so i got a 61 and a 43 on my first two chem exams. this is the only class where my average is below a 90. i think i'm gunna switch the class to credit only this semester, then retake it for a grade in the spring.

your ideas?

10/16/2007 11:15:10 AM

Quote :

"Major : Chem Engineering/ Paper Science"

Quote :

"o i got a 61 and a 43 on my first two chem exams."

Umm I don't know what other classes you're taking, but if you're going into ChemE and you can't ace Chem 101 then you'd probably be best off rethinking your major.....

CH101 is like preschool compared to the shit you're gonna get to later

10/16/2007 11:23:49 AM

Change majors before you get to CHE 205.

You'll likely want to hang yourself later you're having issues with CH101 now. You could probably manage the engineering bits well if you're a math ace, but you've got CH 101, 201, 221, 223, 315 and a chem elective to go through before you're done with raw chemistry.

If it's really important to you and you love chemistry/ChemE, retake it and continue on. If you're not sure, it doesn't sound good.

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 11:57 AM. Reason : .]

10/16/2007 11:57:00 AM

damn. you are gonna hate the rest of the chems.

heck, i had to get a tutor for myself. and i like science.

10/16/2007 12:24:21 PM

Why change to credit only when you can just drop? Just fill out the paperwork and be done with that class.

10/16/2007 12:31:12 PM

If your major is chemical engineering then I would recommend you continue attempting to learn the material and take the exams (audit or pass/fail) then retake it for grade in the spring.

Are you considering graduate school at this point or medical school? If so, you should know that audits and pass-fails on a course like CH101 may be less attractive than just dropping it altogether.

If you are finding the material to be overwhelmingly difficult you should attend extra lectures (with your own or other professors) or hire a good tutor.

As a senior, and a chemistry major, I can tell you that a rock solid foundation in CH101 is the cornerstone to the successful completion of a chemistry degree (Even more so for engineering!) You need to know this stuff like the back of your hand.

10/16/2007 5:49:11 PM

the thing is i don't know what went wrong on the exam. maybe i was nervous when i took the exam? i don't know. i spend every morning fall break going over all of our material and retook the exams on my own and i passed each one with a score of at least 95.

i just switched the class to Credit Only, and i'm going to keep workin in the class like it was for a grade and try my best to get the highest grade possible. i'll retake it in the spring for a grade, and by then i should know this stuff inside and out.

10/16/2007 7:12:03 PM

Thats a good mindset. Learning to take tests / overcome test anxiety is sometimes harder than the material itself! Good luck.

10/16/2007 7:14:53 PM

S.I., you will be amazed at how incredibly helpful it is

10/17/2007 8:11:50 AM

my advice to you Yoshiemaster is to drop out of college now and stop wasting your parents money.

nah ch101 is fucking simple if you show up to class. No math is even required.

[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 12:28 PM. Reason : s]

10/17/2007 12:27:55 PM

Yoshiemaster asked for simple advice. Are all the demeaning comments really necessary? You guys are a bunch of a** holes!

10/17/2007 1:20:29 PM

I wouldn't say it's simple for everyone. A lot of people have problems with the class. Luckily I had a chemistry nazi teaching it in high school so when I took it at state, it wasn't that bad. For CH 101, I had Warren-the supposed "Devil Reincarnated" and ended up with an A. The webassigns were a bitch but definitely helped out in the long run. And I'd be curious to know what percentage of Freshman Retakes are CH 101.

[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 1:23 PM. Reason : ]

10/17/2007 1:22:25 PM

Quote :

"my advice to you Yoshiemaster is to drop out of college now and stop wasting your parents money. nah ch101 is fucking simple if you show up to class. No math is even required."

nice try asshole, but i'm actually payin for my education.

10/17/2007 2:47:59 PM

hmm thinking back to freshman year... failed all the tests, average webass grades, and pretty much owned the final, somehow pulled out a C

10/17/2007 3:03:12 PM

yeah. CH101 for me wasnt easy. and i had neihart. i think i got a B- or something.even to this day i have trouble with gen chem 1 and 2

10/17/2007 3:10:16 PM

yea, see i'm going to be dealing with chem for the rest of my life if everything goes according to plan, so i want to make sure i have a foundation for all this basic stuff. i figure i can if i go through teh class twice.

