anyone taken these two classes? how do they compare in difficulty compared to the on-campus classes?

1/2/2006 11:51:15 PM

I LOVED Ch201 online. I thought it was pretty easy... If you do the material you shouldn't have a problem. Love the flexibility on when you study, plus beings I was my own teacher I HAD to go through the book material and work problems, because otherwise you can't do anything in the class. Most of the time I don't read the books for classes and this leaves you little other option.

The tests are very fair. If you go through the demos/examples/labs/homeworks, you learn everything you need to know for any of the tests.


Don't wait till the last minute to do hws, give yourself enough time to go to the tutorial center or re-read sections if you need to.

It always seemed the online section was slightly faster paced, because in lab a lot of times the other students acted like they never had seen the material before when we had covered it a week or even 2 before the lab. But that may be because when you have such flexibility w/ your class you dont really have an excuse like "bad weather" or whatever to put you a lecture or two behind.

1/4/2006 1:51:00 AM

CH 201 covers more material, and faster, than the on-campus section. I liked it a lot. Word of advice: hold off on buying the online book access; as it turns out, I never had to purchase the online book access (this is separate from the webassign access) and it just showed up all semester perfectly fine. KittyKitty is absolutely right - it's about being disciplined to get it done in sufficient time to ask questions. If you try to do it the day it's due, you will do very poorly in the class; if you have several days to bounce back and forth with email questions (and go to see the professor in the tutorial center...I personally don't find the grad students in the tutorial center to be helpful in any way shape or form) you'll be fine. Schedule those office hours into your schedule like a class - I was there most weeks.

1/7/2006 2:19:33 AM

I'd take 208 on-campus. Online for that class might be a bit more difficult than necessary

1/7/2006 10:35:53 PM

agree with ^

that class is much too complicated to take it online.

1/7/2006 10:43:17 PM

I agree with everything above concerning CH201 but need to comment on the online textbook.

Last semester was a total fiasco with Pearson Publishing. They told Wertz they could password-protect the online textbooks for CH101 and CH201 and would do so approximately two weeks into the semester when the students had settled into their classes. Turns out Pearson could not deliver on their promise. They were able to password lock it, but only in such a way that a student had to log in for every single page. Rather than pass this issue on to students, Wertz/chemistry abandon the prospect for the Fall semester.

For the Spring semester, Pearson has improved the system. They’ve gotten together with Course Compass and made it so the student has to log in once at a computer when they start working on chemistry and can then navigate the online text links at will. Starting at chapter 4 for CAMS and chapter 3 for CAQS, you’ll need that course compass access to view the online text. Chapters 1-3 of CAMS and 1-2 of CAQS are in the NCSU common locker and free for all.

Yours truly did remind Wertz to move all the CAMS and CAQS tables to the NCSU common locker so that you don’t need to log in if you just want to look up a value in a table.

Personally, I’m pretty peeved with the whole system because I had to switch out all my homework links to Pearson during the Fall semester and now I have to switch them to Course Compass/Pearson for the Spring semester. (Sorry, just had to vent.)

Anyway, word is you will actually need your Course Compass password to see CAMS and CAQS beyond the intro chapters. I’ve tried the system and it does seem to work properly now.

Sorry you have to pay for what was once free. But hey, I hear webassign access will be cheaper this semester.

[Edited on January 8, 2006 at 11:33 AM. Reason : Some of the grad students are good CH201 tutors. Find a good one and go to that time slot ]

1/8/2006 11:32:11 AM

actually if you take MA 141, 241, and 242, the course compass thingy comes with your textbook, and i used it for ch 201

1/8/2006 8:31:01 PM