I HATE chemistry

Students Pre-Nursing

Published

I cannot emphasis how much I hate chemistry--I feel like the dumbest person in there. I really thought since I passed with A's in micro, and both anatomy and physiology classes that I would be fine with chem. I definitely under estimated this class. It seems like everyone in the class is an engineer major and they find chem exciting---I do not find it the least bit interesting...I didn't realize how much math was involved either.

I should of done a basic chem 101 to atleast get more familiar, I though we were gping to be talking about atoms and cool things, but so far its been formula after formula...uggghhh..I will cheers to a C in class. lol

ok I am done--on a happy note I will find out if I get in the nursing program in less than 20 days!!!! yay!!

FutureNurseInfo

1,093 Posts

Well, first of, good luck on getting into the nursing program! It seems like the wait is almost over! As far as chemistry goes, I am taking one with lab, too. To be honest, I am freaking enjoying it! Yes, there are quite a few formulas you have to memorize to be able to do certain calculations, but for the most part I think to be successful in it one needs to have an ability to think abstract and visualize the different concepts such as atoms, molecular geometry and shape, s, p, d, f orbitals in an atom etc. The most I love about chemistry is writing and then balancing chemical reactions. It only requires elementary math!

In any event, I hope you will be able to manage to successfully complete this class! Good luck!

RiskManager

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

Chemistry | Khan Academy

Learn Chemistry - Help, Tutorials, Problems & Quizzes

Learn Chemistry Online for Free with Our Huge Collection of Open Courses | SkilledUp

These are the usual resources that I recommend, especially the Khan Academy courses. I have taken some just for the heck of it, and I have a BS and MS in chemistry from the early 1980's, when we rode our dinosaurs to class.

mbtsab

205 Posts

Well, first of, good luck on getting into the nursing program! It seems like the wait is almost over! As far as chemistry goes, I am taking one with lab, too. To be honest, I am freaking enjoying it! Yes, there are quite a few formulas you have to memorize to be able to do certain calculations, but for the most part I think to be successful in it one needs to have an ability to think abstract and visualize the different concepts such as atoms, molecular geometry and shape, s, p, d, f orbitals in an atom etc. The most I love about chemistry is writing and then balancing chemical reactions. It only requires elementary math!

In any event, I hope you will be able to manage to successfully complete this class! Good luck!

I wonder if its my instructor who is not making it interesting. he does not seem too into it himself--lol

mbtsab

205 Posts

Chemistry | Khan Academy

Learn Chemistry - Help, Tutorials, Problems & Quizzes

Learn Chemistry Online for Free with Our Huge Collection of Open Courses | SkilledUp

These are the usual resources that I recommend, especially the Khan Academy courses. I have taken some just for the heck of it, and I have a BS and MS in chemistry from the early 1980's, when we rode our dinosaurs to class.

thank you soo much---I go back and forth with khan academy and tyler dewitt. I will check out the links also thanks a bunch

FutureNurseInfo

1,093 Posts

It might be your instructor as well. the one I am taking for chem is amazing! However, the lab instructor not so much. The point I am making is, you may not have good instructors all the time. However, it is up to you, and only you, to succeed, and get to where you want to be!

Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Yep - for beginning Chemistry, the instructor makes all the difference. Same goes for Statistics. Both of these courses are very challenging for people without strong math skills.... and there is abundant evidence that online courses are much less effective.

I had a terrible Chem instructor. He would call us all bastards, and start yelling at us randomly during lecture. He wouldn't help, he wouldn't answer questions and he was sexist, too. At mid-term, I had a D. I finally realized that I had to do this stuff myself. So I used a ton of Chegg, and Quizlet to teach me. I used a bit of YouTube, too. I passed with an 88, and I really enjoyed it in the end.

Good luck!

Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.

Academics can be tough but if academics were easy two things would have happened:

1) The industry would be flooded with people who just want a job (not profession)

2) With the industry flooded with candidates, nurses would be making $10/hr because holding a nursing license would zero prestige

Nursing would become just like the liberal arts diploma mills, graduating people who have no future and nowhere to go in the economy. In other words bull****t promises from academic advisors, pretty graduation ceremony, all dressed up, nowhere to go.

In that sense, the learning curve is your best friend because it eliminates mediocre people who want to take your job. A lot of people wash out, only some people are left standing at the end, but the survivors have real value to the profession and get higher wages than 75% of the country. However, if you have the will to succeed you will succeed 95% of the time.

Sounds like cliche, but I really believe that. I think in the BSN program we only had 1 person out of 100 who failed the program and had to leave the school. Then there was one more girl, a known cheater, who cheated on every major exam. The cheater graduated, but couldn't pass the boards. Because she cheated her way through nursing school, she didn't really understand the nursing process. If you don't understand the process, you can't fool the testing program.

This is what I used to tell myself when I was doing the pre-reqs and the program. I was a very successful student, but organic chemistry was tough, anatomy & physiology exams were tough (I loved the courses but dreaded failure during exams) and then in the actual nursing program pathophysiology and pharmacology were tough.

Also, there was one more class in the program, a statistics course, that garbage was so incredibly pointless, dumb, stupid and discouraging you had to force yourself to pick up the book but it would make your stomach turn. I actually took 2 statistics courses, starting with intro to statistics in junior college. That intro course was actually pretty cool, with some math involved but I'm starting to forget the details.

Last but not least, I think academic expectations from a nursing candidate are still very reasonable compared to other professions that make good money. My buddy, a pilot, had to train for 12 years before he got his junior airline job as co-pilot on an Airbus. Those pilots start training when they are like 18 but don't get their first real airline job until they are almost 30 years old.

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