Physics and Chemistry, Need Advice

[BlueAvocado]

Hello,

I just started my Pre Med classes this week. I am a Business Major Graduate and don't really have a strong science background from college. I took science classes in HS and did pretty well on them.

Although, I express great deal of interest for Science and Math, it's been about 6 years since I have taken either and I can really notice the rust build up in my brain.

My question is for the people who have been through these classes and for those who might have struggled at first, I would like to know what you guys did to be sucessfull. What are some suggestions for me on how I should aproach learning this material not just to get a good grade but to also learn and retain the material for the MCAT. I asked my Physics instructor on what things I should really concetrate on, and he really didn't know other to say that they might have Biology based Physics on the test.

I was also a little nervous when the Chemistry teacher started putting on the board different chemical bonds and spoke as if we should already know this stuff. I' ve seen all of it but my grasp on it is far from proficient. I ran to the nearest Barns&Noble and got the hopefully helpfull guides like "Chemistry for Dummies" and Cliff Notes on Physics. Although I am trying to get everything ready to go and do best I can I would still like to hear from the experts. Thanx in advance for the help.

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[loomis]

Hi
Great to hear you're thinking about med school! For me, also as a person who had been out of college for 5 years+, I was very rusty on my sciences (I was a psych undergrad so not much "hard" science anyway). I found conceptual physics by Hewitt to be VERY helpful for physics. Chem, I used brown, lemay, Chemistry-the central science (8th ed). I thought this book went into a fair amount of depth but was written well. Good luck!
Loomis

 

[GuitarMan]

I also went back to school to do premed classes after having majored in psych and even gone to grad school in psych. The first day of class the professor said "You should know the first two chapters from last year, so we are starting on chapter three." and proceeded to scribble chemical structures on the overhead at the fastest pace I've ever seen. In fact, he didn't look up to see how the class was doing, or answer any questions the whole semester. If someone interupted with a question, he shouted with a thick German accent "I'm getting to that! Just hold on!"

At the end of the semester I had taken over 100 pages of notes (written on front and back). I got an A, but I had to study like a dog the first several weeks just to catch up, and really busted my A$$ the whole semester going back to my gen chem book from undergrad to refresh my memory.

My advice, bust your a$$ and review old concepts frequently.

 

[BlueAvocado]

Thanx for the responce guys, I plan to bust my bootey on these classes from the beginning. I am fortunate that I don't have a job right now so I have some free time to devote to nothing but study. Hopefully it will be enough.

 

[Hallm_7]

Stay caught up. You can't learn Chemistry in one night like you can in some other classes that are heavy on memorization. Chemistry is all about concepts and those may take a while to learn.

 

[loomis]

good luck! PM me if you have any questions about materials