So.. which was harder..

[Pony46]

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for you of the pre-reqs?

Organic or Physics?

I would say for me physics was by and large the hardest.

?

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

Organic: 1 F, 1D

 

[tnig469]

Organic 1 = Blah
Organic 2 = Blahh
Physics 1 = BLAAAHHHHHHHHH
Physics 2 = Blah won't fit in this box

 

[Pony46]

😀 Physics 1 for me was so so obnoxious and then it got way better until the physics 2 final.

It was a post-bac for me so that was lucky as if I had four or five classes total vs the post-bac load ( two or three classes tops) I would have dug myself a deep hole.

So glad that there is not physics in medical school. I do like the concepts, its just the formulas that- 😕

Organic 1 = Blah
Organic 2 = Blahh
Physics 1 = BLAAAHHHHHHHHH
Physics 2 = Blah won't fit in this box

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Physics by far. For some reason, physics just took me so much more effort to conceptualize. Ochem was actually one of my favorite classes. 🙂

 

[Hokie06]

.

 

[Bacchus]

Physics II.

 

[Tuckermans]

I still have nightmares about physics 2... Electricity and magnetism😱

 

[DrRoast]

I took Calc based Physics and it was a cake walk b/c we got to have a couple note cards for each exam, so everyone just wrote down every equation, so all you had to do was know how to use them and you were golden. Needless to say this didn't help me at all for the MCAT and only got an 8 in PS

 

[jazzgurl7]

Well I'm an engineering major and we had to take engineering physics in which I got a B+ and a B. Organic chem...B- and C+ haha.

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

Physics II.

Good Lawd Bacchus, you need to get a different Avatar. I always have such mixed feelings whenever I see your posts. It goes something like this...

• MMMMmmm, Kate
• No wait, that's not Kate
• That's Bacchus, some dood.
• Oh, this is the worst.

It happens every, every time that I see your posts, haha!

 

[spicedmanna]

Both sucked in their own individual ways. Which one you find harder is going to depend on your predilection. Personally, I found physics (I took the physics for scientists and engineers) to be conceptually more difficult, but organic chemistry to be more tedious and time demanding. Organic was more fun. In hindsight, though, both were a piece of cake compared to what I've had to do for the past two year in medical school. Take comfort that both are going to be a distant memory very soon.

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

Both sucked in their own individual ways. Which one you find harder is going to depend on your predilection. Personally, I found physics (I took the physics for scientists and engineers) to be conceptually more difficult, but organic chemistry to be more tedious and time demanding. Organic was more fun. In hindsight, though, both were a piece of cake compared to what I've had to do for the past two year in medical school. Take comfort that both are going to be a distant memory very soon.

Yeah, I agree, O-Chem should have been harder, but it was definitely more fun than physics. So.... my answer is physics.

 

[p30doc]

Orgo 2 was hardest so many reactions to keep straight

 

[Pony46]

Yeah, I agree, O-Chem should have been harder, but it was definitely more fun than physics. So.... my answer is physics.

Much more fun.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spicedmanna
Both sucked in their own individual ways. Which one you find harder is going to depend on your predilection. Personally, I found physics (I took the physics for scientists and engineers) to be conceptually more difficult, but organic chemistry to be more tedious and time demanding. Organic was more fun. In hindsight, though, both were a piece of cake compared to what I've had to do for the past two year in medical school. Take comfort that both are going to be a distant memory very soon.

kindly and with respect I say-

I am trying to believe I can do this( full on first two years) and if I hear about how hard it is again- the mind monster I create is going to eat me.

Maybe looking back on the first two years they will appear easier than when you were in them...Or NOT

 

[MossPoh]

Physics 1 sucked for me because I never took calculus before and was in a calc based physics with a guy that only explained in ridiculous math terms. Physics 2 was tricky due to the ridiculous amount of practice problems that didn't help anything for me. Organic 1 wasn't too bad, but I missed out on an A because I went full on ReRe on the final and somehow tanked it. (I needed a 48% for an A and I got a 47%)
Organic II was horrendous because my grandma was slowly dying during the summer, so I had to handle that along with studying for MCAT and the lab, which is a 3 credit course and a ton of work where I took it.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I enjoyed ochem far more than physics; neither class seemed easy per se but getting used to the "language" of organic chemistry was much easier for me than with physics. Ochem is obviously quite "spatially-oriented", and it reminded me a lot of geometry in that way. Physics was obviously a lot more like raw algebra and/or calculus, and if you have a distaste for straight computational math you might find yourself liking ochem more.

