General chemistry (sometimes referred to as "gen chem") is offered by colleges and universities as an introductory level chemistry course usually taken by students during their first year. The course is usually run with a concurrent lab section that gives students an opportunity to experience a

laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physi ...

environment and carry out experiments with the material learned in the course. These labs can consist of acid-base titrations,

kinetics Kinetics ( grc, κίνησις, , kinesis, ''movement'' or ''to move'') may refer to: Science and medicine * Kinetics (physics), the study of motion and its causes ** Rigid body kinetics, the study of the motion of rigid bodies * Chemical kin ...

, equilibrium reactions, and electrochemical reactions. Chemistry majors as well as students across

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

majors such as

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

biomedicine Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

, and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

are usually required to complete one year of general chemistry as well.

Concepts taught

The concepts taught in a typical general chemistry course are as follows: *

Stoichiometry Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equ ...

Conservation of energy In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be ''conserved'' over time. This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, means tha ...

* Conservation of mass * Elementary atomic theory * Periodic table and periodicity * Law of constant composition *

Gas law The gas laws were developed at the end of the 18th century, when scientists began to realize that relationships between pressure, volume and temperature of a sample of gas could be obtained which would hold to approximation for all gases. Boyl ...

s *

Nuclear chemistry Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties. It is the chemistry of radioactive elements such as ...

Solubility In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a substance, the solute, to form a solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of the solute to form such a solution. The extent of the solubi ...

* Acid-base chemistry *

Chemical bonding A chemical bond is a lasting attraction between atoms or ions that enables the formation of molecules and crystals. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds, or through the sharing o ...

Chemical kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in ...

Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...

Electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an out ...

* Chemical equilibria

Pre-medical track

Students in colleges and universities looking to follow the "

pre-medical Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med course ...

" track are required to pass general chemistry as the

Association of American Medical Colleges The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that was established in 1876. It represents medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an i ...

requires at least one full year of chemistry. In order for students to apply to medical school, they must pass the medical college admission test, or MCAT, which consists of a section covering the foundations of general chemistry. General chemistry covers many of the principal foundations that apply to medicine and the human body that is essential in our current understanding and practice of medicine.

Topics of general chemistry covered by the AAMC Medical College Admissions Test

* Acids and bases * Atomic structure * Bonding and chemical interactions * Chemical kinetics * Electrochemistry * Equilibrium * Solutions * Stoichiometry * The gas phase * Thermochemistry * Redox reactions

"Weed out course"

Students who are enrolled in general chemistry often desire to become doctors, researchers, and educators. Because of the demands of these fields, professors believe that the level of rigor that is associated with general chemistry should be elevated from that of a typical introductory course. This has led to this course to gain the title of a "weed out course" where students drop out from their respected major due to the level of difficulty. Students can have different perceptions of the course based on their experiences, or lack thereof, in high school chemistry courses. Students who enroll in AP chemistry in high school, a course that mirrors what is covered in college, could be perceived as having an advantage over students who do not come to college with a strong chemistry background. Students who wish to be competitive in applying to medical schools try to achieve success in general chemistry as the average GPA for medical school matriculants was 3.71 in 2017. This makes a simply passing grade not acceptable for students with medical school aspirations. General chemistry professors have been known to make tests worth a large portion of the course, and make them more challenging than the material presents itself as. Grade deflation, purposely adjusting the grades of a course to be lower, is also an issue of general chemistry courses at the undergraduate level.

References

External links

* {{Branches of chemistry Chemistry education zh-yue:普通化學