Hi, I couldn't find much on this course but I'm just looking for some honest opinions and experiences. I'm in life sci so i dont need it for the program, but i want to transfer to another university which requires it. I didn't do so well in first year chem so i am very skeptical because this might be a GPA killer for me.

Anyway, from the people who have taken this course, it would be great to hear some experiences Thanks!

Have you checked out the course review already? http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...tr=C&t=35 793

yeah those are biochem students and the reviews from a couple years ago. i dont have the slightest interest in chemistry, so i just wanted opinions about the difficulty of the course.

This course is quite difficult. I found it much harder than orgo.
I heard they changed the marking scheme to pass/fail last year so as long as you're not expecting to fail the course, you should be fine.

i am in biochem and i had to take this class the past year.. it was absolutely terrible. the prof didn't really test us so much on concepts, as much as on memorizing the millions of formulas and all the variations. it got so bad that quite a few students were dropping out of the biochem program from the bad grades, and the head of department came in to talk to us about what we felt was wrong with the course. just as an exception for us (i think) to prevent more students from dropping the program due to this course, it was changed to pass/ fail.

in addition, the ta's were useless. most of them aren't too fluent in english, so even though they can spew out all the mathematical formulas and answers on the board, they can't really explain to you why they used each formula

So you don't get letter grades in this course??

This course was poorly taught and unorganized, don't take this course unless you have to or have the deepest of interests in thermodynamics.

Originally Posted by macsci

So you don't get letter grades in this course??

Nope, it would just be stated as "complete"

what? the pass/fail thing was only implemented last year due to many students complaining/dropping out of biochem as stated before. I highly doubt that it would be like this next year.

as far as i know, the same prof (Dr. Kruse) will be teaching the course, although the way he'll teach it is likely going to be much different since last years method didn't seem to work for many people.

edit: forgot to mention, last year there was the option of receiving a "pass" instead of a letter grade for students who did not do well. Obviously people who did well in the course kept the letter grade.

Honestly I don't think it's as bad as every is making it out to be...test averages were quite high (in the high 60s to mid 70s). I HATE chemistry and still pulled off an 11 so why people in biochem were dropping out of the program bc of this course, I don't understand...there's so many opportunities to do well in this course...yes it's taught poorly but tests were ridiculously easy

Originally Posted by bubblegum3

but i want to transfer to another university which requires it.

Why would you want to transfer?? Mac is awesome!