover in one semester material which is covered in *three* semesters (albeit far, far more in-depth) in the physics department. Couple that with the fact that most biochem/chem majors don't even have the mathematical background to deal with the stuff in the first third of the course, and you've got yourself a 40-50% exam average and a lot of people dropping chem/biochem majors as a result.

Pchem should, at a very minimum, have linear algebra/diff eq (separate classes, and *in that order*) as prerequisites. Not only does knowledge of the math make pchem a far easier and almost intuitive class, but this math is stuff that's used on a daily basis to solve problems in the biochemical/chemical/medical sciences, so you should know it anyway.

(This is just my opinion... but the departments are always loath to list more math classes as prereqs because it would only cause a further exodus of students to business/psych. If you haven't taken the math before you enroll in pchem, you're doing so at your own peril.)

 

[PostalWookie]

My pchem was awesome. We have way more biochem than straight up chem people taking it, so they cater to us. The book is something like Physical Chemistry for Biology. The math isn't too bad - the toughest stuff we had to deal with was partial derivatives. I'm not a math person, and it took me 2 weeks to figure out what the funny symbols were (partial derivatives). We did thermo and kinetics first semester, then quantum and spectroscopy second semester. Overall a very usefull class, but still more work than all my other courses combined.

Oh, and the second semester, the teacher told us he wanted it to be more about the concepts than the math. So we had questions like "how can you tell if a molecule is hydrophobic?"

 

[stormpr]

PARTICLE IN A BOX



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH



Never again, PCHEM is worse than worse. It's infinity worse.

So funny! pchem made me lose my mind! because of pchem I developed social anxiety disorder, had to take anti-anxiety anti-depression meds for a month followed up by a healthy dose of psycho-therapy... Looking back, I'd say pchem was the equivalent of losing my mental virginity via rectal rape, but somehow... I dont regret it and after all, I still got an A 😛

 

[americanangel]

I've finished up to Calc II with an A in both parts and I really love math and things...I've honestly been debating whether or not to talk Calc III and other math classes mainly because of P-chem and because I like math. I won't lie and say calc II was a breeze, it was a lot of work but still, I liked it and managed to do well!
Anyway, so what I get from all of this is if I have a strong math background I should do well? I know that the prof at our school spends at least three weeks on just math needed for the course. I dont know...I was talking to my math professor and they are like take some more classes and my chem profs think I'm crazy even when I say my concern for p-chem!!!
So to do more math or not to???

 

[Mwz1024]

P-Chem at my school is a joke. Our teacher lets us use a cheat sheet and we can put anything we want on it. Along with that he gives us the old tests from last year and they are about the same. Anyways my point is that I didn't learn jackSh*t

 

[relentless11]

PChem was hyped up way too much, just like OChem. If you're a competent student, and the class is part of your undergrad requirements then you should have no problems.

I found it to be general chemistry combined with physics, which is merely calculus. I thought it was pretty interesting, to see real chemistry, rather than that watered down stuff we learned in general chemistry.

If you're ok with calculus, and are on good terms with chemistry, and physics you should have no problems. The only things that can screw you over would be (as always) a bad professor, or bad books. These can potentially be fixed by finding a good professor and finding other resources respectively.

So in a nutshell, PChem wasn't too bad. I felt it required less work than OChem, and GChem combined. Probably because there wasn't a lab, less memorization, more quantitative, and somewhat of a review (thanks to GChem).

 

[Tallguy]

Unlike the last poster we had a lab for p.chem. that required us to submit 30-40 page lab reports... Thermo was decent...but our quantum class started with 40 students....30 withdrew....we were left with 10 at the end...and half those students failed.... CLEARLY, p. chem is not hyped up as being difficult.

 

[Nutmeg]

I think it depends entirely on the school. At Berkeley, there are two pseudo-biochem majors. If you major in molecular and cell biology with an emphasis in biochemistry, you only have to take "biophysical chemistry," which only requires one semester of calc. If you major in chemical biology, you take the brutal two semesters of p-chem that chem majors take, which requires four semeters of calc (through differential equations), along with two semesters of calculaus based physics as a prereq. Even despite this, I had to learn a s***load of additional math. If you have to deal with canonical equations, then the math gets facking ugly--and even with all of that, I wouldn't say that the math was the hardest part. The concepts are insanely complex, and they make the genetics crap that a lot of people like to whine about look like childs play. There's crap like spin that has no common sense analogy, spin-spin coupling, and my professor made us learn about quantum computing and all sorts of crazy crap. I'd say ask the peeps in your school to know what you're looking at, because a lot of the things people have described on this thread bear no relation to my experience (ie, no labs, no reports, etc.).