How I survived pchem
So, the time has come: you have to take physical chemistry in uni. Hell's favorite, the most terrifying of nightmares, the source of emotional damage for hundreds of science students worldwide... Or so they tell you. There's no denying pchem is no field of flowers, but I managed to pass the numerical part with a 4/5 and the theoretical part with a 5/5, so let me just say - pchem is definitely passable. Here's some of my advice.
Go to class
Seriously. I know all of studyblr always tells you to go to class, but with pchem I mean it more than ever. Don't skip lectures. Go see the way your professor links the concepts and explains the necessary math. Please. It'll save you so much hassle!
Abuse office hours
And don't hesitate to ask questions in class. Lab partner and I would stay after lectures to ask our professor extra questions or go see him in his office several times during the semester and it always paid off. They won't be mad! They're here for you! Chances are, they'll be happy a student is invested in their subject.
Be consistent
I cannot stress this enough: consistency is everything. Do not leave studying for a test/exam until the last minute. If you can cram pchem at all, that's impressive. But I don't think you can cram it well. Go over your lecture notes the same day - with a textbook, so that you can fill in the gaps in your understanding of the given topic - it does wonders for comprehension and retention.
Do practice problems
And if you get mandatory exercise sets you need to complete for class, try to do more than that. Looking at somebody's solution and thinking "yeah I see what's going on here" isn't enough. If you aren't able to solve similar exercises by yourself, from scratch, you don't actually understand the topic.
Make friends with a good textbook
Ideally, your professor should be the one to recommend textbooks and exercise books. If they don't, ask! Personally, aside from some Polish textbooks, I read Atkins religiously. The textbook is great. The exercise book is a lifesaver - the answer key has complete, step-by-step solutions *cries in joy*
Understand the material thoroughly
Don't just skim through the chapters - see how every new concept is "stacked" on top of the previous ones and how it complements them (why do we need the second law of thermodynamics? Why is the first one not enough? Why is entropy defined as heat over temperature and not work over temperature if both heat and work are a way to transfer energy?). Similarly, don't just memorize formulas!! See where they come from. Derive them yourself, identify the steps that are unclear and try to understand what happens there.
Less fear, more curiosity
All right, pchem is hard, pchem is demanding, sure. But pchem is also fun. Pchem is fascinating, pchem is beautiful! The intersection of sciences! The chemistry you're already familiar with translated into the universal language of mathematics! Nature explained at a molecular level! Look. Everybody told me pchem would traumatize me, so I decided to prove them all wrong. I tried to approach it with as much enthusiasm as I could and it worked! Yes, I absolutely had to work my butt off in this class, but I enjoyed it! Please, try to do the same.
Additional resources
Have fun and good luck!! 🍀💖
