How tough is it taking chemistry 1 and 2 in the summer?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

PreDentalkid

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
and are there anyways i can prepare for it early, i did pretty good on my ap chem exam. and i was good in chemistry in HS.

what should i expect, and what advice do you have for me to stay on top of things and get a good grade.

Members don't see this ad.
 
i did not take chem in high school, I hate number (g chem/physics) but like ochem/bio.

I took the entire year (g chem 1 and 2 with labs) over a summer period of 8 weeks. considering I hate g chem, it was a little harder for me. but it is possible, just may be hard to retain if you dont take the DAT within a certain period of time within taking g chem. for me it was hard to retain the g chem 1 and 2 in an 8 week period and then take the DAT 4 years later

its possible, good luck

btw, I did the same with physics
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I took gen chem 1 and 2 over this past summer. I was terrified because I sucked at chemistry in high school and I was worried about shoving 2 semesters into about 12 weeks. And gen chem at my school is the most dreaded pre-med class -- the class is super hard and the professors are all terrible.

But in the summer it was not bad at all. I got As both semester. It was actually almost.... easy. It was really tiring by the end because we had so much crammed in every week (lecture every day, 2 labs each week, 2 lab reports due each week, quizzes each week, etc) and I was also TAing for another class, but it was definitely much easier than gen chem during the regular school year. My summer professor didn't care about significant figures or anything on our tests. The TFs gave us a LOT of help - they clarified everything our professor said and they wold give us practice problems that were nearly identical to the questions on the test. I actually honestly have no idea how everyone didn't get A's.

So I think it's probably safe to assume that summer classes are at least a little bit easier (in terms of difficulty of the course/tests), but it's definitely tough to have all that work crammed in.
 
everyone says chem is really tough at my school, but i think i'm going to man up and go through with it. or else i'm going to be really off track with my prequisites
 
i had a horrible experience with gen chem 2 this past summer. dont do it unless you need to.
 
Kinda odd hearing general chem is a hard class. Everyone I talk to always says organic is the tougher of the two. And at my university, organic is the "weed-em-out" course for premed majors.
 
hard but you can do it :)
 
Last edited:
i had a horrible experience with gen chem 2 this past summer. dont do it unless you need to.

Ditto this. We went over a week's worth of information per class period. The lab was also a pain in the butt too.
 
Kinda odd hearing general chem is a hard class. Everyone I talk to always says organic is the tougher of the two. And at my university, organic is the "weed-em-out" course for premed majors.

Same here. Actually, my senior year, when I was taking P-chem, the teacher told us that it was a weeder class, to get rid of the people who weren't hardcore enough to be a chemistry major. It frightened me quite a bit... What happens if i get weeded out of my major during my senior year!?!

Anyway, to get back to the original question, I think you'll be fine taking a combined gen chem course if you took AP and passed it. It'll be harder in college for sure, but if you had a pretty good understanding if it in HS, then you'll be golden. I never actually took gen chem, only AP, but I'm a TA for it right now.
 
i don't understand how anyone got an A in the labs. unless you aren't actually graded on your results.....my lab instructors dock like 50 points off your lab report if your results came out wrong. I think maybe ONE kid got an A in lab this semester and even he failed a couple of labs. I'll be lucky to get a C. It was just torture. No one ever did the labs right and even with a curve half the class or more will still fail.
 
I would check and see who is teaching Chem 1 and 2 during the summer, and then ask other students what those teachers are like. The difficulty level can really depend on the teacher (as well as on your specific study skills).

If you have a good teacher, I found that I preferred taking Chem and other Science classes during the summer session because you can get it over quickly, and you do not have to retain a lot of information for a long period of time. This is why I also prefer the quarter system to the semester system. Good luck! :)
 
If we have to worry about the degree of difficulty in taking 2 courses during 2 summer sessions maybe we need to reconsider our career choice.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
If we have to worry about the degree of difficulty in taking 2 courses during 2 summer sessions maybe we need to reconsider our career choice.

