Which undergraduate year is the hardest??????

[b2007]

I'm currently a sophomore and taking ochem, physics, cell bio, and calculus. will it get worse after this year, or do classes get easier???

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[USCTex]

I'm currently a sophomore and taking ochem, physics, cell bio, and calculus. will it get worse after this year, or do classes get easier???

Depends on if you take biochem 😀
No, I think if you're taking cell bio and ochem you've reached the peak of your college career.

 

[UCLAstudent]

Depends on if you take biochem 😀
No, I think if you're taking cell bio and ochem you've reached the peak of your college career.

Interestingly, I'm taking both cell bio and biochem right now. I don't think it's so bad! I found freshman year to be much worse. I didn't get along with general chem very well.

 

[premedgeek]

4th year......I lost motivation to study and do well in my classes.

 

[UCLAstudent]

4th year......I lost motivation to study and do well in my classes.

This is true. I'm supposed to be studying for finals, but here I am at SDN. 🙄

 

[meister]

So far I'd say my third year.

Biochem + Ochem + two upper division physics classes = no fun (and also no A's...)

 

[Thrice]

Third Year, First Sem was my hardest:

Physics
Bio-Chem
Immunology
Parasitology
Cell-Bio

 

[skiracer90]

If you push yourself with all your hard class in your first three years, you can be sitting pretty senior year. I swear, aside from my semester abroad, this has been the easiest semester at my school. Plus, if I keep on top of things for my thesis, next semester is looking to be nice and easy as well. It's worth going through hell your other years so you can leave college with a bang.

 

[acl3623]

I'm currently a sophomore and taking ochem, physics, cell bio, and calculus. will it get worse after this year, or do classes get easier???

youre there...ochem and calc is lethal. i had that my sophomore year and i wanted to hide in a hole until it was over. but if youre going up to calc 2 and also taking biochem later, the masacre may just be beginning for you.

 

[stoic]

4th year......I lost motivation to study and do well in my classes.

Yea... I had no idea how bad "senioritis" could be 'till it got to me.

But in all seriousness, the "hardest" year will vary from person to person. Generally speaking I'd say it's probably sophomore year, b/c that's when most people take O-chem as well as start taking upper level biology classes.

Personally it was second semester sophomore year... 22hrs.... not fun.

 

[fielight]

for me, it was fall semester of junior year. i took biochem, comparative vertebrate anatomy, genetics (together about 11 credits), and then some shorter courses i can't remember. my advisor at the time told me that the particular semester will probably be the one out of the 4 years of undergrad that most resembles med school. as a med student now, i would say it was close, but med school is still tougher (e.g., the exam are harder, the study hours are longer, there's a lot more material).

the interesting thing about undergrad is that after a certain level, you start to see the same material again and again. assuming that you're a bio major, you'll notice that the upper level bio courses start to repeat and overlap beginning probably second semester junior year. i don't think it ever gets easier though, because the courses become more in depth and detail oriented. of course, once you're a senior, it can be really easy (my last semester, i had 12 credits... just enough to keep my status as full time and get my scholarship).

 

[getunconcsious]

I'd vote for sophomore, since it invariably involves O-Chem and Physics.

 

[OrthoFixation]

.

The hardest year is the one with the most BEER 😱

 

[dr_pepper]

Junior Year - hands down.

 

[Spankete87]

definitely first semester sophomore year - o-chem, physics, mol bio, and started working in research 25 hrs a week......O-chem makes me nauceous and still gives me nightmares. It was his first semester teaching o-chem.....he is now required by the chem dept to curve and my physics teacher now can only be lab manager - seems all his juggling and flying backwards on skateboards during class to teach us physics wasn't well received by the phys dept. I had some crappy profs for my premed classes. (not to mention my two gen chem profs were put on academic probation as well.) I'd say my first two years were the hardest by far. Upper level bios were much easier to deal with for me - the profs weren't trying to fail us at that point. 😉

 

[faradayampere]

junior second semester .... with dynamics class.... oh, no class is worse than dynamics .... dynamics is so boring ... and I'm not good in dynamics either ....

general bio is another hard class ... it's probably b/c it was my first bio class

 

[sunUCB]

a couple months ago i would have said sophomore year. the classes were hardest that year, for me at least. but as people said above, it is soooooo hard to motiviate yourself to study in your senior year, when you know it doesn't really matter...well not as much, anyways.

 

[ellia08]

Theyre hard in different ways I think.

Freshman: struggle for survival ("oh my god,... college, crap! Who are these people. What is a prep course? why would you do that. wait, people applied to more than one u-grad!!!")

Sophomore: struggle for attaining bare minimum ("must take 10 billion difficult courses to be premed... sweet goodness... one A- will destroy my life...[insert crazy crazy premed stuff thats completely stupid here]")

Junior: struggle for finding what you actually want to do with the stuff you liked + MCAT MCAT MCAT("so I guess I didnt like english after all... math sounds good, and biology too and I want to be a doctor.... how does this all fit together again???!!")

Senior: Ready to go with no PLACE to go yet ("I like X. I want to work in Y and research in Z. My hobbies are P,D and Q. I am strong. I am fully actualized. Watch out world. Oh wait... theres still one year left... [sigh].. back to the books")

All stressfull just in different ways. To answer the original question though, yes... academically it only gets easier as you take more courses you trully like... assuming of course that you didnt buy all the BS of year 2 so that you majored in something you liked!

 

[EpointH]

Hahaha great description, ellia08! My hardest year was definitely sophomore year, taking all the hard classes and setting up an awful sleep pattern (going to bed around 2 or 3am, getting up early...basically just not sleeping).

By the way, we call organic chemistry "orgo," but it seems like a lot of people call it "o-chem." Am I right in assuming that this is just a regional difference?

 

[VPDcurt]

definitely sophomore year...it should be smooth sailing from here on out. good luck.

 

[deleted50541]

By the way, we call organic chemistry "orgo," but it seems like a lot of people call it "o-chem." Am I right in assuming that this is just a regional difference?

Not sure but we call it orgo here in western NY.

 

[KiKat37]

First semester Junior year... I was taking physics II, biochem ( 😱 ), endocrinology, and pathogenic micro... + some other non-science classes... I remember I had over 20 credits... + I was doing research and working full-time...

Senior year is pretty bad, too. Just because you are tired of studying... You just wanna party and enjoy your last year. But, that's usually a very busy year... You gotta keep the gardes up to graduate without killing your GPA. You gotta apply for jobs or apply to grad school/med school/law school... whatever you wanna do... and some ppl have to write their honors/senior thesis... I had to do that, too!

But, of course, it depends on ppl. 🙂 A lot of ppl think sophomore year is the worst because of orgo and cell bio. I thought those classes were ok.

 

[45408]

sophomore year for me, since I took 21 credits that fall (including o-chem, physics 2, biology, and my EMT certification) and because I took the August MCAT.