Quarter vs Semester Education System

[Liventuz]

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Hi everyone. Well, this is my first post in this forum. I am a premed student... I took two quarters of organic chemistry 1 & 2 (10 credit hours)at a certain u.s. university. However, in order to fulfill the prereq requirement for med school, I was told that this was not enough for med school since a credit hour in a quarter system is equivalent to about 2/3 of that in a semester system, thus making my total organic chem credit hours to be less than 8 (which I believe is the requirement). So I wanted to know if I should take the organic chem courses again at a semester-based school. If so, should I just take the organic chem 2 or both 1 & 2? Thanks. (Btw, assume I have fulfilled all the other prereqs)

 

[Mayday]

Hi everyone. Well, this is my first post in this forum. I am a premed student... I took two quarters of organic chemistry 1 & 2 (10 credit hours)at a certain u.s. university. However, in order to fulfill the prereq requirement for med school, I was told that this was not enough for med school since a credit hour in a quarter system is equivalent to about 2/3 of that in a semester system, thus making my total organic chem credit hours to be less than 8 (which I believe is the requirement). So I wanted to know if I should take the organic chem courses again at a semester-based school. If so, should I just take the organic chem 2 or both 1 & 2? Thanks. (Btw, assume I have fulfilled all the other prereqs)

There should be an organic chem 3 offered at your school. If so, that's the way to go. Ochem 1&2 on the semester system covers the same amount of material that is covered in Ochem 1,2&3 on the quarter system. If you can't take an OChem3 at your school, then Ochem2 at a semester system school should cover the extra material.

 

[Lokhtar]

Yup, in the quarter system, all the two semester courses will be in I & II and III (Chem, physics, o-chem, bio, etc).

 

[Liventuz]

Thanks guys for the reply. Unfortunately my school doesn't offer the org chem 3 , so I think what you're telling me is to take the org chem 2 at a semester-based school to cover the extra material.

 

[Mayday]

Basically, yeah, that's what you will have to do. I've never heard of a quarter based school not having the 3rd class in a series. You'll wind up reviewing about half of the ochem 2 class that you took probably.

 

[DrAnteater]

ucla has 2 quarters of ochem
irvine/san diego have much better organized lower division classes, but LA's upper division is better than irvine/ san diego

 

[kplreveal]

actually, I'm in the same situation. I only took 2 quarters of Ochem, even though 3 are offered. But our school actually has a different curriculum for the 3rd quarter, as it's biochem, rather than ochem. For bio majors who need a full year of ochem - they do not require the 3rd Q of ochem. Do you think med schools account for that?