CM2133 - FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

Academic Year 22/23 - Semester 2

Assessments:​

• Tutorial Attendance: 10% 

• Assignments: 40% 

• Test 1: 12.5% 

• Test 2: 12.5%  

• Finals: 25% 

Lecturer: A/P Ryan Bettens & Dr Xu Hairuo 

Teaching Assistant: Dr Ng Yee Hong

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Course Overview:

• Part 1: Beer-Lambert Law, Quantization and Schrodinger’s Equation, Spectroscopy  

• Part 2: Thermodynamics – Zeroth Law, Internal Energy, Adiabatic Processes, Thermochemistry and Calorimetry, Entropy, Gibbs Free Energy, Phase Equilibrium, Chemical Potential, and Chemical Equilibrium 

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No. of responses : 6

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Workload of Course (Average number of hours spent per week)

To learn the content: 4.8h 

To complete assignments: 2.9h  

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REVIEWS

How did you find the contents (e.g. how it was delivered) and the assessments of the course?

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I find that this course is very challenging.
 

The content was well taught, but I find that quite a few in-depth information were filtered.

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I found the contents of the course rather manageable and easy to understand. On top of that the assessments seems to be abit less tiring as alot of the weightage is actually on the assignments rather than full on depending on the finals and tests.  

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Overall, I think the content in the course was delivered smoothly and efficiently. The notes were quite organised and easy to follow along. However, there were many things mentioned in the lectures that were not in the notes which made it difficult to understand certain parts of the notes well. While the content was easy to understand at the beginning of the semester, the pace and build-up of this content happened much too rapidly before we had a chance to fully comprehend what was taught previously. As such, I found myself lagging behind more and more. Furthermore, there was quite a large gap between the level of difficulty in tutorials and exams. Tutorials were significantly easier than the assessments, which made preparation leading up to the various assessments inadequate. While Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) were provided to help us identify what would be tested, it was still quite unclear as to what the main emphasis of these ILOs were. 

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The contents of the course felt like it was skewed towards physics and math, so it might be a bit tougher for those who did not take/do not like those two subjects. However, with sufficient practice, it should still be manageable regardless, at least for the two tests. The finals on the other hand was really quite difficult, and that sentiment was shared by most people in the course. Thankfully, the weightage of the finals was not too high, and was only 25%. In comparison, the total weightage for assignments was 40%. Therefore, it was very important to put in consistent effort for the course if one was hoping to do well. 

The course structure was generally manageable — quantum chemistry seems unfamiliar, but is actually pretty easy to understand after a few lectures, thermodynamics concepts however were a little difficult to handle — the weekly assignments were not too difficult, so it was easy to get 4/5 or 5/5 for that — the profs and Dr Ng were all very effective and helpful tutors! — the CAs are relatively simple, with questions on key concepts & some were pretty similar to tutorial questions. 

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How was your experience in the course? 

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The lecturers and TA were very nice and great at explaining the concepts! Would’ve enjoyed it if the content wasn’t so hard… Hope to take their classes again! 

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I find it rather enjoyable especially having Prof Xu as our lecturer who is very willing to help answer my questions on certain questions I am unsure of doing that are outside the tutorial. 
 

While it was difficult, the lecturers taught the course well and the tutor was conscientious and clear in his explanations. however, the examination was a little too lengthy to complete within 2 hrs 

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I believe my time in the course proved challenging, but rewarding at the same time. 

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Overall, I think my experience in the course was okay. This course is likely to be useful and necessary to learn properly because there will be 2 level 3000 courses involving physical chemistry from my understanding. 

I found the quantum part pretty enjoyable, but I struggled with thermodynamics! however, I had to rewatch lectures every week ahaha to grasp topics. 

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