10/17/2007 3:27:59 PM

^switch majors now

10/17/2007 3:34:42 PM

you dont have to switch majors.

i was a bio major. i had 5-6 classes that required chemistry.

did bad in CH101 and 102. turned out well in organic and better in biochemistry.

although i wasnt a chem major, but still. some have it, some dont

10/17/2007 3:55:46 PM

Having a hard time in CH101 could mean you weren't prepared enough going into the course. CH101 was the first chemistry course I ever took in my life (I went to a HS that focused on humanities and arts) so it was a challenge for me.

I'm also of the opinion that the chemistry book the NCSU department has created is completely worthless and should be replaced by a industry-standard text. That book assumes WAY too much prior knowledge and doesn't make any logical sense to a "chemistry-outsider". I had no idea what was going on until I purchased a better text.

I ended up with an A+ in the course only because I worked very diligently (I probably did over 1000 practice problems throughout the entire semester) and daily until I had it all down pat.

10/17/2007 4:05:23 PM

Yeah don't change majors...LOTS of people have a hard time in CH 101 mainly do to insufficient teaching in high school.

It's a misconsemption to say that you not passing an introduction class to a subject means that you are doomed in that major. You take the class in order to learn the material for later courses. Learn the material in this class, a class that most people say is easy because they learned it in high school so it was similar to having to take the course 2x in college and never taking it in high school.

10/17/2007 4:21:20 PM

Quote :

"I'm also of the opinion that the chemistry book the NCSU department has created is completely worthless and should be replaced by a industry-standard text. That book assumes WAY too much prior knowledge and doesn't make any logical sense to a "chemistry-outsider". I had no idea what was going on until I purchased a better text."

i completely agree with this. i use google more than i do the textbook. for example the book says "in order to do this, you need to do step A first" but it says nothing about step A.

yea i'm not going to change majors, atleast not this early in the game.


thanks for the feedback fellas, much appreciated.

10/17/2007 8:54:04 PM

also take into consideration what the class average was on both tests, I mean if you took Orji then a 61 and a 43 would be considered an A with the curve.

10/17/2007 9:28:38 PM

yea averages were low. on teh first exam i think the average was like a 40something, donno about the 2nd exam tho.

10/17/2007 9:40:40 PM

if the average was a 40 something and you got ~20 points above the average then you shouldn't take it for credit only because there will most likely be a curve at the end...you talk to your prof? who are you taking?

[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 10:13 PM. Reason : asdf]

10/17/2007 10:11:20 PM

yea i talked to the prof.

i'm takin Dr. Ghada Rabah.

10/17/2007 10:52:02 PM

i barely passed chem in highschool but i took it last year with ison and got just under an A. but i think it really depends on who your professor is with ch 101, at least it was for me.

10/20/2007 7:59:20 PM

If you're a freshman, you can do a freshman retake on something like two failed classes. I'd stick with it for a real grade and hope the curve gets you a passing grade, and if not you can just resort to freshman retake.

10/20/2007 8:18:49 PM

yeah, for real.

use those freshman retakes up while you can.

10/21/2007 12:34:40 AM

the prof doesn't curve, it's horrible.

10/21/2007 12:45:16 AM

ha, well if the averages were that low and he doesn't curve, then a lot of people are fucked.

10/21/2007 1:19:43 AM

the professor makes all the difference in 99.5% of classes you take...
i got an A-? when i took it with petrovich, crazy lady but she was a good teacher

10/21/2007 4:34:30 AM

Quote :

"the prof doesn't curve, it's horrible."

Thats not true.

As a current chemistry major I've taken upwards of 30 hours of chemistry courses over the past year or so...

