CHM - Chemistry Courses
A&S Chemistry Course Descriptions
CHM217H1 - Introduction to Analytical Chemistry
Marking Scheme: 15% Midterm, 30% Labs, 15% Tutorial, 40% Exam
The
course is centered around labs, I
honestly thought the lectures were a complete waste of time, it only
served to confuse me more than anything else. Luckily the textbook is
very well written, and will explain all the concepts that Dr. Stone
failed to teach properly, so I ended up learning everything from the
textbook.
The course called analytical chem for a reason folks --
remember the error propagation nightmare that you had in PHY138/131132?
Well now you'll get to do that for EVERY SINGLE LAB in this course.
Labs are a gigantic pain in the ass, every lab you'll have to pipette
like 10-20 times and you have to be super anal about every measurement
you make and its associated error. Lab reports are basically just
handin sheets, but don't be fooled, the data analysis takes forever
(around 4-6 hours of excel). There is one formal lab, and the amount of
data analysis you need to perform is just insane -- I think I spent at
least 20 hours fumbling around with numbers in Excel, it was very
painful. Luckily it isn't worth much (2% of your final mark I think) so
if you're feeling lazy just do half-assed job, not gonna hurt that much
anyways. While the lab experience was painful, the skills learnt was
quite useful and applicable.
Overall the course had a lot of
potential, the theory you learn in lectures and the techniques
illustrated in the labs are broadly applicable to just about every
field. Unfortunately the course (at least the lectures) was so badly
executed that you don't walk away with much. While the labs were
useful, they were very painful at the same time. The worst part is
because of Stone's lack of focus, you have absolutely no idea what or
how to study for the midterm and finals, and that's how most people got
screwed, especially the final exam which was a complete bumfuck.
Take this course only if it's a program requirement.
Reviewer Rating: 2/5
CHM221H1 - Physical Chemistry: The Molecular Viewpoint
Marking Scheme: 30% Midterm x 2, 40% Exam
You take
CHM221 along with the CHM225 class, 221 is essentially the 2nd half of
225 and deals entirely with QUANTUM MECHANICS. I guess just hearing the
name of this subject is enough to deter a lot of people. Quantum
mechanics isn't exactly what you'd call "hard", it's just really
theoretical and abstract, and to wrap your head around it you'll need
to go through all the derivations and understand what happened and why.
The learning curve is very steep, but I found that once you got past
the initial barrier of understanding the basic lingo and logistics,
things tend to get better.
In terms of content, you'll spend some
time learning about the basic postulates of QM, operator algebra, the
Schrodinger equation, then learn about the typical QM models --
particle in a box, particle on a ring, particle on a sphere, the
quantum harmonic oscillator. Along the way you'll be introduced to
approximation methods in QM such as perturbation theory and variational
method. The last 1/3 of the course is spent on dealing with the
hydrogen atom, which coincidentally is the most confusing part of the
course, so pay attention in class.
Prof Schofield got sick halfway
through this year so his research associate Dr. Ramses van Zon took
over. Ramses was a surprisingly better teacher than Schofield;
Schofield basically comes in, shoots out the lecture material like a
machine gun and then just leaves, all the while leaving a trail of
destruction and confused students behind. Ramses went much slower, took
the time to do all the derivations, was very patient and willing to
answer all your questions after class. That said, Schofield was a much
better test writer than Ramses. Our 2nd midterm and exam was written by
Ramses. The 2nd midterm was OK but the exam was quite WTF. Some of the
material was never covered adequately but examed anyway, and who in
their right mind would make an exam worth 40% out of only 28 marks?!
That said the marking is really lax in the course, as long as you write
SOMETHING down you'll get part marks -- they know the material is hard
and confusing so they don't try to kill the students. The final marks
were also adjusted "in order to alleviate the difficulty of some of the
questions", so it works out in the end I suppose.
The course
actually isn't too bad if you keep up with the material everyday and go
through all the derivations bits by bits. The textbook is unfortunately
a bit too elementary for the course; however it's a VERY useful backup
and it pulled me through some of the most confusing parts of the course.
You'll
be using quite a bit of linear algebra and integration in the course,
but they'll provide you with a table of integrals should you have to
tackle any nasty integral so that's not a problem. This isn't a course
in crunching numbers, the focus is on UNDERSTANDING and APPLICATION of
the material.
I'm definitely not a phys chem guy, and I have neither
aptitude nor much interest in physical chemistry. In retrospect however
I got quite a bit out of this course, and can definitely see the
relevance of quantum mechanics. If you're taking this course, make sure
to go in with an open mind, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Reviewer Rating: 3.5/5
CHM238Y1 - Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry
Marking Scheme: 10% Midterm x2, 45% Lab, 35% Exam
This
course always had a reputation for being a killer course, and rightly
so. Just this year however, Song tossed out like half the material, and
the course just became so much easier. First semester you spend a month
and half reviewing CHM139 stuff, then spend some time on molecular
orbitals and molecular symmtery. You continue with properties of solids
and redox chemistry. A little bit of descriptive chemistry is thrown in
here and there, and you end the inorganic bit learning about
coordination compounds of metals. Now Prof Ozin steps in and gives 10
lectures on materials chem. I must admit I'm biased and absolutely hate
that stuff, but my god for these 10 lectures I had as many notes as I
had for Song's section that lasted 3/4 of the course. That's how
intense those 10 lectures were. I also found them very dry and boring,
mainly because it was more materials physics than materials chem. Ozin
is a great prof though, but I did not like his section a bit, but
apparently I'm one of the few who didn't enjoy his section, so who
knows, you might find his stuff amazingly interesting.
