Skip gen chem and go to orgo?

[phatsebz]

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i have credit for gen chem 1......should i skip it and go straight to chem 2? minddd youuu i remember nothinggg from chem 1.....well okk maybe wat a mole is....but should i rely on review and go to chem 2? or take chem 1 over again? I need a B to remain in my programm....any advice would be great thanks!

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I would say it depends on how well you did in chem 1. I had a very strong chem class in high school but I didn't take the AP, so I had to take it in college. I really felt much better about the material the second time. Only you know how comfortable you are with the material. On the other hand, only a few things in gen chem really help you in orgo, so if you are comfortable with those things, s/a orbitals and acids/bases, you might be OK to go on ahead. (From the title of your thread I am assuming that chem 1 is a complete year of gen chem and chem 2 is orgo).

 

[thackl]

I took orgo 11 years after gen chem. I took g-chem in HS and sucked at it. The UT pre-med adviser told me to retake g-chem before o-chem at UT becuase I "wouldn't be able to keep up with their students and would get a poor grade in an important pre-med course, plus my MCAT score would suffer". Mind you, this would put me a whole year back for getting into meschool and I'm already 29. LUCKILY, my brother talked me out of it and I switched to o-chem after the first week.

Got an "A" and needed very little g-chem. The little I did need was easy to find and relearn. The MCAT was also fine. Don't retake anything (especially lower level) unless you absolutely have to.

 

[LuckyMD2b]

I think that retaking the class would be a good idea, especially if you are confident that you will do well. It won't help you very much for orgo, but it will help for the MCAT. The more science you know when you start studying, the more time you can spend studying the test rather than reviewing/relearning the science.

 

[omarsaleh66]

i wouldnt retake chemistry for the sake of the mcat. I would just try to save my money and graduate as soon as possible. Take chem 2 and org chem is more like biology and not like gen chem at all so dont worry about not taking gen chem over.

As far as knowing chem for the mcat, i think that u will be prepared for gchem from studying mcat review books, thats all u need, taking the whole course over for the mcat is unnceseccary.

I took the mcat without taking physics or any high level biology classes and i got a 30; and the reason i gota 30 was cuz of a poor verbal, so this just shows that the mcat review was enough to get by; in fact i think that u could get much higher, it just depends how much time u put into the mcat.

 

[phatsebz]

thankss for all the advice....i forgot to make a few things clearer....sorrrry...i dun hafta worry about the mcat because im in a ba/md program....however i jus realized my credit is only for gen chem 1.....therefore id hafta take gen chem 2.....andddd my dumb butt doesnt remem NETHING from HS gen chem 1.....should i go straight to gen chem 2??? andddd i hafta get atleast a B or ill get kicked out of my program!....AHHH the horror....lol thanks for ur thoughtss sorry if i was vague

 

[vixenell]

I got credit for gen chem I also, and went straight on to gen chem II... did fine. Granted, I hadn't forgotten much of what I'd learned in high school.

Taking gen chem I would have been helpful for me, because we can't start orgo I in the spring, and gen chem at my school relied heavily on material learned in gen chem I (which I hadn't taken since tenth grade). It would've been the difference between an A and an A-, more than likely.

 

[lyragrl]

As the pre-med subjects go, I thought the first semester of gen chem was pretty easy. So if you have adequate review time and can get a good textbook then you could probably review on your own. We had Zumdhal's book which I really liked.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

If you did well in gen chem 1, I expect that it will come back to you quickly when you start gen chem 2. Go on ahead. I took an accelerated gen chem course that assumed you had a good course in HS; most of my classmates were freshmen, whereas I was taking the course 5 years after my HS course--it all came back once we got started.

 

[28129]

Ummm.. If all you remember from first semester Chemistry is what a mole is, then perhaps you need to take that course again. I don't see how you can take second semester Chemistry or Organic Chemistry if that's all you know.

 

[ShaylaFinn]

If I were you, I'd retake Gen Chem 1. You're already in an accelerated (6yr BA/MD) program and you've got to get "b's" or better, right? Take the time to get a firm foundation in the basic sciences. And if it turns out that you remember more of gen chem 1 than you thought, even better - an easy A.