I think this statement is both rude and discouraging. If the student happens to struggle in the subject and feels his/her grades may suffer because less time is given to understand the concepts in a summer class, you think he/she should reconsider his/her career choice? Chemistry does not come easy to everybody. Plenty of people on this forum admit to having a few Cs during their fall and spring semesters. Should they have reconsidered their career choices because of it? It's a good thing they didn't because many of those people have been given acceptances.

OP, if you did well in Chemistry, I think you can handle the summer sessions. Worst case scenario, you can drop it and take it first semester. My advice is do not procrastinate. Go home and review everything you went over in lecture. You will need to devote a lot of time if you want to keep up.
 
Last edited:
I think the summer is the easiest time to take a hard course. You can focus on just that one course and really do well in it. That being said, if what doc toothache said was a bit rude, it's also a bit true :( If you struggle in general chemistry how will you do in organic, biochemistry, and microbiology? Not to mention dental school classes. In any case, get one of those Dummies books, they're actually very helpful (I used one for OChem), they really make all the information easy to understand, and once you get the concepts right you can get the math no prob.

Good luck
 
From what I've heard, Dental School mostly focuses on Biochemistry and Biology. Doc Toothache is a dentist, so he would know better than I do!

Personally, I thought Chemistry during the school year was much easier than during the summer.
 
and are there anyways i can prepare for it early, i did pretty good on my ap chem exam. and i was good in chemistry in HS.

This is a stupid question. Of course you can prepare for it early. Get a textbook and start reading.

what should i expect,

Think about it. Same amount of material covered in less time. What do you think that means? And it's best to ask someone who has done it at your school. Chem at say Harvard will be different than at a community college.

and what advice do you have for me to stay on top of things and get a good grade

ummm...study?
 
1st level college chemistry courses are AP chemistry all over again.
 
Yeah Chem I should be a breeze... I struggled a little bit with Chem II (but mainly bc of the teacher). I think you should go for it. Especially Chem I, its not that hard at all, basically the same thing as high school chemistry.
 
Nothing like bringing hs attitude to a pre professional forum.

my sincerest apologies sir

oreilly_u_mad.jpg
 
Last summer I took Physics 1 during summer session 1. Then I took Orgo 2 in the morning and physics 2 at night during summer session 2. Thats a total of 13 credits this past summer. I made it out with all three As.

Doable? yes. difficult? scale of 1-10 i'd say about a 8.97253
 
wow... insane..3classes during summer.... i thought 1 science class is hard during summer.. may be i should try that haha
 
gen chem 1 and 2 in the summer should not be hard at all. :corny:
 
Last summer I took Physics 1 during summer session 1. Then I took Orgo 2 in the morning and physics 2 at night during summer session 2. Thats a total of 13 credits this past summer. I made it out with all three As.

Doable? yes. difficult? scale of 1-10 i'd say about a 8.97253


Ahh, this is what keeps my hopes up about taking ochem 1/2 over the next summer.

Something I've noticed time and time again about "hard/difficult" courses/programs, more often than not the people who have had more trouble speak out the most, where as the people who kicked ass are often quiet. And I also note that whenever I've encountered this attitude of something being insanely hard, it's never even close to that degree when I have to do it.

Another thing I like to keep in mind, is that when you compare a summer course vs the same over a semester, yeah the thing is condensed and intensive, but you also don't have 4 other classes to contend with, including probably another science course; so based on that logic alone they should be comparable.

Finally, if this was the first time I'd ever taken classes (say I was a Freshman, or 18 or something), then I might be concerned about "retention" of information, especially for the DAT; however because I've had plenty of experience, experiencing how I retain information, I know that taking gen chem over the year (2 regular semesters) didn't make me remember anything particularly well, despite studying hard and doing very well. I think retention is really about the individual student.
 
This is what my summer schedule looks like;
Chem1+lab (retake)
Chem2+lab (retake)
Pre-calc/trig (retake)
Calculus 2

= no social life for 2 months
 
Top