Thanks all.

Hi. I am a 47 year old Mom who has decided to do what I want to do instead of what I am not afraid to do. I want to be a PA and have come to the conclusion that I need to quit screwing around and just do it. I have a Masters Degree in Speech Pathology (1984) and was employed in that capacity for ten years until I had my first child. When my third child was in 1st grade (2002), I went to Medical Transcription school and have been typing for an oncologist ever since. Working at home has been a blessing, but it is time to move on. My moment of clarity came when I realized I was looking up unfamiliar terms and then reading JAMA articles pertaining to them… slows me down quite a bit in my transcription, but my curiosity always gets the better of me. I now have the confidence to tackle math and am enrolled in beginning and intermediate remedial algebra for the summer and fall. I stumbled on the OPM website when I Googled “how much algebra do I need to make it through Chem 1” as I need to enroll in Chem 1 for the fall if at all possible and I will be in intermediate remedial algebra at the same time. I cannot begin to tell you how encouraged I am by all the nontraditionals out there. It has been a long road to what I think has always been my calling and I am thrilled to be taking the first steps. More to come…

Moved from Diary forum to Pre-Med Discussions.

Welcome! I’m so happy for you that you’re pursuing your dream.


I think if you have a very solid grasp of elementary algebra, you can do fine in General Chemistry. You will need to understand logs and antilogs (inverse logs) for second semester, so if your class doesn’t cover that, review it from textbooks on your own and make sure you get it.


The thing with math classes is to practice A LOT, perhaps by doing the same homework problems repeatedly, so that you become fast. I recommend the same for Gen. Chem.


Good luck, and keep us up to date on your progress!