Advanced General Chemistry: Honors Course

Description of Course Goals and Curriculum

The goal of this course is to cover all of CHM201/202 content in one semester. It is aimed at overviewing major general chemistry topics such as thermodynamics, kinetics, chemical reactions, reaction equilibrium, and also has a lot of focus on orbitals. Everything was organized pretty concisely by the syllabus and topics built on each other, but one should definitely have a good grasp on how orbital theory connects to other topics in the course.

Learning From Classroom Instruction

The course had lab, precept, and tri-weekly lectures. Professor Chirik covered the lecture portion pretty well and occasionally we did have some other professors in the chemistry department give lectures as well such as Professor Sonya and RPL. Precept was covered by our preceptor and we also had a lab TA. RPL and Professor Sonya also helped out a lot in the lab in addition to the lab TAs. In order to make the most out of precepts, definitely ask a lot of questions and finish the psets outside of precepts. All of the lab tas and professors also had office hours for lab reports so those were fine as well.

Learning For and From Assignments

I would definitely do the extra/bonus practice problems on the homeworks. The homeworks will be your best practice on the exam as Professor Chirik draws inspiration for the style/topics of exam questions from them. Also some basic chemistry knowledge such as bond types, electrostatic interactions, and knowing the structure atoms should also be known before taking this course. In regards to the lab portion, definitely read the student lab handbook and procedure before coming to the lab in order to familiarize yourself with some lab techniques.

External Resources

I did not use any external resources for the course. I don’t know if McGraw counts as external but the CHM201/202 McGraw tutors were always willing to help out the CHM215 students with their homework.

What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection

Most people taking this course have credit from AP Chemistry, so knowing the AP chemistry content well will definitely help for this course.