Pre-Med Q&ACategory: Scheduling and Classeschem-230-over-the-spring
AvatarMo Ma asked 1 year ago

Hello! I was wondering if I could hear from someone that\\\’s taken pchem over the spring semester. Was it manageable? Thanks

1 Answers
AvatarArjun Batra answered 1 year ago

Hi there! Thanks for your question!
I took Chem 230 last spring (From May to June). Everyone’s experience with pchem is different, but the prevailing feeling is that it is a hard HARD class. Now that varies depending on how extensive your past chem experience is or how much you enjoy chemistry, but Chem 230 is certainly no walk in the park, especially during the spring. 
One of the biggest challenges for me was how fast things went during the spring semester, and honestly, unless you absolutely need to take it now, I’d caution against it until you have a full semester to take it. The speed of the spring semester course is breakneck, and you can easily fall behind. One of the other issues with the accelerated spring course is that there is so little time to fully absorb the material and practice the concepts before the tests, which take place every week
Now to your original question: Was it manageable? This is subjective; I took Chem 230 by itself, and it still made me sweat and at times it was really overwhelming. And I know that I’m not alone in this sentiment, but every person is different. 
I don’t tell you this to scare or overwhelm you, but just keep in mind that Pchem requires a lot of time and commitment to succeed in. At least for me, the Spring semester was not enough time to learn meaningfully. That being said, if you can, I personally would recommend waiting for either the Fall or Winter to take it. If you can’t, it’ll be a little faster, but you still can succeed. Not to mention, the Chem 230 professor is one of the best teachers at Michigan. 
I hope I at least partially answered your question, but if not, feel free to follow-up!

All the best in your summer plans!
Arjun, PMH Advisor

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