<p>Honestly, there isn’t a lot of math in General Chem (CHE 2ABC) at all, and there’s no math at all involved in O-Chem (CHE 8AB). It’s simple, arithmetic math, and the only hard part is stoichiometry, but that’s just mainly conversions (like going from grams to moles–you’ll learn what moles are). </p>
<p>Head start for BIS 2ABC? Hmm, I can’t tell you about BIS 2A since I didn’t take it at UCD (took the equivalent at community college), but do the prelabs in the lab book (because those WILL be due the Monday of the week you have lab. There’s an electronic version that you turn in (which will be available on the course’s Smartsite), but it’s much easier to do the prelabs on paper first and then transferring those information onto the electronic version. I wouldn’t recommend reading the textbook, because you may either get a professor who don’t require the book at all even though the bookstore will say it’s required (and teach in a completely different manner than what the book teaches), or you may get a professor who wants you to read certain chapters out of the book–wait until the syllabus becomes available (an announcement will be sent out to your ucdavis email account if a syllabus has been posted on Smartsite for your class) and see what it says. </p>
<p>The BIS 2ABC classes are always held in the 123 Science Lecture Hall building, which has the capacity to hold up to 500 people, and there are several different lab sections–there are also two different sections of the BIS 2ABC series (For example, the A section and the B section, both of which have lectures at different times, so the total number of students taking the BIS series can be up to 1000). It’s mainly a freshman-sophomore level course, so you have a late pass/registration time, you might have difficulty getting in, but you can still waitlist the class–in my experience, they try to accommodate people who are on the waitlist to the best of their ability without going over capacity. </p>
<p>And not everyone is a Premed student here. My roommate, who’s a Psych major, isn’t pre-med. My other roommate, who’s a Political Science major, isn’t pre-med. There are people in my major (Animal Science) who want to go into research or conservation instead of vet school. The CHE 8AB series is not made for pre-med students at all–all the pre-med students are taking the O-Chem series that I’m taking (CHE 118C). CHE 8AB is the “easy” o-chem series.</p>