<p>Hey</p>
<p>Have any of you current students taken the freshman major’s section at penn for either chem 101 or 102. I’m interested in majoring in chem, but I’m a little worried that the section will be more difficult than the normal larger sections?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>ehh…i am in chem 101 section 6. that and section 5 are for engineers. i find that the material for engineers is a bit different and harder than that of regular chem 101 sections 1-4 students.</p>
<p>can you rephrase your question please because I dont understand what you mean by “normal larger sections”</p>
<p>Actually, in the College, one of the sections is a smaller class(only 70 students) which is called the major’s section. </p>
<p>thanks though</p>
<p>I’m in the freshman section of 101 right now, and will be taking the same section for 102 next semester.</p>
<p>It is tough, especially if you get Topp because he specializes in p-chem, and hence tends to focus a lot on the p-chem material (e.g. quantum mechanics, Schrodinger, particle in a box, all that fun stuff) A number of the people in the class are chem or other natural science majors, so it’s a self-selecting group and naturally you’ll have some more science-focused classmates (as opposed to the normal sections where you might have some kids who don’t intend to major in the sciences at all) which makes it harder to stay on top of the curve. That said though, Topp does take it in to account and we do get curved to a higher letter grade than the other classes; this semester the average will probably be curved to a B+ whereas I think the other sections might get curved C+/B-</p>
<p>Hope that answers some of your questions</p>
<p>yeah, thanks</p>
<p>I’m actually in Topp’s larger section this semester and yes, he does like to focus on the quantum mechanics stuff. But it’s good that he curves the major’s section to a B+</p>
<p>So what makes up your grade in chem? Is it all tests, or are there lab reports etc. that are worth points too?</p>
<p>In the chem department at penn, you receive two grades: one for lecture(chem 101) and one for lab(chem 054). It kind of weird (or stupid); they are two different courses. The lab grade is based on reports, a midterm ,and a final. While the lecture grade is based solely on exams. I find the lab section tougher, maybe because my TA is a b***h, Chem is, I think, the only department that separates lab grade from lecture grade.</p>
<p>Oh ok, well material-wise I don’t think we’re that much different than the normal sections. I know on the upcoming midterm we covered a bit more material (started into Ch. 20 with molecular spectroscopy) but that’s about it.</p>
<p>Weighting wise I think the grades should come out the same regardless of how they calculate it (lab separate or included with the lecture) since either way the combined weight of lab and lecture is 1.5CU</p>