Hello everyone! I’m so glad I found this site!
I’m 18 and am a pre-med freshman. My question is about taking an honors class versus a regular class, and if it even makes a difference in the eyes of med school admissions officers. See, I would like to take honors general chem 1, especially since the particular professor for the class is supposed to be excellent, and the course is recommended for pre-med students.
But here’s the catch:
I’m a little behind in the math department. In order to take honors chem, you need to be in a math class concurrently. However, I’m not ready to take calculus- I need to take pre-calc first. The problem: the class is at the same time as honors chem! And that’s the only pre-calc lass offered too.
So, does honors really makes a difference? Sure, it sounds good now… but would it be worth it to just take a regular chem class so I can learn about trig for physics down the line? Or, should I hold off on math this semester so I can take the honors class?
Thank you! All opinions will be appreciated!
First, I have never been in an honors class so, my opinion is just from what I have observed from the outside. It looks like honors classes are smaller in size so that is always good if you are attending a big school. As far as difficulty, the honors OChem 2 class seemed to be fallowing along with our class as far as the text goes so I don’t know if they were doing anything more.
As far as whether an honrs class hold more weight, once again I am at a loss, but I would guess that getting a B or C in an honors class wouldn’t look as good as getting an A in the regular class, but there might be some folks on here that have more experience than me.
No as far as being ready for math, I can speak as someone who was not prepared for college math my freshman year. I have paid dearly for that, even though I went back to college algebra and got an A and took calc and got an A, but I still have that first attempt at calc haunting me. So I agree if you feel you need to take pre-cal, take pre-cal. Even put off Hon Gen Chem for a year if it helps you get through math. Getting down is math has a way of putting the hurt on you in a hurry, especially when you are at a big school and your math class has 200 people.
I would speak to your academic advisor. If you need to take calculus as a prerequisite or co-requisite, then an inability to do so might prevent you from being in Calc I which would render what you want to do moot.