I know for a fact that that it is the policy of the chemistry department to grade using the 96th percentile approach for all CH101 courses!! This is your curve. They standardize this across all CH101 courses because this is an infamous C-Wall course for many different majors and they need to make it as fair as possible across all the sections.

Still don't believe me? Look at your syllabus published on the course website. It reads:
"The +/– grading system will be employed and grades will be assigned based on the score of the 96th percentile. In a class of 200, the 96th percentile would be the 8th best score. Grades will then be assigned with the following approximate cutoffs."

10/21/2007 8:29:39 AM

nice point, but it wont make a difference.

Yoshie will have transferred into MDS by next year at this time.

10/21/2007 5:01:02 PM

well, i wish i wouldn't have switched to credit only but stuck with freshman retake if i needed it, i figure that was a pretty dumb move huh.

fuck droppin chem man, i can do this, i just got off to a bad start.

and to those guys that said "drop out of college" or "switch majors": i really hope you guys don't give up that easily yourselves, that's pitiful.

10/21/2007 5:36:53 PM

switch majors, then drop out.

that'll show em

10/21/2007 6:03:11 PM

i don't really understand this 96th percentile concept. does that mean the 96th is the "100" and the rest of the grades degenerate from there

10/22/2007 12:11:13 AM

thats what i would assume.

10/22/2007 1:40:58 AM

tell dr. warren im diggin the pony tail if hes not reading this already.

10/22/2007 2:31:07 AM

In a class of 200, the 96th percentile would be the 8th best score.
For example, if the average of the 96th percentile is a 93 then the cutoff for a C– is 70% of 93 = 65.

10/22/2007 6:57:28 AM

Quote :

"well, i wish i wouldn't have switched to credit only but stuck with freshman retake if i needed it, i figure that was a pretty dumb move huh. fuck droppin chem man, i can do this, i just got off to a bad start. and to those guys that said "drop out of college" or "switch majors": i really hope you guys don't give up that easily yourselves, that's pitiful."

No, we just always do well

Also your a dumbass for switching to credit only if your 20% above the curve. If you talk to your adviser and tell him the whole story, he'll switch it back for you. But you better go soon. My chem 101 teacher said she didn't curve but exactly once in her whole teaching career and she wasn't gonna do it for us. She told us after the final she had curved 3 times in our class.

10/22/2007 7:25:01 AM

Quote :

"Also your a dumbass for switching to credit only if your 20% above the curve."

lol

10/22/2007 2:44:50 PM

quote]and to those guys that said "drop out of college" or "switch majors": i really hope you guys don't give up that easily yourselves, that's pitiful.[/quote]

There's giving up and there's being realistic. If you drop out because a class is just too damn hard...that's giving up. If you can't pass a 101 class that is within your field of study...that's just retarded.

10/23/2007 7:03:12 PM

Quote :

"your"

10/24/2007 11:16:04 AM

Well since i'm doin well in the class I switched CH101 back to Grade Only.

yea you know all those dumb freshie mistakes, well switchin 101 to CR was one of them.

10/24/2007 1:17:06 PM

and sleeping with your roommate is another.

dont make that mistake

10/24/2007 2:33:18 PM

lol^

10/24/2007 3:46:38 PM

i never went to a class and practically took the test while I was drunk and i passed with a low C.....

cant say that for other classes, but chem 101 is one of the rather easier classes to pass without going to class.

I think you should consider changing your major

10/29/2007 2:07:26 AM

$5 says Yoshiemaster will not be wearing an orange tassel come graduation day.

Chemical engineers get paid $60,000+ starting for a reason: Its fucking ridiculously hard and not many people can do it.

11/2/2007 1:06:10 AM

oh yea, because if i have a little trouble my first semester in college, i'll never be able to turn it around and do well...

11/2/2007 9:49:02 AM

I got a B- in chemistry 101 and I struggled like hell through that class..... thanks Dr. Orji (if you don't know who he is take a look at my class section 009!)

http://www-records.ncsu.edu/cgi-bin/grddist3.pl?semyear=805&curr=CH&num=101

12/5/2007 1:55:28 AM