Help from those who've already gone through high school and/or college

[Cheery Lunatic]

So I'm deciding on what courses to take next year (I'll be a senior in high school), and I can't decide for the life of me what science course I should take.
I'm going to do pre-med in college, so I wanna get rid of prerequisites.

I'm debating between Physics II C, and Chem II. I heard Chem II and its AP is easy as pie, but Physics is a *****, both in high school and even more so in college, so I'm wondering if I should just take the AP and get that outta the way now.

I'm really conflicted on what to do. Help?

 

[Lilani]

Well if which one you take doesn't really matter, and you think you'll do well in AP Chem, by all means go for it. The one thing about AP classes, though, is you need to test well. My brother took an AP class once and paid the extra money to take the test, but he just doesn't test well at all so he ended up bombing it, meaning it did nothing for him in the end. But, again, if you're more confident in your Chemistry abilities I'd go for it, AP or not.

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Well if which one you take doesn't really matter, and you think you'll do well in AP Chem, by all means go for it. The one thing about AP classes, though, is you need to test well. My brother took an AP class once and paid the extra money to take the test, but he just doesn't test well at all so he ended up bombing it, meaning it did nothing for him in the end. But, again, if you're more confident in your Chemistry abilities I'd go for it, AP or not.

Yeah, that's the thing. I was a retard my sophomore year, and basically slept/goofed off all through Chem I, but managed to get an A by cramming before tests and quizzes. I remember/understood jack shit about the actual subject.

I was decent at Physics, but I had to really study to understand the concepts and everything. Since a lot of it has to do with logic rather than memorization. And Physics II is calculus based, so I'm more than a little intimidated...

 

[Lilani]

Well if which one you take doesn't really matter, and you think you'll do well in AP Chem, by all means go for it. The one thing about AP classes, though, is you need to test well. My brother took an AP class once and paid the extra money to take the test, but he just doesn't test well at all so he ended up bombing it, meaning it did nothing for him in the end. But, again, if you're more confident in your Chemistry abilities I'd go for it, AP or not.

Yeah, that's the thing. I was a retard my sophomore year, and basically slept/goofed off all through Chem I, but managed to get an A by cramming before tests and quizzes. I remember/understood jack shit about the actual subject.

I was decent at Physics, but I had to really study to understand the concepts and everything. Since a lot of it has to do with logic rather than memorization. And Physics II is calculus based, so I'm more than a little intimidated...

...Okay, but you're signing up to take CLASSES right? Classes in which you will be educated on the subject before being tested on your knowledge of them? Meaning at this point, what you remember about either one means next to nothing. Even if you do remember more about Physics than Chemistry, you can't know what the teachers in college will want you to know.

So if you're more confident in your ability to learn and properly comprehend Chemistry than Physics, again, go for it. How comfortable you are with a subject means a LOT more than than how many tidbits of information you managed to hold onto in previous years.

 

[ddrfr33k]

So I'm deciding on what courses to take next year (I'll be a senior in high school), and I can't decide for the life of me what science course I should take.
I'm going to do pre-med in college, so I wanna get rid of prerequisites.

I'm debating between Physics II C, and Chem II. I heard Chem II and its AP is easy as pie, but Physics is a *****, both in high school and even more so in college, so I'm wondering if I should just take the AP and get that outta the way now.

I'm really conflicted on what to do. Help?

If you're doing pre-med, learn from my brother's mistakes. He's a pre-med major right now. Took all AP and IB (International Baccalaureate) classes in High School, course load up the wazoo, and found out that his AP credits would exempt him from the courses in college, but not med school. So he got to do them all over again in college his freshman year. He could have had a lot more free time during high school if he hadn't done AP.

I'd check with your prospective colleges and see what they recommend. But as for me, skip the AP and do 'em in college. You'll thank me later.

 

[Acier]

Chem, because if you go to a school where flocks of kids are doing pre med because of the great med program, it's going to be a ***** to get a spot. And with Physics, if it's going to be hard either way, might as well go with the professor and student tutors at your disposal at college.

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

...Okay, but you're signing up to take CLASSES right? Classes in which you will be educated on the subject before being tested on your knowledge of them? Meaning at this point, what you remember about either one means next to nothing. Even if you do remember more about Physics than Chemistry, you can't know what the teachers in college will want you to know.

So if you're more confident in your ability to learn and properly comprehend Chemistry than Physics, again, go for it. How comfortable you are with a subject means a LOT more than than how many tidbits of information you managed to hold onto in previous years.

Hm, never thought of it that way, haha. Yeah, I'm more confident in my comprehension of Chem than of Physics. Plus our Physics teacher isn't that great (he's ridiculously easy, and likable, but not a good teacher...), so I think I might just go with Chem.

If you're doing pre-med, learn from my brother's mistakes. He's a pre-med major right now. Took all AP and IB (International Baccalaureate) classes in High School, course load up the wazoo, and found out that his AP credits would exempt him from the courses in college, but not med school. So he got to do them all over again in college his freshman year. He could have had a lot more free time during high school if he hadn't done AP.

I'd check with your prospective colleges and see what they recommend. But as for me, skip the AP and do 'em in college. You'll thank me later.

Well hot damn, never knew that. My sister's in college doing pre-med and she never mentioned any of this to me. Goes without saying that I'll be taking honors classes though, it's just how my family/school kinda runs, it just turns out they're AP as well. But it takes a huge load off my back knowing it doesn't matter as much which class I choose. Thanks.

Better get started on those summer assignments then, ugh.