MossPoh, I know the feeling - the class average on my Organic I final was 41%. The only thing that saved most members of the class was an epic curve.

 

[bryce]

Physics was pretty easy... Then again, my father is also an Engineering Phys. Prof. and whatever questions I had I just went straight to him. Ochm, on the other hand, sucked pretty badly. I took an accelerated ochm class over the summer and, well, I struggled with it. I was never so happy as I was when I completed Ochm.

 

[EricH]

Hardest------>Easiest
Orgo 2, 1, physics 2, 1

We have an absolutely amazing physics instructor....so that helped. Orgo II was a B***H! My professor got his PhD at MIT....and thought that he was still there. Of course I can laugh about it now.

 

[Bacchus]

I received a higher overall grade in Orgo II but did worse than the previous semester. Yay for curves, haha.

 

[EricH]

I received a higher overall grade in Orgo II but did worse than the previous semester. Yay for curves, haha.

Our class average was a 29/100. The instructor was so difficult that if someone got a 100% on a test he bought them a coffee mug with the score and the date. In 30 years of teaching, only two mugs were ever awarded.

 

[Semicolon]

Ochem I: B
Ochem II: B
Physics I: A-
Physics II: A

Physics was MUCH easier for me than Ochem; I absolutely dislike chemistry. I found the second semester of Physics to be extremely interesting, actually (with circuits and the theory of relativity -- awesome!).

I honestly can't wrap my mind around how Physics could have been harder than Ochem for any of you. 😱 Then again, it could depend on the school...

 

[lastcall]

physics I.

 

[BNZN32]

Surprisingly, Physics and Ochem were my favorite 2 classes in college. They were hard, but totally doable. G-chem was the hardest for me... Could not come to appreciate anything in that class. I have a theory that there are O-Chem lovers, and G-chem lovers. I believe these groups are largely mutually exclusive. Most of my friends in the O-chem group, also liked physics. Those who didn't like Orgo really didn't like physics... Go figure.🙄

I think how much you get into these classes really depends on your profs.

 

[MossPoh]

Oddly enough, gen chem I required far more work than any of the clases listed. I'd seriously spend 4-5 hours a day for a week studying for those friggin tests and still get a B+. It was the second highest grade in the class (beat by 1 point) but he still wouldn't adjust it.

None of my premed classes were really the "hardest" at all. My tough classes were actually in liberal arts where you have to crank out tons of essays and read a lot of books. Easy in English, but in German it gets a bit trickier, especially with profs that will mark you down simply because they "don't like your ideas"

 

[JaggerPlate]

Physics ... ugh god. Looking back, physics is just such simple, perfect logic ... but at the time, it killed me. I had to murder myself in physics II (electromagnetism) to get a B. O-chem came really easy to me, B+ in Orgo I, A in Orgo II. However, now on the MCAT I love the physics because it's straight forward and easy and despiseee the ochem. Go figure.

 

[thanecyan]

Physics by far. For some reason, physics just took me so much more effort to conceptualize. Ochem was actually one of my favorite classes. 🙂

👍

 

[engineeredout]

I thought physics was harder, but that might have something to do with the fact that the physics I took was the one designed to weed out engineering majors, not the physics premeds took. Still one of the hardest classes I've ever taken.

 

[JaggerPlate]

I thought physics was harder, but that might have something to do with the fact that the physics I took was the one designed to weed out engineering majors, not the physics premeds took. Still one of the hardest classes I've ever taken.

Yeah I thought I was a big-dog getting an A in my pre-med physics III until I got into a convo with my friend who was a physics major and is now doing a PhD in physics at a big research university. That stuff can get unreal.

