REALLY basic math

[indigoblue]

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Sooo, after talking to the admissions office secretary at USUHS and finding out that my major in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley did not cover their 2 semesters of general chemistry with lab, I enrolled in General Chemistry 2 at a nearby community college. I had recently given up my decently paying job at the NIH, so I applied for financial aid.

Halfway through the semester, I checked my balance and it was still at almost 1000 dollars. I asked the Financial Aid office about it and they said I needed at least 6 units to qualify. I weighed my options and looked in the catalogue. There were only two "late-starting" classes that began in November that I could still enroll for, both 1 unit each. One was a kinda cool Career Development class, and the other was Trigonometry. I thought about shelling out the 1000 bucks, but given that I would have to ask my parents who had already helped me financially so much this year, I decided to enroll.

Well, the semester is going well and I'm getting straight A's, but that's not saying much for the Trig class (it's so freakin easy, I don't even go to class, just show up for the exams)...

Now that I'm on post-interview hold at USUHS, I'm wondering what the Adcom is going to think when I give them my transcript and they see "Trigonometry" on it. Will it bring up any questions? I have already done well in 2 semesters of Calculus at Berkeley.

 

[indigoblue]

don't most med schools require two semesters of G-Chem w/ lab? I wonder why at UC Berkeley, both Molecular Cell Biology and Integrative Biology ("the premed majors") don't require this?

 

[Fermata]

don't most med schools require two semesters of G-Chem w/ lab? I wonder why at UC Berkeley, both Molecular Cell Biology and Integrative Biology ("the premed majors") don't require this?

Maybe because they assume a lot of these majors came in from high school with a solid background in chemistry?

 

[Pharmwannab]

don't most med schools require two semesters of G-Chem w/ lab? I wonder why at UC Berkeley, both Molecular Cell Biology and Integrative Biology ("the premed majors") don't require this?

I find it odd too, because chem. at Berkeley is much more rigorous than any A.P. high school chem. course. Not to mention not everyone is going to have taken A.P. chem. in high school. Chemisty is so fundamental to biology as well... who knows, the bureaucracy at Berkeley was always lacking.

 

[Fermata]

I find it odd too, because chem. at Berkeley is much more rigorous than any A.P. high school chem. course. Not to mention not everyone is going to have taken A.P. chem. in high school. Chemisty is so fundamental to biology as well... who knows, the bureaucracy at Berkeley was always lacking.

A lot of times the people who create curriculums can't always fit in what they want within the required amount of hours so something gets shoved out.

I'm on a course and curriculum council for my college here.

It happens more often than you think.

 

[Goguryo]

Sooo, after talking to the admissions office secretary at USUHS and finding out that my major in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley did not cover their 2 semesters of general chemistry with lab, I enrolled in General Chemistry 2 at a nearby community college. I had recently given up my decently paying job at the NIH, so I applied for financial aid.

Halfway through the semester, I checked my balance and it was still at almost 1000 dollars. I asked the Financial Aid office about it and they said I needed at least 6 units to qualify. I weighed my options and looked in the catalogue. There were only two "late-starting" classes that began in November that I could still enroll for, both 1 unit each. One was a kinda cool Career Development class, and the other was Trigonometry. I thought about shelling out the 1000 bucks, but given that I would have to ask my parents who had already helped me financially so much this year, I decided to enroll.

Well, the semester is going well and I'm getting straight A's, but that's not saying much for the Trig class (it's so freakin easy, I don't even go to class, just show up for the exams)...

Now that I'm on post-interview hold at USUHS, I'm wondering what the Adcom is going to think when I give them my transcript and they see "Trigonometry" on it. Will it bring up any questions? I have already done well in 2 semesters of Calculus at Berkeley.

Algebra turned out to be a requirement for the specialty for the army chemical operations and thus it works out fine.

 

[Mister Pie]

Wait, hold on. What happened? At Berkeley, most of the MCB premeds satisfy their gchem/ochem requirement with these four classes: chem1a, chem3a, chem3b, mcb102. Does the med school in particular not accept this? That's really odd....

 

[Avalanche21]

Yet they accept gen chem from a community college? I find that odd...

 

[abcxyz0123]

theres nothing odd about this. you can either take normal general chemistry where it is divided into two semesters, or you can take a more advanced version, that most hardcore people take, which is both semesters combined into one crazy semester. we have that at uw-madison, its called chem 109 (as opposed to the normal chem 103/104) and the only school that will accept chem 109 as two semesters is the uw-madison med school. everyone else is unfamiliar with it so if u take chem 109 u have to take something even more advanced usually, like real inorganic chem, ...or just go the CC route.

 

[alwaysaangel]

First - why bump a year old thread?

Second - I think the Berkeley system is different that UW-Madison. Our system is just worded and named funny. Realistically our Chem 1A and Chem 3A (G-Chem and first semester of O-Chem) are both general chemistry. And Chem 3B and MCB 100 (O-chem and Biochem) are considered the O-chem semesters. According to our premed office every medical school in the country accepts this series. And until this guy I had never heard of an exception.

 

[drbear]

A lot of times the people who create curriculums can't always fit in what they want within the required amount of hours so something gets shoved out.

I'm on a course and curriculum council for my college here.

It happens more often than you think.

A year of Gchem with lab is a BASIC MEDICAL SCHOOL REQUIREMENT, REQUIRED BY NEARLY ALL MEDICAL SCHOOLS. AP credit does not count. Why, as a molecular bio major did you not have to take general chemistry? Did you have to take any biology classes or did they leave those out too? I'm really amazed that you had a science major and weren't required to take Gchem, and that your advisors at UCB were so enept that they didn't inform you that Gchem is a basic medical school requirement. Hope you get it done at the JC and everything works out.

Best of luck

 

[rpkall]

ahahahh If math more complicated than algebra were commonplace in medical school, half my class would complain. Including me. 😉

The most you'll ever need are the BASIC concepts of calculus--understanding that the slope at a point on a graph is the derivative at that x-value, or that the area under a curve is the integral, and represents an accumulation of values over some time period. And you need to know some logorithmic stuff for pH and log scales and relationships between values (such and such is 20-fold greater than such and such). Blah blah.

Just get whatever prereqs you need done, and don't really worry about the math. 😉