What is your experience taking Orgo and Biochem while working?

[Yuanjing]

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*Original post edited; see responses below*

 

[eteshoe]

Take them sequentially not concurrently (and take the lab components for all of them). You got time, learn the material well.

 

[lilyzoo]

I took 2 semester of orgo (with labs) and one semester of biochem (with lab) while working full time. It's definitely doable. But your quality of life and mental health will all be depend on the professor.

 

[brainnurse]

I took OChem 1 and Chem 2 together in one summer while working full time. It was tough but doable with serious discipline.

I took Biochem the semester after while also working full time and going to school full time. Again, it was tough but doable.

 

[thatwouldbeanarchy]

I took all of my prereqs while working full-time. I limited myself to 2 courses per semester and it wasn't too bad. In my case, it really helped that my work schedule is flexible and that my boss didn't mind me occasionally using work time to study, if nothing else was going on. But in general, it seemed doable to me. The thing that really pushed me to my limits was trying to take an accelerated 5-week Orgo I class while working full-time. It was brutal and I know I could have done better grade-wise had I waited and took Orgo during the school year.

 

[DrMikeP]

Didn't take bio chem but took the rest 8-10 hrs/term while working 40+ hrs a week at 2 highly demanding jobs. It sucks and seriously depends on how flexible your job is as to whether you can pull it off. I ended up with B/B+ in OChem and A's in physics, mostly because I just didn't have sufficient study time. So it's definitely doable.

Good luck

 

[Citron]

Maybe it's just me, but based on your current cGPA and sGPA, if I were an adcom and see that you take both organic chemistry prereqs (usually considered weed-out premed classes) in a supposedly easier state school instead of your top-10 school, I'd definitely see it as a red flag. I'd read it as if you tried to artificially inflate your GPAs.

 

[Shotapp]

It doesn't matter where you take those courses. Just make sure you get A's and sufficiently prepare for the MCAT.

 

[Yuanjing]

Maybe it's just me, but based on your current cGPA and sGPA, if I were an adcom and see that you take both organic chemistry prereqs (usually considered weed-out premed classes) in a supposedly easier state school instead of your top-10 school, I'd definitely see it as a red flag. I'd read it as if you tried to artificially inflate your GPAs.

I've heard it's alright and I don't think I should be de-incentivzed for having made the decision years ago to matriculate to a top 10 school if a) I take Orgo I/II after graduating and b) taking classes at state school saves thousands of dollars.

 

[DrMikeP]

I've been to top 10, middle of the road public and private colleges/universities, and low ranked community college. Along with being a professor. The differences in difficulty varied more by course than school. My community college physics professor was much more challenging than other science professors and the top 10 university had a ton of visiting professors who could barely speak English. My toughest science lab was at a middle of the road public university.

Adcoms understand that difficulty varies and worry less about the where, as long as you make As, as the MCAT is the great equalizer. The only issue in where is if you fail at a university and then go cc and suddenly make As and then do mediocre on the MCAT.

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