 

[nevinleiby]

Hardest------>Easiest
Orgo 2, 1, physics 2, 1

genchem2, genchem1, Orgo 1, 2, physics 2, 1
👍

Ochem I: B
Ochem II: B
Physics I: A-
Physics II: A

Physics was MUCH easier for me than Ochem; I absolutely dislike chemistry. I found the second semester of Physics to be extremely interesting, actually (with circuits and the theory of relativity -- awesome!).

Surprisingly, Physics and Ochem were my favorite 2 classes in college. They were hard, but totally doable. G-chem was the hardest for me... Could not come to appreciate anything in that class. I have a theory that there are O-Chem lovers, and G-chem lovers. I believe these groups are largely mutually exclusive. Most of my friends in the O-chem group, also liked physics. Those who didn't like Orgo really didn't like physics... Go figure.🙄

I think how much you get into these classes really depends on your profs.

...and your background (eg, how much exposure you've had prior to course)

GchemI: A- (freakin chem)
GchemII: A (especially the very end...coordination, etc...never really covered very well in our class)
Physics I: A (yipee!! =)
Physics II: A (electrostatics sucked)
Ochem I: A (hard b/c of sn1/sn2/e1/e2. I could barely tell some of them. Nomenclature was a pain)
Ochem II: A (lots of reactions, but manageable. Spectroscopy rocked! =)

I did my pre-req's in the "wrong" order. I did bio/phys first (I was still considering engineering...nano in particular), then I did chem, orgo, biochem. I always disliked gen chem, in part b/c so many ppl had so much exposure in highschool. I was 7 years out of HS (post-comp science/info tech) and I only remember something about the word stoichiometry and balancing equations and our HS didn't do squat for anything advanced. Everyone else had so much background.

I remember my first gen chem test: "What is the driving force of [double-displacement] reaction?"

Me: (remembering her saying the phrase "driving force" exactly 1 time during lecture, but having no idea). I mentally reviewed my entire year worths of physics notes. WTF IS A DRIVING FORCE? ...-8 points because of that stupid question...

I cringed at every gen chem related MCAT question. And, of course, I had a freaking coordination chemistry question regarding the blue and yellow coloration of a chemical. I blame my 9 on that stupid thing...To me, gen chem was illogical in almost every sense. It was always "do this, except if it's Tuesday. Then you have to do this instead. Oh, by the way, its the second Tuesday, so....yeah..do this instead...". Organic's logic was apparent...just look at nomenclature for gen chem and organic....night and day. Gen chem wasn't that hard, per say, but it was annoying. Physics was logical...but sometimes it was hard because some aspects were not intuitive right away. But practice ALWAYS helped for physics. I think I did almost every problem in the book for 3/4 of the year.

Any idea how much % chem/bio biochem is in med school? I would love to close the door on that part of medicine as possible

 

[spicedmanna]

kindly and with respect I say-

I am trying to believe I can do this( full on first two years) and if I hear about how hard it is again- the mind monster I create is going to eat me.

Maybe looking back on the first two years they will appear easier than when you were in them...Or NOT

Despite the challenges, it's all doable. Just keep focused and moving forward consistently. When you find the time, somewhere in the near future, you'll look back, through all of the significant challenges you've faced, and realize just how far you've really traveled. I just finished my last medical school quiz ever and in a short few months, I'm going to start my rotations. It's truly amazing how quickly things move.

Good luck w/ everything. 👍

 

[Pony46]

Despite the challenges, it's all doable. Just keep focused and moving forward consistently. When you find the time, somewhere in the near future, you'll look back, through all of the significant challenges you've faced, and realize just how far you've really traveled. I just finished my last medical school quiz ever and in a short few months, I'm going to start my rotations. It's truly amazing how quickly things move.

Good luck w/ everything. 👍

Yay! ( for you that is )😀. That must feel pretty great.
And thanks for tempering with it being doable - I appreciate it.

to you also.

