Organic Chemistry at Athabasca

[futuredoc123 0]

Has anyone who has taken organic chemistry at Athabasca comment on the course's difficulty and structure compared to other universities?

Background: I currently need to take organic chemistry 1 and physics 2 to apply to McGill (need to submit grades by jan 15th). I would have taken orgo there but it is scheduled at exactly the same time as physis 2 so I can't. 

If someone knows about other online options, that would be appreciated too!

[dancemom 6]

I'm currently taking organic 2 through Athabasca and also took organic 1 there. It's a good course, has transferability to both u of c and u of a. I enjoy it. But you still have to do the lab in person. For most people that means travelling to Edmonton for several days. Since you are currently taking classes at McGill, that may cause problems. 

[Super Nova 41]

I have heard good things about ochem at Athabasca but most students just go do it at UofA as opposed to UofC. Not sure how Athabasca works if you are in Ontario.

[futuredoc123 0]

@Super Nova I was going to take it as an online course at Athabasca

@dancemom How long did it take you to complete the course? Did you take it in the online individualized format? In order to apply to McGill's medical school, I need to submit my grades for the course by January 15th. How quick was athabasca in terms of providing you with your marks?

[MDmaybe99 70]

i am currently taking org chem 1 at athabasca, since i had already done the class a few years back, they credited me the lab session, so i only need to do the 2 exams and both assignments. Its pretty straight forward, but I personally had to rely on a lot of youtube videos to understand concept, and there are a lot of mistakes in the online book provided so be aware of that.

[dancemom 6]

@medschoolhopeful786 It took me 4 months, I was doing 4 other courses at the time. I took the online version. They generally had marks back in 2 weeks, but I needed to book exams at least 10-20 days in advance. Here is their lab schedule http://science.athabascau.ca/Labs/schedules/organic-chemistry.php . Plus you need to register before the 10th of the month before you start the course, so your earliest start would be November 1st. 

 

[Borborygmi 234]

I was able to do both organic courses in 8 weeks. Good resources, fair exams, good tutors. It's a fair workload, but doable quickly if you focus! Just make sure the course is transferable to McGill.

[SunAndMoon 583]

1 hour ago, Borborygmi said:

I was able to do both organic courses in 8 weeks. Good resources, fair exams, good tutors. It's a fair workload, but doable quickly if you focus! Just make sure the course is transferable to McGill.

Definitely transferrable for both

[MDee2B 1]

Hey guys, does anyone know what the format of the organic chemistry exams at Athabasca (CHEM 350) is? Is it all multiple choice? Mix of MC and short answers? Something else..?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[rusty714 9]

8 hours ago, MDee2B said:

Hey guys, does anyone know what the format of the organic chemistry exams at Athabasca (CHEM 350) is? Is it all multiple choice? Mix of MC and short answers? Something else..?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

I wrote the exam a couple weeks ago and it was all short (or long I guess) answers and no MCQ. I was writing when everything was shutdown so it was an open-book exam and we were told it would be more difficult than the practice exams. It was about 7 questions that were relatively difficult (even with it being open book lol), given the content we actually learned.

[guacamole17 2]

does anyone know if the labs will be in person for the rest of the 2020 year?

[MDee2B 1]

On 6/15/2020 at 6:14 AM, rusty714 said:

I wrote the exam a couple weeks ago and it was all short (or long I guess) answers and no MCQ. I was writing when everything was shutdown so it was an open-book exam and we were told it would be more difficult than the practice exams. It was about 7 questions that were relatively difficult (even with it being open book lol), given the content we actually learned.

Thanks for the info!

Hope the exam went well.

[tallshirts 33]

I took intro Chem from Athabasca and it was a bit brutal. They mailed me a chemistry kit, so I had to do all the labs at home. I had to write the tests at another academic institution, which was fine. I just found that studying chem at home alone was pretty challenging, especially first year general chem, which has SO MUCH material. I found the TA to be fine and the lab reports and assignments to be relatively easy enough, but the exams were very tough for me.

[Sumaya 0]

On 6/15/2020 at 1:14 AM, rusty714 said:

I wrote the exam a couple weeks ago and it was all short (or long I guess) answers and no MCQ. I was writing when everything was shutdown so it was an open-book exam and we were told it would be more difficult than the practice exams. It was about 7 questions that were relatively difficult (even with it being open book lol), given the content we actually learned.

