Interested in chemistry, but don’t know where to start? CHEM 123 is a first- year science that covers the fundamentals of physical and organic chemistry!
Format of the course
The format of the course was pretty standard. Like your usual first year courses, hundreds of students are taking the course as a prerequisite, thus the midterm and final exams are standardized among all sections. Even the lecture material is standardized, so you’re not really missing out on any content regardless of who your professor is.
The course is divided into two big portions: physical chemistry followed by organic chemistry. The physical chemistry portions are calculation and theory heavy. Personally, thermodynamics has never been something I was completely comfortable with; however, the professor made it VERY clear what we needed/didn’t need to know.
The organic portion is the complete opposite of the physical portion. It is not a stretch to say that you don’t need to do any calculations for this part. The difficulty comes in understanding chemical visualization (different projections), acid/base stability, and a few reactions. I loved this part of the course so much I went on to take 4 different organic chemistry courses in my 2nd and 3rd year.
There is also a mandatory lab component which drives everyone nuts. The in-lab quizzes are unnecessarily stressful! They give you 10 minutes to complete it, so there is no time to think! The labs themselves and associated assignments were pretty stress-free. You meet once every two weeks for a lab, so the work-load isn’t insane.
GPA 🙂 or 🙁
This course isn’t a GPA booster, however it isn’t particularly a killer. It’s just one of those courses that probably won’t make or break anything. There are two midterms and a final exam, along with quizzes and the lab component. The examinations are part multiple choice and written questions so you get the best (and worst) of both worlds. The multiple choice questions were pretty high risk in that one wrong answer would drop your exam mark by 6%; however they weren’t designed to be tricky. The class average for my section was 69% (which was on the low end). The distribution including all sections from winter 2018 are shown below:
CHEM 123 grade distribution. Credits: ubcgrades.com
verdict? to take or not to take
As this is a requirement for ALL first year science students, there isn’t a choice :D. If you enjoy chemistry, this course will be interesting. Good luck to all of you taking it!