Anatomy with Chemistry

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I am retaking anatomy and chemistry to better my chances at getting into the nursing program at Boise State. They accept 60 student twice a year and it's extremely competitive. If I get an A in both I will be at a 3.9 but here's the catch..

I signed up for an online 5 week Anatomy course over the summer. Online scares me but I have two children (two and six months) and it is the best option for us right now. I signed up for the one and only chemistry 101 lecture they have next semester and decided to look up the reviews on the teacher. I typically try not to take those to heart because most of the time the people reviewing aren't happy. Well she had PLENTY of reviews and all were sharing how English is her second language and she is not very fluent. People were failing because they couldn't understand her. I got a C in Chem even with a tutor three days a week!

I panicked and looked for a summer chemistry course and there is only one.. It's the same five weeks as my anatomy. It is not online and the professor had amazing reviews and instead of a lecture of 300 it's a small class of 20. If I finished both of those I could even apply to the program in August! But if I take both and don't do well in one or both of them I have to retake it again. These 5 week courses are BRUTAL and the thought of taking them together scares me. Any thoughts?

My other option is to take Chem over the summer and then take anatomy at the local community college in the fall because the sections at Boise State are full. (Please excuse the novel that I just wrote you!)

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Specializes in Allergy/ENT, Occ Health, LTC/Skilled.

I have three kids under 8 myself and found accelerated summer science courses to be too much and I am an A student. I also worked full time at that point but I ended up withdrawing from the summer AP2 course I was taking. I probably would have ended up with a B but I also wasn't retaining much because it was just cram to pass the tests. I took it the next full semester and got my A easily.

Chemistry was my kryptonite and for me the teacher absolutely mattered. My first professor had a 30% first time pass rate, he just made things very confusing and no matter how hard I studied, I couldn't get above a C. I took it again this most recent semester, used rate my professor to pick who would be the best teacher, and my final grade was 97.8% overall. So I would definitely go with the better teacher even if it is the accelerate course.

I took both my AP's in person so not sure if it being online would make the accelerated course easier or harder...

If your not working I would say both classes would be doable so you can apply this fall if your willing to study at least a few hours a day. I'm not sure if its because I had attempted chemistry before or not but for some reason thus time with a great professor it just clicked for me and I actually enjoyed it.

What kind of chemistry is it? Mine was a mixture of general/organic/ and bio chem.

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It's only intro to chemistry, so in theory it shouldn't be that hard. The first time I took it was three years ago in a lecture of 300 students and I got a C and at the time I wasn't a prospective nursing student to it didn't matter much!

Im not entirely sure if it's just that I am not good at chemistry or if the teacher is what will make or break me. I signed up for the Chem over the summer, I'm taking A&P 1 the first five weeks online and depending on how difficult the class is I may stay in the A&P 2 during Chem. If it's super difficult I'll hold off until next semester! I'd HATE to fail and have to pay to retake it again! At this point I don't even want a B!

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I don't know if this will help but there are some videos on YouTube that I lived by last summer before I took chemistry. Look up Tara Hurt chemistry. Her videos helped a lot and I ended the class with the highest grade (A).

Also, Khan Academy is amazing. There are areas for A&P 1 and 2 as well as chemistry.

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I took my chemistry over a summer. I would honestly go with the third option, just because anatomy is so vital to understanding everything else in nursing school and you don't want to breeze through that. Patho-physiology is a nightmare when you don't have anatomy down.

Chemistry however I still struggle to see how it applies to my classes, at least with the chemistry I got. Sure I can balance equations and a killed stoichiometry but honestly?? Could have forgotten everything after the final and still done well in my classes.

Two 5 week classes is killer. Anatomy is better spread out over a semester! Community colleges have their share of great professors, at least the ones where I am, and I live in a really poor state.

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