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07-16-2007, 11:07 AM
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#1 | | New Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: New Jersey
Threads: 1
Posts: 14
| Princeton pre-med classes: how are they?
I am thinking about taking the pre-med sequence of courses (Gen Bio, Gen Chem, Phys, and Orgo) at Princeton and would like to know how they are. Are there any current/recent undergrads out there who have taken them and could comment?
Thanks so much! | 
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07-21-2007, 09:53 AM
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#2 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Threads: 29
Posts: 107
| They are very good. I've taken honors gen chem and gen bio. The professors are top notch. My gen bio prof was a Stanford postdoc and the other prof for that class was an MD/PhD from Johns Hopkins. The gen chem class had 3 Phd profs (1 doing lecture, 1 for demos, and 1 for lab) and a TA all for only about 35 people so we amazing attention and quality instruction. Premed classes are amazing and med schools know about it. That's why we have around a 93% acceptance of premeds into med schools when the national avg is only 50%. Orgo and physics should be equally challenging and rewarding. | |
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07-21-2007, 03:53 PM
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#3 | | Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Princeton University '08
Threads: 4
Posts: 455
| Some kids find the classes incredibly boring. I took MOL214 and liked it, but half the premeds I knew dropped out. EEB211 is a bore and nowhere as interesting as MOL214.
Orgo is commonly the most complained-about course at Princeton. Though Prof. Jones has retired, I'm sure it's not going to get any easier.
Personally, I was bored to death by GenChen, which is why I wrote of premed entirely and majored in WWS instead.
For physics, a lot of premeds take the simplest one (no calculus), but I've heard the curve is better if you take the harder physics course. | |
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07-23-2007, 09:12 AM
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#4 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Threads: 0
Posts: 101
| Yeah, MOL 214 (as in most of the MOL classes) is known to be incredibly difficult, but interesting. There are huge curves on the test--the averages are usually around a 40 or 50. I've heard gen chem isn't too bad.
Physics is probably the most difficult out of all of them--weekly quizzes and tons of other pre-meds and engineers in with you make the curve pretty bad.
Orgo has one of the most amazing professors ever, Semmelhack. There used to be two orgo classes, a usual, normal lecture one by Semmelhack and then some weird experiment one run by Maitland Jones where he never lectured and you just did problems for hours... Thankfully he retired, so I guess people will all be going to Semmelhack's now. He honestly tries to make orgo as painless as possible, and he's a very clear and interesting lecturer. Problem sets are optional, only graded whether you hand them in or not. He gives you breaks in the lectures, sometimes brings in cookies and doughnuts. For the labs, you hand in a first draft, they correct everything for you, and you hand it in again, so most everyone gets 100s. And on all the tests, almost every submits a re-grade and they give you points back. And there are 3 tests, and he lets you drop the lowest. Overall, I really, really enjoyed orgo with him, and almost considered switching from Chem E to Chemistry b/c of it. | |
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07-25-2007, 08:21 AM
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#5 | | New Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Threads: 0
Posts: 4
| Wow thank you so much for your post Voovi, to tell you the truth, I was deathly afraid of organic chemistry. Hopefully I'll get Semmelhack as my professor! | |
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07-25-2007, 08:25 AM
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#6 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Threads: 0
Posts: 101
| You definitely will, he's the only one teaching it. | |
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07-26-2007, 10:36 AM
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#7 | | New Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Threads: 2
Posts: 24
| how competitive do the premed classes get? | |
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07-27-2007, 09:03 PM
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#8 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Threads: 0
Posts: 179
| Who is the best general chemistry teacher (for CHM201/202) to get and can you request? | |
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07-28-2007, 10:46 PM
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#9 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: CA / NJ
Threads: 4
Posts: 108
| If you're talking about professors, you'll get the same one either way. If you're talking about precept TA's, you don't know who's available that semester until the first week of class.
I would recommend taking CHM 207/202, though, the professors for 207 (Cava, Pascal) are much more lively and give really interesting lectures. It's a little more challenging, but more fun. | |
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07-29-2007, 06:46 AM
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#10 | | New Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Threads: 0
Posts: 19
| thanks for the post...im planning to go for premed as well...but any suggestions whether or not i should go for orgo in the first semester? | |
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07-30-2007, 06:15 PM
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#11 | | New Member
Join Date: May 2007 Location: St. Louis, MO or Holder Hall, Princeton, NJ
Threads: 0
Posts: 7
| Bah, Mait Jones's class was awesome. I've heard fine things about Semmelhack, but Jones was a character. Y'all are missing out. Anyway, it certainly isn't impossible to take orgo as a freshman. I took Jones's classes my freshman year, and I did well. It's no joke, though, so make sure you take it seriously--go to all the lectures, study sessions, etc. Also (and this goes for every subject), don't be shy about asking your college about tutoring! I'm an orgo tutor for Rocky, and we get lots of people second semester who talk about how much they wished that started getting tutored first semester... | |
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08-02-2007, 11:52 AM
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#12 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: OYO
Threads: 27
Posts: 1,039
| pre med classes are hard, but if you put in the time you'll do fine.
Orgo - practice practice practice (a lot)
EEB - mindless memorization
MOL - mindless memorization + some conceptual stuff
Physics - practice practice practice
Math - practice practice practice
Writing/ENG - suck up to your prof/instructor | |
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