Pchem is the worst class ever

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Midwestern Blot said:
I'm really hating on quantum and spectroscopy as they are ruining my life.
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I'm on the other end of the spectrum (ha...ha...shut up). Pchem is easily in my top 3 favorite undergraduate classes, and might be number one when all is said and done.
 
My P-Chem class was my absolute least favorite class in undergraduate. Bar none!!!
 
this is the hardest class ever. 😡😡😡😡
 
I thought it was far easier than my chemical engineering courses. Unlike ChE thermo, in Pchem you can actually assume ideal gasses and use derived equations. Everything in ChE was empirical and you had to use 2 tables, a graph, and a tertiary phase diagram to acquire each number in your calculation.
 
first post in the MD forum. lol

and YES Pchem is a hard class... i do not enjoy it at all..
 
P-chem is pretty much the reason why I decided against a biochem major. I'm scared of the hard mathy-ness. My uni would require me to take another math course in accelerated stats after I'm done with calc too. Too much math involved with the major scared me away. :scared:

Good luck to you...
 
^
Inorganic is awesome! At least it's useful. On the other hand, PCHEM sucks because it's not practical whatsoever(from the undergrads point of view).

OP..haha...just be happy that you're not taking Honors Pchem...we got raped a day before thanksgiving. We are expecting a 20% median...
 
Chemdude said:
^
Inorganic is awesome! At least it's useful. On the other hand, PCHEM sucks because it's not practical whatsoever(from the undergrads point of view).

OP..haha...just be happy that you're not taking Honors Pchem...we got raped a day before thanksgiving. We are expecting a 20% median...
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Imagine getting an 80% when the median is 20%... :laugh:
 
At my school, there's gen chem and there's inorganic. Inorganic (MO diagrams, hard-soft acid-base theory, other junk) = Satan's spawn = death. Yes it is both things. It can be done.
 
want to do well in pchem? read the textbook. still don't understand? read the textbook again. then again, again, again until you get it.

still don't get it? find another source to explain the material. plenty of it exists online. you'll eventually get it. once the material starts speaking to you and you see the patterns, you got it.
 
Yeah, pchem becomes a lot easier when you get a hang of using the derivatives and the math to help you understand things. It's when you stop memorizing equations and really start looking at what the underlying principles are, and how they make sense from a molecular viewpoint.

I don't think you can really compare inorganic and physical chemistry; they're two completely different animals. Both use a lot of math, but inorganic is more about bonding theory and molecular orbitals, using the electronic properties of individual atoms, whereas physical chemistry is more about processes and how they are affected by conditions and interactions.
 
JasonE said:
want to do well in pchem? read the textbook. still don't understand? read the textbook again. then again, again, again until you get it.

still don't get it? find another source to explain the material. plenty of it exists online. you'll eventually get it. once the material starts speaking to you and you see the patterns, you got it.
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I have to disagree. The key to doing well in Pchem is not reading and rereading, it's doing lots and lots of problems. You can read all you want, but if the exam is all problems that you don't know how to do, you'll be screwed. My best strategy was to always refer to the readings to help myself do the problems, and that's worked pretty well in all my math/physical science classes so far.
 
I totally agree with this!

After a few weeks of this material and zero guidance from my 80 year old professor, I decided that I shouldn't be taking a class not required by my major.

Never dropped a class after going to it for over a week.

Never been happier 🙂
 
I'm so glad I went to a LAC so that I had someone to hold my hand and spoon-feed me the material, otherwise I would have gone even more crazy when I took p-chem
 
JasonE said:
want to do well in pchem? read the textbook. still don't understand? read the textbook again. then again, again, again until you get it.

still don't get it? find another source to explain the material. plenty of it exists online. you'll eventually get it. once the material starts speaking to you and you see the patterns, you got it.
Click to expand...

avo said:
Yeah, pchem becomes a lot easier when you get a hang of using the derivatives and the math to help you understand things. It's when you stop memorizing equations and really start looking at what the underlying principles are, and how they make sense from a molecular viewpoint.

I don't think you can really compare inorganic and physical chemistry; they're two completely different animals. Both use a lot of math, but inorganic is more about bonding theory and molecular orbitals, using the electronic properties of individual atoms, whereas physical chemistry is more about processes and how they are affected by conditions and interactions.
Click to expand...

Reading and rereading the textbook will just make your head turn to mush. If you don't understand how variables are substituted and how derivatives and integrals work, you're not going to understand anything no matter how many times you read the book, which, btw, skips many of the in-between steps.

First and foremost, understand the assumptions about the system. Pay attention to what is kept constant when you take your partial derivatives. And learn how to write your Greek letters efficiently.
 
FloatOn said:
Reading and rereading the textbook will just make your head turn to mush. If you don't understand how variables are substituted and how derivatives and integrals work, you're not going to understand anything no matter how many times you read the book, which, btw, skips many of the in-between steps.

First and foremost, understand the assumptions about the system. Pay attention to what is kept constant when you take your partial derivatives. And learn how to write your Greek letters efficiently.
Click to expand...

I agree. I took PChem when I transferred as a chemistry major, before I found out about the pharmacology major. I learned PChem the same way I learned gen chem. I ignored the required readings and went straight to the problem sets. Most exam problems are based on math, and those that are conceptual make sense when you understand the math behind them. Don't dwell on the concepts...make sure you can do every problem in every chapter that is assigned to you. Trust me on this. I pulled off an A against all odds (while in the process of changing my major so I didn't have to continue this madness!!) just by doing problems, often with the help of a TA, until everything started falling into place.
 