 

[bleeker10]

For me it was Gen Chem II (D). I missed the first test because I was sick and the makeup was a pain in the butt. There were about 25 people who took the makeup and the highest score was in the mid 60's. After that I just stopped paying attention. I never got the hang of titrations and electrochemistry until I retook the class and made an A. I liked Organic a lot. It made much more sense to me because I could mentally picture the reactions in my mind rather than equlibrium reactions in gen chem II. Physics was pretty good. Physics II was much easier than Physics I IMHO. It also helps when the final consists of each student choosing from one of the last 4 chapters to be asked a question by the teacher. We had as many chances as needed to get the question right in an hour and a half. If you got it right, you made an A on the final.

 

[dominate]

ORGANIC.... by a long shot. Everyone on SDN must be an organic whiz. I barely studied for physics and was able to easily master the concepts.... as for organic..... I lost some sleep over that one.
​

 

[Semicolon]

Physics was pretty good. Physics II was much easier than Physics I IMHO.

ORGANIC.... by a long shot. Everyone on SDN must be an organic whiz. I barely studied for physics and was able to easily master the concepts.... as for organic..... I lost some sleep over that one.
​

I second both statements. 😀

 

[nevinleiby]

ORGANIC.... by a long shot. Everyone on SDN must be an organic whiz. I barely studied for physics and was able to easily master the concepts.... as for organic..... I lost some sleep over that one.
​

yeah...Phys 2 was the first time when I started having problems getting to sleep the night before an exam. My wife got me all stressed out before one of my exams. It totally threw my confidence off for answering one of the problems. I thought I blew it - major....I had no idea for 1.5 of the four problems. Somehow I pulled an 83, but since then, I've always gotten really stressed before my exams (/mcat).

 

[coffeeeandtea]

I thought physics was harder, but that might have something to do with the fact that the physics I took was the one designed to weed out engineering majors, not the physics premeds took. Still one of the hardest classes I've ever taken.

i took the Physics for scientists/engineers series too, without considering the fact that there was also a Physics for bio/architecture majors that was significantly easier... ugh. i don't remember anything from the second semester except for the word "flux." Orgo was hard, but at least it was somewhat familiar - reactions, mechanisms, etc. Physics, not so much.

 

[Dissected]

ORGANIC.... by a long shot. Everyone on SDN must be an organic whiz. I barely studied for physics and was able to easily master the concepts.... as for organic..... I lost some sleep over that one.
​

wow..Im with ya. This thread makes me go 😱. I thought physics was pretty easy all things considered. All you have to do is understand a few simple concepts and plug/chug when necessary. Not to say I enjoyed it, because I hated every minute of it, but o-chem was basically my life sophomore year.

 

[Bleurberry]

Right. Orgo II was by far harder. It all depends who's teaching, right?
Our guy seemed to like to lead the class to believe the tests were going to be a lot easier than they were... and then 3/4 of the class would struggle because it'd be 10 pages of detailed work. I also opted for the one night a week class, which was interesting.
I was happy walking with a B ; that was a huge accomplishment.
But I took Physics and Bio at the same time as Orgo and all the labs, so it sucked all around.

 

[Pony46]

Right. It all depends who's teaching, right?

Fully agree. I had a very old, over 80, respectable MIT graduate stand in physics professor. I had little math coming in and had never, not even in HS taken physics prior. I was very anti school when I was 16-20 years.

Anywho, he started off the class sprawling a long algebraic expression across the board- he was deriving an eq. I was lost on the second number, & their were people in the class that were pointing out mistakes that he had made in the eq. as he had written it. I held my breath.
He was in my opinion too far ahead of the basic level which he was teaching and too far removed from the general sociological beliefs of the generation to which he professed.

I did like phsyics II more though.


On the other hand my Organic teacher made the class so that it was both challenging and doable. It is likely that he is one of the best professors that I have ever had. He wanted us to learn the material - he did not hold it over our head like some prize which was only for the worthy. NOTHING but respect for him. But many people in my class thought physics was easier.
I sort of miss Orgo.(..that and Bio.)

I also like visual stuff much more than equations---for me plugging and chugging never made enough sense---?

