Department Requirements

Department Requirements

Getting Started

The Bowdoin Chemistry Department offers three options for introductory chemistry courses, which depend upon your level of preparation in high school.

Placement Exam: To help you determine the most appropriate starting chemistry course, we give a placement exam only once during Orientation:

Sunday, August 26 at 9 a.m. in Cleaveland/Druckenmiller 151

We require that all students planning to take chemistry courses at Bowdoin take this exam. Even if you have AP credit, we ask that you take this exam. This will not affect your ability to received AP credit, but will help us determine the best placement option. Students who fail to take this exam run the risk of improper placement in chemistry.

Option 1: Start with Chemistry 109

Chemistry 109 is the introductory chemistry course taken by the majority of students entering Bowdoin. This course is intended for students who have a reasonably strong background in high school chemistry. Material that you are expected to be proficient with includes:

• Units of measurements and unit conversions (familiarity with metric units for length, mass, volume)

• Stoichiometry and moles (equation balancing, calculations of molecular mass and moles, determinations of limiting reactants)

• Some exposure to acid/base, precipitation, and oxidation/reduction reactions.

• Gases (properties of gases, Ideal Gas Law)

• Liquids and solutions (properties of liquids, calculations of solution concentrations)

• Thermochemistry (heats of reaction)

Option 2: Start with Chemistry 101

 Chemistry 101 is the first semester of a two-semester general chemistry sequence. It does not assume a rigorous high school background and is taken by students wishing to strengthen their foundation in chemistry. It also serves non-science majors who would like to take an introductory laboratory science course. Students enrolled in Chemistry 101 would normally go on to take Chemistry 109 in the spring.