Welcome to the Boston University Chemistry Department’s advising page for freshmen chemistry!  We in the Chemistry Department truly love to teach chemistry, and we are very excited to have you join us!

Our goal here is to help you and your advisor select the general chemistry course that is best for you, and then to guide you through online preparation so that you will be well prepared to begin your course work in Septmener, 2012.

Our general chemistry courses

We currently offer three different year-long general chemisty courses, differing according assumed experience and student goals.

  • CH101/102 assumes no prior chemistry knowledge, just two years of high school algebra and general science.
  • CH109/110 assumes two years of high school algebra and two semestersof high school chemistry. It is designed specifically for BMB students.
  • CH111/112 is for students with a strong background in chemistry, usually at the honors or advanced placement level. Advanced placement in calculus or simultaneous registration in MA123 Calculus 1 is required to take this course. This course for students intending to major in chemistry, including those who are considering a biochemistry minor.

The detailed dscriptions of these courses are here.

Preparing for your course

From these descriptions you will likely have an initial idea of which of the three courses is most suited to your goals. To help you be well prepared to succeed in your chosen course, we require that you complete online general chemistry tutoring based on ALEKS, the web-based artificially-intelligent assessment and learning system.

ALEKS will ...

  • rapidly identify any important gaps in high-school math and science preparation,
  • efficiently assist you to eliminate those gaps through guided self-study, and
  • help you and your advisors refine your selection of the chemistry course most apporpirate for you.

Note that ALEKS is not meant to be a placement exam, and your work with ALEKS will not stop you from registering from the general chemistry course that you wish.

It is imperative that you begin your ALEKS work as soon as you are able.  This will give you the maximum time to prepare for General Chemistry this fall.

ALEKS summer preparation course

All students enrolled in any General Chemistry course will use ALEKS over the summer.  Though each student’s experience with ALEKS will be slightly different as ALEKS adapts, how ALEKS works will be the same for all students working on the summer preparation course.

  1. Purchase and Register for ALEKS.
  2. ALEKS tutorial (~10min) - short tutorial on how to input your answers.
  3. ALEKS initial assessment (~90min) - ALEKS learning what you know.
  4. ALEKS learning mode - ALEKS teaches you what you need to prepare for General Chemistry.
  5. ALEKS assessment - New assessment to see how much you have learned.
  6. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you complete ALEKS summer preparation.

How each of these steps work is detailed on the ALEKS page.

It is imperative that you begin your ALEKS work as soon as you are able.  This will give you the maximum time to prepare for General Chemistry this fall. Your woek with ALEKS for must be complete by September 11 for CH101, Sptember 12 for CH109 and September 13 for CH111.

Questions?

If you have a question about how to interpret your ALEKS score, what learning objectives you need to master, or about the chemistry courses offered at Boston University, please email Dr. Binyomin Abrams at abramsb@bu.edu.