My other wonder is why people say that education is what you make it and it is not about the teacher? I 100% dont buy it yet most people I talk to seem to fully support this notion. Teachers can help and hurt.

done.

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

My other wonder is why people say that education is what you make it and it is not about the teacher? I 100% dont buy it yet most people I talk to seem to fully support this notion. Teachers can help and hurt.

done.

It think you're exactly right - a teacher can help or hurt. But in the end, you're still the one who answers the questions. You are responsible for yourself.

Taking that a step further - a patient, or a nurse, or another physician's ability or inability to communicate with you can help or hurt. But in the end you are the one that is responsible for the treatment that the patient gets.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I also think it just depends on how each of these courses is taught. Physics can be a very easy class if the professor explains everything clearly and gives "soft-toss" questions on the exams - but it can quickly turn into a hellish nightmare if the prof isn't clear and if exam questions are strange and difficult. Furthermore, if the prof doesn't solve any problems in class and simply spends the entire lecture deriving equations and talking in abstractions, then figuring out how to do well on the exams will be much more difficult.

Elementary physics really just is "a few simple concepts" - but unfortunately there are many ways to take that handful of concepts, add a few twists and turns, and generate a set of insanely tricky test questions. One of my physics prof's favorite mind games was to take a fairly straightforward question and add a few steps somewhere that required obscure algebra tricks and strange mathematical gyrations to deal with properly. Consequently, it was entirely possible to know your physics well but still struggle on the exams. Prof: "What are you talking about? This isn't a hard question. The Chain Rule says you can cancel these values out, everybody knows that." The book was no help, either - it was one of those texts that solved only the simplest problems in its "lessons" and gave you no clues as to how to work more complicated problems. The book's solutions manual only solved every 6th problem or so, and it usually didn't touch the most challenging problems (on top of that, the prof thought that possessing a solutions manual was "cheating" despite the fact that the physics book came with the manual shrink-wrapped to it!) The SIs didn't have a clue as to how to deal with the prof's tests because the prof was new and the old prof's questions were nothing like her's. Consequently, Physics I/II often just seemed like a hair-pulling, tooth-grinding, sleepless disaster; no matter how hard you studied the physics, your entire effort would often be scuttled by some wacky math nonsense on the exams. I was very pleased to (barely) escape with B's during those semesters.

 

[NK1Positive]

I definitely loved "orgo", or o-chem as we call it here in MN. Lab on the other hand was a nightmare.... As for physics it was very interesting however I was only able to pull off A-'s but I blame that on taking them during the summer haha Anyway, gen chem is what totally screwed me over ugh

 

[Katatonic]

Definitely physics, it's my only C so far. My professor spends all period deriving equations, without doing ANY example problems. It would be helpful if we had to derive any equations on the exam, but we don't. It's VERY difficult for me.

 

[Lokhtar]

Deriving equation is pretty much the point of physics. Plugging and chugging is pointless. The theory is if you know how to derive the equations, you should be able to understand how and why it is the way it is, and therefore be able to apply it to novel situations and hard problems.

It's the difference between understanding and memorizing.

Anyway, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. In terms of difficulty, I thought: bio2>ochem1>ochem2>physics2>physics1. I just really struggled with bio, but that might be because I tried to understand every little detail instead of just memorizing.

For example, I spent an entire night trying to learn why and how glucokinase does the things it does structurally and molecularly, instead of just memorizing what it does. Worst mistake ever.

I think people who approach Bio with a physics standpoint (like me) struggle, just like people who approach physics with a bio standpoint (like a few others). In elementary physics, it is worthwhile to understand an equation completely by deriving it, and understanding all its implications. Can't do that in bio.

 

[spicedmanna]

It think you're exactly right - a teacher can help or hurt. But in the end, you're still the one who answers the questions. You are responsible for yourself.

Taking that a step further - a patient, or a nurse, or another physician's ability or inability to communicate with you can help or hurt. But in the end you are the one that is responsible for the treatment that the patient gets.

