the journey is about to begin

well officially starting the Pre-req process next monday June 4. with General Chemistry I in summer school. I will not be able to attend the conference due to the timing so I am very sorry was really looking forward to meeting all you great people and hearing some awesome words of encouragement and motivation! I did have a question for you though. I took some biology courses in college back in 99-00 Zoology and Human Anatomy. would they count as a year of biology? thanks also any tips on how to kick butt in my first class back on the journey?

I believe that would depend on when you plan on applying to medical school. All of your sciences should be within the last ten years. When I restarted my journey, I had to retake all my biology and chemistry classes because of this.

If they were more recent, they might. However, by the time you will apply, they will be pushing ten years old. I strongly recommend you take some recent biology - preferably cell biology and/or microbiology. Some schools even have specific requirements that at least part of the bio requirements be some kind of cell biology.


Biology pre-reqs are among those that should definitely be recent because there have been so many advances and changes. Basic physics, gen chem and organic haven’t changed that much (at least in terms of what is taught an intro level). This is not the case with biology, as even a lot of the terminology has changed.


I highly recommend you visit MCAT topics and use that as a guide to picking out appropriate biology courses. You might also check with a pre-med advisor at your school and ask what courses they usually recommend for pre-meds. Usually the ones recommended for pre-meds will cover most of the MCAT topics.


Good luck in summer gen chem!!

Hey Miller, congrats on your start. I myself will begin my journey this fall.

Miller,


Congrats! I’m in the same boat as you. Just started CHEM 121 on Tuesday.


The last time I had anything to do with chemistry was in 1983 as a junior in high school!


Fortunately, some of it is coming back…and it’s mostly algebra at this point. Getting those conversions dialed in and trying to get a handle on the significant figures…the instructor is young and keeps contradicting himself.


hak

Just keep working and re-working the problem sets in the book (or get a book that has some) and let that be your guide, if the teacher’s not doing his job. The problem sets are your friend! Best of luck,

yeah, I read chapter 1 and hope that helps some prior to class tonight. we have a 2 hr lecture and then it goes to the lab for another 2 hrs. gonna be a long night. Mon-Thurs. Does anyone have any suggestions on when to study and do homework? I am planning on coming back home and working on it from 10-12 and then going to bed. I work full time during the day and honestly was going to try and do some here as well. I’m in a cubicle with hardly any interaction and it would be even better if I can find the book online. It has a version I just need to get access. that way it could look like i’m just working anyways. should be an interesting next few weeks.

Hmm, does your school library have a high speed scanner? You could scan chapters out of the book into PDF format, then put’em into your gmail or yahoo inbox or on your webserver for convenient access from anywhere.


I did that with a biochemistry textbook that was just a little too heavy to lug around, and I printed the PDF double sided. The scanner could do two pages at a time which also helped.

For downtimes during work, I’ve found it good to have a little info on hand. I wasn’t using textbooks at the office, but I found it good to have little bits of info (perhaps flashcards, if you use 'em) and copies of images on hand. Truth be told, I used both of those while sitting in traffic, too…


Online info could also work - there’s a thread around here with some online textbooks listed. Just don’t try that one in the car .