you should see this course I'm studying for. Physical Chemistry 2. Its calculus meets chemistry meets insanity. If I showed you my formula sheet you'd faint. I think I'm up to 50 formulas that I need to know. the sad thing is I made that 50 estimate up and then I went back to my sheet and counted that it was right! Plus I have to know all the unit conversions Plus then there's about 5 complete formula derivations (which means really there's even more formulas you need to solve those derivations). Oh and with those 50 formulas. And this is me being only through maybe half the material. And this is only a 2nd year course. You know they say McGill is Canada's Harvard. But, at harvard aren't they known for higher marks lol. McGill is insanely hard. The Biochem midterm I just took was a Type II multiple choice exam (and if you don't know what that means thank the lord). I swear they quizzed me on details that no one needed to memorize to understand the concepts e.g. what is the size of a TM helix (is it 10-15 Amino Acids? T or F) The real answer was 16-25. I mean come on! Type II MC means you need to know 5 true or false questions to get 1 mark. So if you knew 4 of them and even if they tested completely different areas of knowledge you'd still get zero. So say a student knew 3 areas really well but was bad at the 4th, well he'd be fucked
Bloody students, always moaning about something. Wait until yhou get in the real world then you'll have something to moan about.
Ouch, I think I'll pass on anything relating to Biology and Chemisty. I'm a major in history with a minor in educational computing at Iowa State University. I think only two of my classes will be having a midterm this semester, so that's not too bad. Com Sci 207 - Programming 1 (java): This tests will probably be a little hard like his previous test, because we have to write out on paper whole programs in a small time period so it makes it hard to go back and check for errors to "press that compile button" to check for stupid mistakes. CI 202 - Intro to Digital Learning in the Secondary Classroom: This test will be easy. We just have to do 8 problems that have 2-4 sentence answers over many forms of media literacy, copyright, using the internet in the classroom.
I never understood why they made us memorize all of those forumlae. IRL I just look them up on a cheat sheet I have printed out. The regularly used ones you remember anyway, but most of them I have never used again.
50 Formulas? wow... And I thought memorizing the whole the Java Language was tough for my CompSci Class...
College sucks. I'm thinking about just going to a technical school and getting a two-year "degree." It's cheaper and I'll probably wind up making more money than my current major would allow me (Psychology).
You would hit your career gap faster than you think. Short-term, you start making money, but try to raise a family making only $40grand or less nowadays a year. of course, it depends on who you are. WE all will be relying on that piece of paper, but its the person who has earned it that really determines how far they will make it. So, don't rely on a piece of paper... What are you majoring in? Obviously something involving chemistry if you are taking such a high level chem course. I try to avoid chemistry (I don't hate it, I just struggle with it). I'm studying to become a civil engineer. I like math, but I don't like to memorize everything and I think Biology, and most of the Chemistry (especially Organic and up) requires nothing but photographic memory. I like civil engineering because it's simple, especially structural.... If it moves, it will fail, lol. All the forces have to equal zero and nothing can be accelerating/moving. Also, a lot of the stuff you learn is derived (I don't mean that mathematically) from some very simple principles, compared to science where you have to know definitions in verbatim I am taking Intro to Environmental and that's a pain in the butt. The first test I got a 68, but no one scored 100 points on it. Actually, the highest score was a 88 out of 100. It was pretty much Chemistry 2 (general) all rolled into one. It had a majority of Acid-Base & PH problems that I really have a hard time understanding because I learned it in a 300+ student room and I really couldn't talk to the TA or Professor for help. I passed that class with a C and got a D- in the final exam. Anyway, Environmental Engineering involves chemistry, but not a lot compared to yours, but I'm glad I'm not heading into that. I do like it and I am starting to understand it. It is an intro class, so we are just covering the basics. After this class I have to take Environmental Process Design as it is also required. So, the chemistry knowledge is still required. My advice is to devote all your time to it and try to find a connection between all of the formulas. Also look at the problem carefully, if it has certain units, then chances are it will use a certain known constant, and formula where you just plug and chug to get the answer. Good luck to you.
Though my course (3rd year management BA at University Of Sheffield) is pretty hard (Though better than last semester's work on social constructionism), the workload is pretty fair, a good split between coursework and examination. However, I looked at my Dad's thesis for his doctorate in Philosophy (which was actually about animal stomach acids, specifically ruminants) at christmas and it was a bound, type writer written, 2 inch thick text. I almost fainted looking at it, he exclusively wrote it. Just glad I went down the social science route.