Now the
killer part is the labs, they're worth 45%, screw them up and you screw
up the course. They only run in the 2nd semester, they require A LOT of
work and McIntosh makes sure you do your work. There's prelab questions
for 5/6 labs, and for the first lab the prelab can take up to 20 hours
(the procedure alone is some 20 pages long, and because it's an
analysis lab you have to jump around the procedures as you go along and
start collecting results). After that prelabs can take anywhere from
5-10 hours, depending on how good of a job you want to perform. Lab
reports are pretty intense especially if you've never written formal
reports before. You're basically looking at 6 formal reports for the
entire semester. Mine always ended up around 10 pages long single
spaced. The good thing about these labs is that the marks are easy to
earn *if you do your work* -- you just have to be willing to spend
time. I spent on average 20 hours on each lab report (I used all my
weekends to do reports), and I got like 95% on each of them and ended
with an overall mark of 95% in the lab section. So make sure you do
your work, as the labs can actually be a huge mark booster given that
it's worth 45% of your final grade.
I really enjoyed the course, and
even though the labs were brutal to go through, the learning experience
was definitely well above average, at the very least you'll learn (or
be forced to pick up) time management skills in order to cope with the
workload.
Reviewer Rating: 4.5/5
CHM247H1 - Organic Chemistry II
2 midterms, 1 exam, 5 labs. Shockingly better than chm138. I was expecting to be slaughtered by chemistry again, but this course was a nice surprise. There is a lot of memorization, true - but patterns emerge, and once you see the same reaction a million times, it becomes natural. The labs are actually useful, and supplement the lecture topics. I think someone else already talked about this course, but I definitely recommend it. Don't let chm138 fool you.
Rating: 4/5
CHM347H1- Organic Chemistry of Biological Compounds
Marking Scheme: 25% Midterm x2, 50% Exam
If you like organic chemistry and biochemistry then this is the course for you. The name is pretty self-explanatory, so no further elaboration there. The course is divided into 3 main sections: carbohydrates, proteins, DNA & lipids. Nitz is a carbohydrate chemist so the carb section is his specialty, but he teaches equally well in all sections.
There's not a lot of reactions to learn (maybe 50 in total), but the course is a huge step-up from 247 mainly because Nitz never tests you on stuff learnt in class directly. There's always some twist thrown in and you'll have to really think hard. Basically, if you understand the underlying principles of the reactions and mechanisms, you're good; but if you resort to just memorizing stuff, then you'll be quite shocked by how difficult the midterms can be. Also, the course picks up pace fast, so stay on top of the stuff or you'll run into trouble. The exam is cumulative and can be quite brutal if you don't study well ahead of time. Nitz is fairly flexible with marks, and this year he added 2 marks to everyone's final mark so it works out in the end.
Reviewer Rating: 4.5/5
CHM379H1 - Biomolecular Chemistry
Marks: 15% Midterm, 40% Exam, 45% Lab (15% presentation, best out of two, 20% final report, 10% lab performance)
Basically a biochem lab course -- without all the pain and with the added advantage of small class size (we only had 16 students this year)!! The entire course you're basically working on a mutant of human carbonic anhydrase II. The work is very comprehensive, you start by doing PCR and making the mutated gene needed to code for the mutant, then express and purify the mutant protein, then do a series of biochemical and biophysical characterizations on the mutant and compare how it measures to the wild type. So it's essentially an integrated lab/research course. The labs are VERY chill, the TAs are easy-going and laid back, and there's no pressure or anything so the learning experience is absolutely top notch. Prof Woolley is THE most laid back prof I've had hands down. He's also the kind that actually tries to GIVE YOU MARKS rather than take them away. Point in case: our midterm was too long, and nobody got the first question (worth 25/100) right. Woolley let us go home and do it, and as long as we handed it in the following day before 5pm he'll use that mark for the 1st question instead of what we had on the test. That said he can be quite monotonous during the lectures, but he tries to make them interactive by asking us questions and having discussions so it was good.
There's barely ANY workload in the course, you have one final huge report and that's it. Just make sure you start at least a week early, since there's a shitload of data to compile and papers to read. Presentations you work in groups of 2 or 3, so they're not that scary, I actually thought it was a very good experience and I improved my presentation skills.
The best part about this course is that you are never tested on stupid, useless details like in bch210 or bio250/240/241. The lecture material includes a lot of details, but you are only ever tested on principles and understanding (why did we do this/could we have done this/I need to measure this how do I do it). If you know and understand your stuff, you don't even have to study (much)! The ironic part is that now I actually appreciate biochem more because I could afford to take a step back and appreciate the big picture and not worry getting blanketed by the endless trivial details. If only the biochem dept would run their courses like this...
I very highly recommend this course to anyone who wants some practical biochem lab experience and whose program does not require bch370.
Reviewer Rating: 5/5
