[ALonelyMacromolecule]

I've been here for a while and it's been a long time since I joined. I spent the meantime looking for what's right for me. I am mentally ill, my psychiatrist prefers me not talking about my diagnosis, but I am doing well on meds recently. Now, as I am extremely interested in sciences as a child, I naturally went to the STEM stream this year. The first semester was recently over and now the second semester of B.Sc 1st year will begin from Monday. I've decided to go into research and I've picked chemistry as my choice of subject, because I am fairly competent at it and I'd love to do research in chemistry, especially physical chemistry.

Now, I was always a life science person and I hated math, that would end up getting disastrous, I know, that's why I've realized there's no running away from math in STEM and you HAVE to be good at it to even earn a bachelor's degree, and I know you need to be fairly good at it to do research. Research does interest me.

I was always more competent in the theoretical sciences rather than their application. I love to discover new things, but unfortunately due to my mental illness, I cannot dissect organisms or be competent at performing experiments in the chemistry lab. I'd have loved to be in the pharmaceutical industry, but I've realized that you cannot always go against the natural order of things. Suffering means suffering, death means death. Who am I to make a breakthrough in the field, when I can't even synthesize a simple organic compound properly which is a part of the curriculum?  That'd be painstakingly huge task, and I don't want to go running after things I cannot do but have mere fantasies of doing.

Then there comes computational chemistry. Since I do want a career in science, why should I overlook something that sounds perfectly made for me? I know a bit of programming and it's the only practical scientific skill I have got, and it sounds interesting to me. I can use computers fine and even better than people of my age.

So in brief, I want to know what kind of maths is required for computational and theoretical chemistry. I am not from the US, however, I believe I will be joining a  reputed science education and research institute nearby. So I believe the curriculum is going to be international for the MSc-PhD dual degree course. I have no idea what I am going to research on, as I am still just a B.Sc 1st year student. Here we've three years BSc course, as opposed to the American four year course, so I am not talking about distant future but rather I want to know which way I should be going.

Is there any book on mathematics which is specifically for chemistry? Currently we've learnt physical and inorganic chemistry last semester and will learn analytical and organic chemistry this semester. Analytical is introductory while we've been learning the other three branches for quite a while (around four years) Can anybody advise me? What kind of mathematical books should I be following?

Here I should add another complication. I dropped mathematics in first year of college as I had planned to pursue medicine which has relatively less mathematics and physics. Things didn't work out that way so I am left with pure sciences as my only career option. So I'd be glad if you could recommend a book like that.

I am currently going to purchase Thomas' Calculus. I hope that'll be sufficient for me till I finish my bachelor's degree. It's not that I am running away from math, it's just that I don't have much budget to buy books currently. This will change if I get accepted in the reputed research institute I was talking about earlier. There I'll get a stipend and a very cool place to live.

Sorry if this was long, there are many complications like my mental illness, budget and competency so I had to write it all down at once. Any book recommendation is appreciated. I am going this far, just to score good grades in college and then do well in the entrance exam and then get accepted in the research institute. (Which again offers an MSc-PhD Dual Degree.)