Chemistry · Columbia University
Intensive lab was a lot different from the non intensive labs. We had to get this specific lab notebook that had carbon copy paper but luckily there was no quizzes or exams. Prelab did take a while (1-2 hours) and was multiple pages long and the lab reports itself took me about 4-5 hours, but not having to study for anything made up for the time spent. There was also a science fair style presentation at the end of the semester instead of a final exam. I've also heard that grades really depends on the TA that you have, shoutout to siyang my goat.
Class truly does cover the basics of chemistry but in a rapid manner. Professor truly does care about his students, but can go rather fast at times. You have to speak up and ask for clarification. Definitely talk with your TA if you don't understand something since they will oftentimes have more time in recitation to cover it again.
If you are looking for a class that will make you feel prepared to work in a real laboratory environment in the near future, look no further. In this course you will carry out many lab procedures used in research such as IR Spectroscopy, HPLC, Flame Ionization and other instruments. This is nothing like regular Gen Chem Lab. Professor Avila is amazing. He is genuinely has the best intentions for his students and hopes they learn to not only properly use common lab procedures but to leave his course feeling more confident in their ability to work in a lab environment. Rather than having everything set up for you like in many other classes, you will be expected to set up your experiment from beginning to end and truly understand the procedure you are intended to carry out before arriving to class. TA can be a hit or miss. Many students dropped the class the first week after receiving feedback on the first lab from our TA. The fact of the matter is that you need to be prepared to write a long, organized, Data and Analysis heavy Lab reports. There is a reason they use the adjective Intensive in the name. Overall if you plan on majoring in a science or plan to work in a Lab, I highly recommended you take this course. You won't regret it.
Stoichiometry Balancing chemical equations Precipitation Properties of energy + light/photons How to read the periodic table. Sounds basic, and it is, but it's really important. How to approach the types of questions that will be in gen chem 1
I would not recommend this course, but it is required for most students in the course. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2022 Course: CHEMUN3085_001_2022_3-PHYSICL-ANALYTICLLABORATORYI : CHEMUN3085_001_2022_3 - PHYSICL- ANALYTICL LABORATORY I Instructor: Luis Avila
Prof. Avila is the nicest man to ever walk the halls that chandler built. The class not only taught me so much about chemistry, but it allowed me to see the light at the end of the tunnel after wei min... that takes a lot.
Avila is super passionate. It will seem chaotic but it will pay off.
Wow. What a challenging and rewarding class. The first day literally scares the crap out of you, but I'm glad I stuck around. Very few freshman classes offer such extensive resources (this lab was 80% in the P-chem lab) with such a unique instructor and such intelligent peers. Avila himself is brilliant. He really will stop at nothing for his students. He comes early and stays late. He'll spend 30 minutes showing you exactly how an FTIR works, taking it apart and putting it back together in front of you. He'll even cannibalize the chemistry museum for educational purposes. The group work portion of this class was much more challenging than I envisioned. My group was made up of very smart, friendly, and reasonable people, but by the third week spending six hours together every Friday, even the best group can see a lot of underlying tension. Resolving this tension is a valuable skill that will absolutely serve you well in whatever workplace you plan on graduating into. The one notably bad part of this course was the pre-lab procedures. They had to be blindly copied into the lab notebook, a process which took a solid and tedious hour every Wednesday night. Actually lab conditions rarely mirrored this procedure, and we always ended up making up what we were doing as we went along. This creative process was very educational, but made the TAs insistence on detailed plans of action s…
High school Chemistry useful for Gen Chem.
Professor Avila is a very kind, elderly man. Very endearing, eager to help, and excited to present things to the class. Most of the lab is facilitated by the TAs, and Avila is usually just there to talk with and answer questions. Labs were okay but sometimes grueling due to the five-hour period spent in a claustrophobic windowless room grinding out a multi-part experiment. The labs were generally quite standard and not too exciting. Lab groups are chosen at the beginning and kept the same, so luck of the draw matters.