Chemical Forums
Specialty Chemistry Forums => Chemical Education and Careers => Topic started by: daunteddetermination on August 14, 2015, 12:20:36 PM
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I'll try my best to make this quick. I'm 24-years-old. Classes start on August 24th. Fresh off of graduating high school in 2009, I started community college but things flamed out due to my inability to balance my life and school at the time. In 2014, I returned to the same community college, made 2 A's/2 B's, and this last semester (spring) I made straight A's. I'm insanely determined. I want to succeed as badly as I need to breathe. I switched my major to pre-med. Here's where the problem begins.
I'm taking chemistry 111. At the same rate, I'm in developmental math. Obviously, math has never been my strong suit. But I'm doing the absolute best I can. I got a mass e-mail yesterday from my chemistry 111 lab teacher detailing the course outline, and I saw the bit about the class requiring "strong mathematical skills".
This scares me to death.
I've acclimated myself to working hard and achieving high grades. I've been confident. But now, I'm filled with fear and a lack of confidence, because I doubt myself when it comes to achieving success in this class due to the apparently "strong mathematical skills" that are a necessity, that I lack at the current time! I'm scared to death that I'm going to fall behind in this class due to my deficiencies in math!
I'm fully prepared to bust my rear and work as hard as possible.
Do you guys have any tips or advice for me? I'm feeling quite desperate and extremely anxious/depressed. Surely my instructors (one for lab; the other for lecture) will help out, right? I have this aching fear that I'll have apathetic, uncaring instructors. I can't emphasize how badly I want to succeed. I'm eager to learn, so much so, but from the course outline, everything looks so foreign to me! Moles? Titrates? Lewis structures? I'm completely ignorant of these topics. Hopefully this is a basic chemistry course. I want to learn so badly, but I'm fearful of being left behind in the class.
Tips, advice, anything would be great. All in layman terms would be especially helpful. I'm determined to make an A, by any means necessary. I'm freaking out, however, as you can see. :(
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I have two lines of thought. One is I would like to know where are you exactly in math now. (I don't know what "developmental math" means.)
The other line of thought is that you should do what I used to do. Sign up for more classes than you're actually going to go all the way with. Drop the classes that turn out to be less (currently) appropriate/good before the Drop Deadline. If you thus explore Chem 111, you will get a better idea of what preparation, if any, you should undertake before doing it 'for real'.
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In my experience students don't usually mess up the math in chemistry; instead they plug the wrong numbers into formulae, which is a somewhat different matter. Although many of the mathematical operations are simply addition, multiplication, etc., you may encounter logarithms and exponents. My advice there is to make sure you understand the concept of finding a logarithm first, before you worry about the mechanics of the process.
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Im not sure what chemistry 111 exactly is (some intro course or what?) but from the stuff you say - lewis structurely experience from general chemistry course (our genchem looks similar to your course) the biggest problem was that studends didnt prepare enough during the year. (We had short tests every weak and you needed to have over 65% to be able to write a final test that allowed you to go for big one that determined your grade - stupid right? :D. There were most of the time simple problems but they seemed more difficult that they realy was)
my advice is:
a) take a deep breath and stop freaking out, chill and be cool
b) do all the homeworks you get when the course starts and do all problems from your textbook and you will be fine. Ask questions if you dont understand something
c) follow Babcock_Hall´s advice (dont plug wrong numbers)