The university here runs on quarters, which they call terms. There are three terms per year plus summer. I'm used to 12-week semesters, two per year, plus summer. In either case, the summer courses are nearly always compressed versions of their regular offerings.
And the organic chemistry sequence I'm taking is no exception. I'm completing a full year of organic chem, the equivalent of about 20-24 weeks of lecture and 10-12 weeks of lab, in a total of 12 weeks, four weeks for each part.
It's a brutal schedule. Each day of lecture in the summer is equivalent to about 3 days of normal session lecture. We are blasting through a chapter of the textbook every 1.5 days or so. The textbook itself is enormous, clocking in at more than 1300 pages--it is literally and conceptually dense. Unfortunately, I need to haul it to campus with me every day because we have homework problems assigned out of it and it helps to have the book there to work on homework during lunch and then with the TA during the hour we have with her after lunch.
And I still spend around 4 hours each night working on the material at home.
Organic chemistry at this level isn't a computerized activity. You work problems out by hand using pencil and paper. I searched for and unpacked a specific box just to unearth my collection of mechanical pencils.
The first "midterm" takes place on day 6; the second "midterm" on day 13, the final exam for the first lecture segment on day 20. We also have six quizzes (I made a perfect score on the first one).
So far, it's been like riding a bike. You start off a bit wobbly then all that (mental) muscle memory kicks in and you are enjoying the breeze in your hair.
1 comment:
I hope the breeze in your face doesn't turn into a tornado by the end of the summer!
Glad it s going well.
Post a Comment