Chemistry for Liberal Arts or General Chemistry?

willowita, ADN, RN · Jul 5, 2012

It depends on what your program requires. My program and the RN to BSN I hope to get into later in life requires a fundamentals of chemistry course, not general chem. So that's what I took. If you don't take the course that your program or a program you will apply to in the future requires, then you may end up taking two chem courses.

One of my classmates took general chem and thought that because it was a higher level chem, it would be okay for the ABSN she applied to. Nope, they wanted the lower level because there were some elements of organic chem that general did not get into. They didn't even look at her application after that.

So you just want to make sure that you talk to someone in your nursing program and get their advice. And if you will eventually do an RN to BSN, look at what those programs require.

ginna121 · Jul 5, 2012

My school for the a.s degree in nursing is any chemistry class is fine to take to use as a prereq for micro. But for the transfer to a CA University they want Chemistry of Life instead so that is the one I am going to take. Hope this helps.

Bobmo88 · Jul 7, 2012

As long as they are both accepted by your program, I would do the easiest class to ensure getting an A but ginna121 has a good point. I actually took an Intro to General, Organic, and Biochem class because it was a requirement for many BSN programs. If you are considering other programs, it might be best to see what they require and factor that into your decision.

leenak · Jul 7, 2012

Most of the BSN programs in my area dont require Chem but the one I wanted to apply to requires general chem 1. So I just did that. General chem is usually a more flexible class in that it fulfills more requirements.Our gen chem class also dipped into organic Chem.

SBJ1044 · Jul 12, 2012

Thanks for all the advice :) I just need a chemistry class for microbiology