Hi I’m writing the exam next week. Could you please tell me if the difficult questions were based on the synthesis stuff? How long did it take you to finish the exam?

[Gelo 0]

On 6/14/2020 at 3:29 PM, MDee2B said:

Hey guys, does anyone know what the format of the organic chemistry exams at Athabasca (CHEM 350) is? Is it all multiple choice? Mix of MC and short answers? Something else..?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Hey did you take the course because I was planning on taking it. How were the exams?

[MDee2B 1]

8 hours ago, Gelo said:

Hey did you take the course because I was planning on taking it. How were the exams?

Only starting it now actually so I haven’t  taken the exams yet

[fishwhispered 0]

this is probably the worst course i have ever taken during my university career, i graduated from queens with honors and distinction. I took Orgo chem 350 from Athabasca because i needed it as a prerequisite for grad school. Its just about the worst decision i ever made. You are entirely on your own nearly no practice examples are given so you cannot develop any skills. there are also error riddle throughout the "textbook" which is an online wiki. I was less stressed with 5 in person graduate courses than with one orgo chem course through Athabasca. 

that being said i got an A in the course, specifically an 86%. So if i can do it so can you but only if you don't mind dreading your life for 4 months which i'm sure all of us are used to. 

I would take precaution with this course and do one through a different uni that will provide more resources. Also get a chegg subscription 

[fishwhispered 0]

On 8/26/2020 at 1:43 AM, MDee2B said:

Only starting it now actually so I haven’t  taken the exams yet

it sorta sucks. but ypou should be able to find all the sources through the "text book" or through online sources 

[Premedstudent0307 17]

Has anyone taken the Thompson Rivers online ochem course? I am considering that since I am hearing so many bad things about ochem at Athabasca....

[MDee2B 1]

6 hours ago, fishwhispered said:

it sorta sucks. but ypou should be able to find all the sources through the "text book" or through online sources 

Thanks for sharing. I agree, I’m not a huge fan of the wiki format and there are indeed plenty of mistakes, way more than you would find in a normally published science course textbook.

Did you take the “covid” exam - that is, the temporary combined midterm/final worth 70% of the final grade, and which is open book and supposedly harder than the normal exams (according to the prof)?

Also, how did you find the labs? Were they marked ok, considering you didn’t actually obtain the data yourself?  (Did you do the reports based on raw experimental data provided, or an onsite  in-person intensive?)

[fishwhispered 0]

4 hours ago, MDee2B said:

Thanks for sharing. I agree, I’m not a huge fan of the wiki format and there are indeed plenty of mistakes, way more than you would find in a normally published science course textbook.

Did you take the “covid” exam - that is, the temporary combined midterm/final worth 70% of the final grade, and which is open book and supposedly harder than the normal exams (according to the prof)?

Also, how did you find the labs? Were they marked ok, considering you didn’t actually obtain the data yourself?  (Did you do the reports based on raw experimental data provided, or an onsite  in-person intensive?)

yeah i did the covid exam. i didn't find it particularly challenging except for the structure determination which i generally am not that great in. If you have chegg you will easily be able to find the answers and even then many of the questions are google-able. The questions are 'harder' than a normal exam mainly because they have more components to them so there is more work to do but the questions are not painfully hard. 

the lab write ups were super easy once you are able to decipher the data given to you. the most painful part is writing the introductions and filling out a million IR spectrum charts. Its totally within the realm of possibility to get 100% on all of the labs. that data was supplied by one of the profs, making it a little difficult to do procedure write-ups because the order of operations is not always clear.  

[MDee2B 1]

17 hours ago, fishwhispered said:

yeah i did the covid exam. i didn't find it particularly challenging except for the structure determination which i generally am not that great in. If you have chegg you will easily be able to find the answers and even then many of the questions are google-able. The questions are 'harder' than a normal exam mainly because they have more components to them so there is more work to do but the questions are not painfully hard. 

the lab write ups were super easy once you are able to decipher the data given to you. the most painful part is writing the introductions and filling out a million IR spectrum charts. Its totally within the realm of possibility to get 100% on all of the labs. that data was supplied by one of the profs, making it a little difficult to do procedure write-ups because the order of operations is not always clear.  

Ok, thanks for your quick answer! I actually don’t have chegg, but I hope I’ll still be alright for the exam.