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CHEM 233 and other schools


Guest FungManX

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Guest FungManX

I'm just wondering whether or not UBC Chem 233 will be good enough for the 6 credits of organic chemistry required from other schools?

 

I know that UA does not accept it, but how about other Canadian Schools?

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Guest leviathan

It's pretty shifty...some schools will probably let you get away if you report Chem 123 as your first term of orgo...and then just use Chem 121/205 for your two semesters of non-organic chem. That's my plan, anyhow...

 

How did you find the final anyhow?

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Guest FungManX

I actually studied my ass off for it,

my friends and I got together the night before after all we finished studying and just stayed up till 2-3am at one of their houses (because it had a whiteboard).

 

We just went over 2-3 old exams on the board together.. it got to the point where when we just saw the reactant + reagent we could identify the product.

 

We all thought the exam was ridiculously easy..

I messed up the A-F question though, I remebered that carboxylic acid and NH3 wouldn't do those NAS reactions.. but i wrote it down anyway because I forgot how else I could approach the problem..

 

my friend pointed out that NH4+ would be produced afterwards... blah

 

I guess I won't get perfect, but hopefullly I will get over 80+

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Guest GundamDX

wo 123 was nasty in my year, 4 years ago i guess... i was trying to do old finals too but i gave up soon coz the questions were just too hard. I pulled of an A coz i did well on the midterm.

 

same goes for 121 i think. Midterm was easy then the final was bad.

 

in fact, that went for 205 too!

 

233's midterm was terrible, 40% average. But I heard with the turnover of the profs, everything has changed now. it's the ultimate weeder course, but most of my friends survived coz they scaled like mad at the end :) same with other weeder courses !

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Guest leviathan

Word. I thought it was pretty easy, too. The bonus was a joke, and all of the hints that they put on there. "Intramolecular reaction!" - of course it's intramolecular when you ask what is going to happen and you only have one molecule on the page. :b

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Guest TKP 123

This reminds me of my life in org chem years:

 

Before I took Org Chem 203/204, I was worried too, but it actually turned out the highest scores in my transcript. May be because people told me it was difficult, and I worked really hard on it, ending up in high marks.

 

For those of you in Biochemistry at UBC, I found Chem 313 (organic chem) much harder. However, the worst is Chem 333 (not sure if this is the course name, but it was purely a spectroscopy course). This course was a real hammer to me. I totally blew that one up, The whole course focused purely on Advanced Spectroscopy, NMR, UV, Mass Spec, etc..., which I found super boring and I didn't like it (hated it a lot). I had no choice but it was mandatory for biochemistry students during that time. It dragged my GPA down. Not sure if they still make people take that one mandatory.

 

Overall, I think second year chem is useful for whatever you want to pursue after graduation. However, I found the spectroscopy course totally useless to me (probably I am inclined towards molecular biology, tissue culture biology side). That being said, spectroscopy will be useful to those of you who pursue protein studies or graduate school in chemistry.

 

I would rather see UBC biochemistry undergrad program putting more emphasis on immunology/cell courses... The chemistry side is overly emphasized while the "bio" part is not. These immunology/cell knowledge will be useful to students in biotechnology, as well as in medicine.

 

Sorry, this may be out of topic. It is just my opinion.

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Guest FungManX

Yeah thats a real problem with major programs at UBC.

Like Biophysics for example, the only biology relevance is probably biol 200,201 and bioc 302 + a 1 or 2 biophysics courses for the entire degree.. whats the point of calling the degree biophysics if its all mainly focused on physics?!

 

Anyway, Lev. marks are out! how'd u do?

I ended up with lower than what I expected |I 78.. gonna have to get that checked out for sure

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Guest leviathan

You expected higher than that? The class average for my section was 52%! I ended up with 65 but I am appealing my midterm because I recently noticed somebody was obviously hitting the sauce before they marked mine. If Dr. Bates lets me appeal my midterm after his deadline, I should have 74% based on the questions that were incorrectly marked and my adjusted midterm mark.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest kaymcee

Just to continue the thread derailment, I agree with the comments about how biochemistry is a great deal more chemistry than biology. UBC is not alone in this emphasis; UVic's biochemistry degree is much the same. Bio-anything is, for the most part, a lot more of the anything and not so much biology. (This is why I chose biology over biochemistry, as the latter has far too many chemistry courses for my liking.)

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Guest physiology

The year that I started my 2nd year, the chemistry department (at the behest of the biology dept) completely revamped Chem 231/232 into chem 233 & the lab, chem 235. Anyway - I had a feeling that many medical schools outside of BC woudln't accept this as equivalent for a full year of orgo, so I took chem 203/204.

 

Chem 203/204 are great courses. The labs suck (ie. if your product isn't like 99.9999999999999999% pure, you only get like 16/20 for that lab or whatever), but I loved the professors and the way the course was taught.

But the problem wiht chem 203/204 is that you can ONLY take them if you declare yourself as a chem or bioc major.

 

Just be careful - I'd email schools now and ask them if they'd accept chem 233.

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