Second the above posts.

reading the book is an entire waste of time if your tests are similar to most p-chem tests (all problem-based). Work through problems so that you understand the goal in each type of problem, and also the pertinent derivations to arrive at that goal. The book usually just tells you in 1000 very obtuse words what you would figure out yourself by looking at one solved problem.
 
My physical chemistry professor would give us problems that involved things that were not possible in the real world. He would expect that one could figure this out if one has mastered theory to the point of being able to solve problems. On the first exam, some people went completely off the post but I simply explained after making my derivations that his premises were not possible on Earth as we lived.

Turned out, I was right and Physical Chemistry was awesome because I learned to apply my knowledge of deriving theories to solve problems. I also ended up writing several computer programs to analyze my data too. Loved the course as it was the practical applications of those differential equations that I had spent the previous year mastering. I remember when he gave us a problem that involved inflating a tire with a real gas (a gas that was supposed to exhibit real behaviour) but tire inflation wasn't possible because the gas couldn't exist on earth if you did the problem correctly. It was facinating stuff. Great exams.
 
T12 said:
Second the above posts.

reading the book is an entire waste of time if your tests are similar to most p-chem tests (all problem-based). Work through problems so that you understand the goal in each type of problem, and also the pertinent derivations to arrive at that goal. The book usually just tells you in 1000 very obtuse words what you would figure out yourself by looking at one solved problem.
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That's what ALL chemistry/math/physics/etc. textbooks do.
 
At my school the one credit hour PChem lab was much worse in terms of time and work than the three credit hour Pchem lecture.
 
it depends on how your class is tought/tested. we did mostly conceptual stuff for quantum without the heavy duty math. plus once you get to the quantum of spec, its really not about the problems and more about theory. pchem really requires you to understand what you're doing, not just be a problem solver
 
ijn said:
At my school the one credit hour PChem lab was much worse in terms of time and work than the three credit hour Pchem lecture.
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Don't even get me started on lab...
 
thesauce said:
I thought it was far easier than my chemical engineering courses. Unlike ChE thermo, in Pchem you can actually assume ideal gasses and use derived equations. Everything in ChE was empirical and you had to use 2 tables, a graph, and a tertiary phase diagram to acquire each number in your calculation.
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I was in PChem with mostly ChemE's and boy did they complain about the useless plug and chug they had to do for their other classes.

One thing to remember with PChem is that if you get half the questions right, you are probably solid. People get A's with mid sixties average on exams.
 
JasonE said:
it depends on how your class is tought/tested. we did mostly conceptual stuff for quantum without the heavy duty math. plus once you get to the quantum of spec, its really not about the problems and more about theory. pchem really requires you to understand what you're doing, not just be a problem solver
Click to expand...

you had a ***** pchem class. For us it was all derivations all day. It was horrible. And nobody understands PChem, so it is just models, problem solving and derivations.
 
PChem's supposedly really easy at my school. People say it's just learning how to do derivations and solve problems, and it's not that hard to understand.
 
Very few people (other than chemical engineering students lol) formulate the correct answer on the tests. Partial credit will get you an A! Just show all your work, equations, derivations, and briefly explain how you came to that conclusion and you should get partial credit. That's what I did and ended up with an A. You don't have to know/understand everything. Just a little more then everyone else 🙂
 
thesauce said:
I thought it was far easier than my chemical engineering courses. Unlike ChE thermo, in Pchem you can actually assume ideal gasses and use derived equations. Everything in ChE was empirical and you had to use 2 tables, a graph, and a tertiary phase diagram to acquire each number in your calculation.
Click to expand...

lol im a chemical engineer too
pchem was definitely the easier class out of my chemeng courses
 
FlowRate said:
Our class is weird. All the people I know personally (all chemE's) and a couple of chem majors get ~90%+ on the exams, but the cutoff for an A is usually about 70%.
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Really!? I think our A was 85%+.
 
I heard there's a lot of calculus involved in pchem... I'm taking that next semester ..and currently taking calc 2 so hopefully it'll work out good.

😀 👍 Taylor series woohoo 👍 😀
 
eez said:
I heard there's a lot of calculus involved in pchem... I'm taking that next semester ..and currently taking calc 2 so hopefully it'll work out good.

😀 👍 Taylor series woohoo 👍 😀
Click to expand...

It's mostly calc 3. If you go into PChem without calc 3, you're going to have a hard time with the derivations. That's how my class is, at least. Actually, differential equations really helps, too.
 
I loved pchem. Being a math major helped enormously, as I had already taken complex analysis (beyond calc 3), linear algebra, and graph theory - those courses made the math in pchem very simple. In fact, had med school not worked out, I was all set to enter a pchem PhD program.

Pchem rocks. (but I will admit I spent a large amount of time tutoring my fellow students in the math necessary to make pchem much more manageable. The math is SO key for pchem.)
 
At my school, we have to take a hybrid course of linear algebra and differential equations before we can take pchem. The math course was much more difficult than the pchem!
 
Muhahahahah. Go do your matrices and your rotations and your vibrations 😛
 
I didn't take Calc III and I had no problems with the math. It was just a matter of getting used to the partial derivative notation and I think that's it.
 
Our math requirement in order to take P-chem was just Calc II and it suited me fine. Of course, pchem is damn hard, but I really enjoyed it. Did anyone else have to calculate the temperature of the universe? Now that was cool.



"Students do not choose to study P-chem, P-chem chooses you..." as my professor says. Lol.
 
I've also heard that DiffEQ really does help for P-chem. And I agree, math is very key to the course, even if you don't understand some of the concepts.
 
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