Wow, I didn't expect people to like my ranting and raving so much! It was just a way to vent my frustrations during pre-med! Oh, yes, and like Skaterbabe74 had said, you people who haven't taken General Chemistry yet shouldn't worry about it. So far, it seems like a review of high school Chem for me, which is probably why it's so gosh darn easy for me!
Everyone should take Skaterbabe74's advice on G. Chem! It's very easy if you've taken Algebra already...it's mostly algebraic equations (modified for Chemistry concepts of course). For example:
Density = Mass/Volume
One example question would be - the density of X solution is 0.08 g/L, and the volume is 2 L. What is the mass of X solution?
First, we'd convert the formula to equal mass (here's where the algebra comes in handy
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Mass = Density x Volume
and then we just simply plug in the numbers to find the answer:
mass = 0.08 g/L x 2 L
The liters cancel out to leave grams, and
mass of X solution = 0.16 g
Pretty simple stuff, huh? Of course, once you start taking exams, there's much, much, much more to do, what with rearranging chemical formulas to balance them out [stoichiometry], conversions between mass-mole-numbers, conversions in the metric scale [kilo-, milli-, centi-, micro-, etc.], finding the limiting reactant, and a whole host of other stuff. That's why my first exam for this class was only 6 questions long. There were 27 F's, but I think that it is because the test was way too long. I barely managed to finish 5 out of the 6 questions, so I was lucky to get a B (didn't finish # 6, but I did set up the equation, so I got partial credit for it). 77/100 points - my professor's grading scale goes like this: 100 - 85% A 84 - 70% B 69 - 55% C No D's, the rest are F's
On a normal grading scale, I would have had a high C. I'm glad that my professor grades it the way that he does.
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Skaterbabe74 - Thanks for the encouragement. I would also like to thank everyone that enjoys my absurdly long posts that seem to lead nowhere. By the way, I know how you feel. I think that maybe we had the same high school Chem teacher! I totally hated mine, I don't think that he taught all that well, and after his class I felt inadequately prepared for college-level general chem. Let's put it this way: if no students had questions, he'd get angry because [he assumed] we didn't want to ask him questions. If a student asked a question, he'd get angry because he thought that it was a dumb question. Chemistry class from hell, I tell ya! But then again, you're in Colorado, and I'm in California...
I know of someone in a similar situation to yours. He's a kinesiology major and he plans on going into sports medicine. When I asked him why that particular specialty and not surgery or family practice or...etc., he bluntly said, "More money, less lawsuits."
mommyof3 - I have pondered getting a non-science major myself. Of course, I didn't know that a person could be a non-science major and still complete pre-med until after I started taking my classes (doh!)
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My pre-med advisor said that bio was a good major for pre-med because all of the pre-med requirements are biology requirements. Oh, and by the way, a sociology degree will definitely make you stand out among the pre-meds, since most everyone else (including yours truly) will be a biology major. It'll give you some interesting things to talk about when you go interview for medical school.
I wish that I could double-major in Biology and Philosophy, but Biology requires a ridiculous amount of classes (73 units out of 120 - that's about 20 classes). I'm just going to settle for a minor (21 units [7 classes] vs. 39 units [13 classes], not a bad trade-off, I think)
My cousin did pre-med as a sociology major, though I can't really say much about it since I don't keep much contact with her.
By the way, welcome to the club, to both of you!
I guess my rambling comes from being Chinese. See, the Chinese people love to talk in circles until they finally reach the point, and apparently I do this unconciously without realizing it, unless I write or type it out. Americans like to go in a straight line, straight to the point. I just thought that maybe my posts seemed unneccessarily long because Americans are impatient [one trait that I have gained from being in the U.S.A.
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Time taken to type out this post...about 45 minutes.