CHEM 2311

Professor Welch came up with a 1-credit lab that's a far more reasonable workload than the gen chem labs. It's important to get a good lab partner; take the class with someone you know you can depend on if possible. Not having to code in Mathematica or write lab reports is a nice change from gen chem. TAs can be fairly hit or miss; they run the actual lab and grade assignments so a good TA is great to have if you can get in a block with one. Professor Welch himself is very approachable and helpful in office hours.

Try and get good a lab partner and hope your TA is knowledgeable and helpful. You meet every other week for a lab that takes pretty much an average of like 2 hours. Pre labs and Post labs are worksheets, so make sure you do good on them because they are the bulk of your grade. As for the final exam, I found that there were way too many people freaking out about it. It's not extremely easy but it's definitely not the hardest exam I've taken, I got a B with like 2 days of studying and still ended up with an A because of the post labs and pre labs. The final's content is similar to that of the pre-labs and post-labs. Understand the concepts and why the answers are the answers and you will do fine. I recommend talking to Welch if you need help with any concepts. I went to talk to him about Thin Layer Chromatography and I understood it so much better afterwards. Definitely an improvement of Gen Chem Lab in my opinion.

Not really on Welch but your experience depends primarily on how lenient and understanding your TAs are. 1 credit lab is fairly easy, even though it's still a lot of work for just one credit. Ask questions in your lab time if you have any, especially about your lab results and your TAs will help you out. I recommend pulling up the post lab while you work on the experiment so you make sure to get all the data you need for later. Also don't throw away your synthesized products!! Lab rotates every other week and you have a lot of time to write your post lab. However, don't underestimate the final and make sure that you understand the general concepts and specific tools you're using for each experiment! Don't stress out too much if you end up getting a bad grade on one pre-lab assignment or something, but make sure you figure out why you got it wrong and avoid making small mistakes (it's 1 credit; seriously not a big deal).

Lab lecture every other week with a lab that typically lasts 2 hours makes this course not so bad. The post labs are graded fairly and honestly, UVa is just trying to get you credit that you actually took an Orgo lab because you literally do not learn much in this class and the labs are so cramped that it can get quite claustrophobic. The lab final for this class was low key pretty difficult, but since it was only worth 20% of your grade, it won't kill you.

Welch seems like a good guy. You have lab every other week and have 5 lab sessions and then you're done for the semester. You have an hour-long pre-lab and hour-long post lab for each lab section. Labs generally take 2 or 3 hours. Honestly, based on your TA and/or your lab partner; that'll determine how your experience is.