CHEM 1411

Bio Premed here.

If you don't have to take this class...

STAY OUT, STAY OUT, STAY OUT, STAY OUT, STAY OUT!

This class is terribly organized and you learn almost nothing. The homework assignments are needlessly long and often based on the program Mathematica. The only problem being that they don't teach you anything about learning Mathematica at all, and you are left to scour the internet to get some hint of what you are supposed to do. The experiments are mostly a joke, and the lab reports are not needlessly painful as well, relying upon the ACS format even though there is nothing to write a proper Abstract about. All told, it isn't impossible to get an A but it is not worth the huge amounts of time you put into it. Also, the grading is dependent on your TA and how cool he/she is. If you get Aly Verlander, she is a fantastic TA, you lucked out! Some other TAs apparently don't give full credit as a policy, which makes no sense.

At least this isn't the engineering version, Chem 1611 though. That class is absolute trash and a waste of time.

Overall, if you must take this class, understand that it requires a lot of busy work and you don't learn much. If you have a lot of time to prepare for this class, learn the ACS format and try to familiarize yourself with how to write in Mathematica.

This class might catch you off guard if you're only used to casual labs in high school. There is a lot of independent planning and problem-solving involved, but the course is by no means impossible to succeed in. If you've never done labs before, this will seem pretty intensive at first, however you'll find that you've improved a lot by the end of the year. At the beginning, the major struggle is getting to know how Mathematica works and perhaps familiarizing yourself with the (slightly disorganized) lab routine, but afterwards the flow of work becomes natural.
Your TA also contributes a lot to how you enjoy the course. If you have a driven and engaging TA, you can learn much more during the lab sessions than you would without their input. Each TA can have different grading styles, so watch out for that!
Suggestion: Prepare to begin organizing your post lab reports a week ahead of the due date, because you don't want to leave silly mistakes under your TA's careful inspection! If you stay organized and retain good chemistry with your lab group (no pun intended), this could be a worthwhile course for you.

What an awful class. It is structured so that students have to plan their own experiment (although there is only 1 right procedure, YOU have to figure out what to do). This was often difficult, and our TA gave zero help (we just had a bad TA though- do not get Tian). You have to complete prelabs and some post labs using Mathematica, which is a frustrating computer program that makes everything 10 times harder. Don't leave them until the night before because you WILL be needing office hours help on them. The write ups are annoying and it takes a while to know the specific format you need to use. Assignments are graded harshly, and quizzes are difficult. There was a group presentation after every lab, which I found pointless since every group had the same procedure and results. I have never seen Lindsay Wheeler before- TA's run the class and if you get a bad TA, there is not much you can do other than go to office hours frequently. This also doesn't correspond to Chem 1410 at all. DO NOT take it it's not required for your major.

For a 1 credit course, this course takes up way too much time. It is 3.5 hours long and required more work than any of my other classes when we had pre and post lab assignments. I don't even know what Lindsay Wheeler looks like or who Jan Dean Clemmer is but lab is structured very poorly. The only thing that helped me get through this pain was my hilarious TA and awesome lab group members. If you don't get a good lab group, I am very sorry. Also, if you have credit for the lab, I highly suggest you try to get out of this. It also doesn't correspond with lecture so sometimes the TA will get mad at for you for not understanding the concept when we haven't even learned the material yet. I hope they will fix how lab is structured, so all I can say is, good luck.

If possible, avoid this class. 1 credit does not approach being worth the amount of work and frustration that you will put into this class. Lindsay Wheeler seems like a nice enough lady, but this class is awful.

This all depends on what TA you end up getting. Chem lab does change based on its reviews from semester to semester though, which is nice.