P-Chem

[cwb]

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Has anyone else taken this class? If so give me some freakin' advice/tips, my professor gives no HW/ no ex problems, does not follow the book at all, all he does is gives us derivations of equations then expects us to show up to the test and understand everything. It would be fine if he was going to curve the class, because everyone is doing horrible, but he's not. Lastly when I go into his office hours for help he treats me like a child with a loaded gun, as if I am not to be trusted with the knowledge that his random ass notes are supposed to bestow on me.

 

[gschl1234]

Originally posted by cwb
Has anyone else taken this class? If so give me some freakin' advice/tips, my professor gives no HW/ no ex problems, does not follow the book at all, all he does is gives us derivations of equations then expects us to show up to the test and understand everything. It would be fine if he was going to curve the class, because everyone is doing horrible, but he's not. Lastly when I go into his office hours for help he treats me like a child with a loaded gun, as if I am not to be trusted with the knowledge that his random ass notes are supposed to bestow on me.

What textbook are you using? Atkins? There are questions at the end of the chapter. Do them all. Also, are you in the thermo part or doing the quantum part? If you're doing the thermo (or kinetics) part make sure you have a good background from your gen chem class. It helped me to review the basic stuff first (make sure I really understand that through and through) and then tackle the more difficult problems. Also, make sure you read the chapters. Reading Atkins helped me. Also, my prof for quantum set the grades at 70=A, 60=B, 50=C. Where did your prof set the grades? How many people are in your class. For thermo/kinetics my prof had a curve which turned out to be A=70. And if you're taking thermo/kinetics with engineering majors, it helps to study with them since they've probably taken a lower-level engineering class in thermo. I did well in thermo/kinetics and barely scraped by with a B- in quantum.

Good luck.

 

[bubbajones]

i hated p chem ..my prof sucked. good luck man

 

[TheFlash]

P.chem is tough. Premeds that moan over orgo and physics need to take p.chem to be cut down to size. All in all, it was probably one of the toughest classes I've taken in my undergrad education. OP, there's no getting around the terse, abstract theory and differential equations that go into p.chem, so my best advice is suck it up as best you can and memorize those derivatives and partials to the best of your ability. Good luck, my friend. Hopefully your professor is a generous test curver. That's the only thing that saved me in that class. 🙂

tf

 

[Blade28]

Yeah...p-chem > o-chem for me. Yuck.

 

[essbe]

To the OP -- I used to tutor pchem in college a few years ago. I only have a BS and I'm *really* rusty (be forewarned: I may have forgotten most of it), but you can PM me if you have specific questions. I'll try my best to answer them.

 

[chintu]

I thought PChem thermo wasn't extremely difficult. It was more concepts than you may think, the math just follows. If you think carefully it all makes sense. And yes, you need to have a strong foundation of gen. chem. I took it along with biochem and some other tough courses and yet made an A with the highest grade in a class of 60 students. Working problems in the book was very helpful and so was doing all the homework. I even did extra problems. And make sure you read the book even though the prof. may not follow it. The Atkins book is great.

 

[PhysicsDoc]

In all honesty, pchem is not very bad... it's just a cut-down version of physics. Most premeds simply lack the quantitative background to do well in it (particularly the quantum half).

 

[RoccoWJ]

If you believe in a higher power, relate to him/her/it at least 1 hour a day. Then you may do well in p-chem.



No one knows what is going on exactly, no one knows if anything is actually going on and no one stops to think about anything......thats p-chem, just assumption after assumption that leads to an "ideal" number.



good luck

 

[Hamface16]

MY best advice is to do the problems in the book over and over and over until you know them cold. That's the ONLY want I got through PChem. As for your professor and his attitude- that's jus the way Pchemists are...huge jerks. Sorry to any PChemists out there, but one of my PChem tests was scheduled on the SAME DAY as the MCAT last year and my prof wouldn't let me take it a few days later, only the day before (like I was going to have enough time to study for it with the MCAT the next day). Who has Saturday tests anyway?!?! Anyway best of luck with PChem!

 

[UDbiochem]

man... same day as the mcat!! that is just wrong.

pchem stinks, and i'm just in pchem for biochem majors. i'm going to be glad after it's over next semester.

 

[ptanpit1]

My advice is to forget about doing "practice" problems and focus instead on the major quantum-mechanical or thermodynamic derivations and results. A lot of pchem does indeed derive from physics, etc. but it has a ton of relevance to practical chemistry problems, like spectroscopy and stat. mechs. Practice problems, like plugging in numbers, is probably not going to be on your exam, if your professor is anything like my professor.


Best of luck.