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CM3131 - APPLICATIONS OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

Academic Year 23/24 - Semester 2

Assessments:

  • PollEV: 5%

  • Quiz: 15%

  • Homework assignment: 25%

  • Data Analysis Quiz: 30%

  • Finals: 30%

Lecturer: A/P Adrian Michael Lee, Dr Xu Hairuo

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Course Overview:

  • Part 1: Chemical Kinetics, Statistical Mechanics, Computational Chemistry

  • Part 2: Physical Chemistry in Biophysical Contexts, Photochemistry, Liquids, solutions and interfaces

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No. of responses : 6

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REVIEWS

What advice would you give to someone considering to take this course?

 

Anonymous: As the nature of the course is quite difficult, I would not recommend to overload.

 

Anonymous: Do not overload with this course. Consistent revision of every week’s lecture and tutorial are very important, so as to familiarise and understand the content to be able to do the assignments.

 

Anonymous: This course is quite intense and content heavy, and hence overloading with this course is not advisable. The “mid-terms” was a data analysis test about kinetics which required a lot of self study and online research since there wasn’t much opportunities to practice. The finals covered everything else except kinetics and was mostly application based and calculations. I would say this module was tough and require at least 5 full days just before finals to cram everything if you need to. Overall, consistency in catching up lecture is necessary as the first half was very fast and took the most time. The second half was more manageable since the slides were very clear and concise.

 

t333b: Depends on your confidence handling physical concepts. Although the formulae and techniques taught in this course are rigorous, the assessments only cover a small part of them. Nevertheless, the homework (25%) do provide some good practice (especially if you get confused between similar terms often), since anything from the syllabus can be tested for the Data Analysis Quiz (30%) and finals (30%). The remaining 15% is self-assessment and PollEV quizzes. For my sem, I believe the finals was more differentiating than the DAQ, whereas the rest is essentially free marks.

 

udonzzz: This course is quite math heavy and there are a lot of calculations involved, as well as differential equations, so if one has not touched math in a long time, it would be a good time to revise a little bit at least on differentiation. It is also important to understand what the various equations mean instead of just memorising them, so that it will be easier to apply them to the questions.

 

veryllium: its a 8MC mod disguised as a 4MC mod, don’t overload unless you’re a phychem god

 

What did you enjoy or find most useful from this course?

 

Anonymous: The data analysis skills taught were quite useful as it touches on excel skills

 

Anonymous: Tutorials on excel data analysis are an essential skill for any industry and research.

 

Anonymous: Data analysis was a new concept and would be useful in future research opportunities.

 

t333b: While the notes can be overwhelming given the breadth of topics, I found the explanations engaging and the tutors are very receptive to follow-up questions. Hopefully these concepts will become more familiar when the 1k and 2k courses get revamped next year.

 

udonzzz: We got a chance to try out the Gaussian software for one of the tutorials, which was quite interesting to use.

 

What aspects of the course did you find most challenging, and why?

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Anonymous: Everything was challenging

 

Anonymous: Concepts are difficult to grasp, especially statistical mechanics and computational chemistry.

 

Anonymous: The workload for the first half was high since there was content overload. A pain point about this course is the submission of homework for the second half since they did not allow excel file submission and only allowed word/pdf. The transfer of data and formatting took up a significant amount of time. But other than that, the other parts were manageable if you catch up regularly.

 

t333b: As far as the Chem syllabus goes, this is definitely one of the weightiest mods that could have easily covered 1.5-2.5 courses' worth of content in comparable degrees elsewhere. The tutorials and homework are also important, serving more as extensions to the lectures things like Smoluchowski equation and detailed Hückel MO solutions were only covered in tutorials). You will also appreciate how different branches of mathematics is applied in chemistry.

 

udonzzz: There are weekly quizzes and also multiple homework assignments to complete and they are graded, so it was important to manage time and keep track of the deadlines.

 

veryllium: the content itself was hard…. and also the finals were tough as well

 

What resources did you find most helpful in helping you better understand the course material?

 

Anonymous: The lecture notes provided are enough to master the content. But, when in doubt, can ask the profs questions. The profs are very helpful with consultations and after-tutorial questions.

 

t333b: There were questions provided for each section which are helpful if you want to score well. However, lecture materials and Chem LibreTexts are enough for a decent score.

 

udonzzz: The lectures covered pretty much everything that we needed to know, so they should suffice.

 

What other courses do you think should be taken before or concurrently with this course?

 

Anonymous: CM2143/CM3141 can be taken concurrently as the analytical chem mod suit well together with this mod

 

udonzzz: It can be taken together with CM3111 as both cover point group symmetry.

 

veryllium: 3111, theres a group theory part which is covered really fast in 3131 but covered in more depth in 3111

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