Precisely. You are 100% responsible for your education, no matter what your circumstances may be (w/in reason, of course). At the end, you still have to pass your classes, learn what you need for rotations, and pass the boards. Nevertheless, the more helpful resources you have, the better. That can make a lot of difference, including the quality of experience you get. There's no denying that. It'll be easier or harder, depending on your own ability, commitment, and how good your resources are, including your professors. The goals still need to be met, though, even if your professors can't teach to save their lives.

 

[nevinleiby]

Another off topic, but MAN did I HATE statistics....

The first time I took it, I was a sophomore at RIT...tech school with lots of geeky engineering/cs guys. ~65 y/o male professor walks in with a white lab coat on. Hmm...Odd...he takes attendance. So then he reaches in his bag, and pulls a latex glove over his right hands and snaps it saying, "Okay! Let's get started!". I scraped by with a mid-B.

I didn't get as much as I wanted to from the course (it was data analysis)...so I thought I would do a more advanced (Probability and Statistics) one with a different professor. Calc based - no problem 😎.

Second time...junior at RIT...this time a different guy walks in. Probably has another 15 years on the first guy....I kid you not. I would honestly be shocked if he was still alive today 8 years later. He pulls out a mac (This was before the iPod....mac's werent "trendy". They were for the computer illiterates and the cults. I'm assuming the math department got it for him so he could do ppt lectures and that it would be next to impossible for him not to figure it out). Fifteen minutes later, the computer is hooked up to the overhead. He pulls up a Word document with some gibberish on. Then he sits down behind the podium at a normal student's chair. 3 hours of him lecturing, two times a week for 13 weeks. You'd try to ask him a question, but you'd have to shout it. He still wouldn't hear after 2 times, so he'd just start rambling off about something else. I remember this non-trad guy from Xerox in front of me...he'd look around the class with a "WTF!? Doesn't anyone else realize how much of a #*@$ this is?!?" At office hours I made a mental note of his bike and bright orange/yellow helmet...I don't think that it was a coincidence that he didn't go on the roads. Office hours were even more of a joke. Let's just say that his stats book was in the library and was used as part of the course. I don't know HOW I walked out of that course not getting a C. That course was absolute hell.

 

[BruceBanner]

For me physics was far and away the hardest. We had a pretty good prof; but I just struggle with derivations and number-crunching. I found the concepts to be interesting and easy to grasp, because I can visualize things well; but the math was another story.

Interesting point you make Lokhtar--in my college physics we werent responsible for deriving the equations themselves; but on exams we did have to do a lot of "sub-derivation" I guess you could say, to get some constituent part out of a given equation to solve another problem.

Orgo i thought was pretty fair. Our prof let us make a small cheat sheet for exams, so there wasnt loads of rote memorization. I found that as long as I was keen on basic topical concepts the exams went pretty well. Strong class for me...but it did involve a lot of 3D visualization.

 

[Pony46]

Precisely. You are 100% responsible for your education, no matter what your circumstances may be (w/in reason, of course). At the end, you still have to pass your classes, learn what you need for rotations, and pass the boards. Nevertheless, the more helpful resources you have, the better. That can make a lot of difference, including the quality of experience you get. There's no denying that. It'll be easier or harder, depending on your own ability, commitment, and how good your resources are, including your professors. The goals still need to be met, though, even if your professors can't teach to save their lives.

Yes yes - 100 % the students responsibility to learn the material. Not questioning that but teachers can make it harder to learn things by the way they teach, so I believe that they too have a lot of responsibility.

Just teaching is under-valued 🙁 - what is that saying?---'those who cant do - teach'. Not exactly the most positive way of looking at teaching or thinking about teachers. : / Or inspirational reasons to teach. ( .02)

Also reading all of these opinions just shows what a large variety of learning types there are- I,perhaps cheesily, think it is pretty cool.

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

Haha, love the word cheesily.

One word I haven't gotten used to here on SDN is the "Orgo." At my undergrad it was "O-Chem," but most people seem to have called it Orgo at their U-grads. Orgo just sounds weird and dirty. And why Orgo and not Orga? I think they both sound ridiculous, though, haha.