So you want to be a doctor, a nurse, or a pharmacist. The grad programs are competitive and require the best GPA. Most people hit Gen Chem 1, find it way harder than what they had in high school, bomb their first test, then rethink their life choices.
It doesn't have to be this way. You can get that Easy A. Kinda. Here are the five things you need to not only survive Gen Chem, but thrive. None of them require you to be a genius.
1. Intrinsic Motivation
You have got to be confident in WHY you are there. Getting the grade isn't enough. My motivation was to be the very best. The grade was the means by which the end was achieved. I stayed up late, woke up early, and put in countless hours studying for chemistry because I wanted to be the top of the class, and a B missed the personal mark I set. Sounds crazy? It was. I don't recommend this as your personal "why."
But it can be getting into the med school of your dreams, making your parents proud, the salary that doctors and pharmacists command, or the joy of helping someone in need. You need to understand, define, and be able to write down your why. Then you need to remind yourself of it all of the time, especially when the class gets hard and the content makes no sense at all. When you have a powerful enough WHY, you can bear any HOW.
2. Tolerance for Ambiguity
Ambiguity occurs when you leave a lecture feeling like it was taught in a different language, or see a problem and wonder how it could possibly have a solution. It's that feeling in your stomach when nothing makes sense. You have got to learn to not only accept that feeling, but lean into it.
It helps you none to continue to study the problems you could solve with your eyes closed. That feeling of confusion is your compass to what you need to be spending more of your time on. When the test comes and the professor adds problems that you've never seen, you'll be thanking yourself for every extra minute you spent digging deeper into the unknown. Tolerance for ambiguity is like a muscle: the more you exercise it, the more it grows. You will soon find that the test anxiety starts to turn into anticipation, because you know you know the information you should.
3. Practice into Intuition
Think of the smartest kid you know in your class. He always knows the right answer. How? Because he has earned intuition - the ability to perceive the path to the right answer.
The only way you can earn this is by practice. You have got to put the reps in, and when you do, the solutions come naturally. You know how to go from the data given to the end result. This happens through memorization of formulas and applying them in many different situations. You'll find that problems are actually all the same, they just have different numbers. Or, if they are harder, it's only because they have a few more steps, requiring a few more formulas that you already have memorized and know how to use. Do this enough, and I promise you that there will be a problem you have never confronted, never been taught how to solve, and you will intuit your way to the right answer.
4. Meta-Thinking
You ever notice that one student who never studies, doesn't pay that much attention, and still aces the test? I wished I was that guy. Just recently I was able to put into words what made him different: he gamified the test.
Imagine you sit down in a testing center for a test on a topic you don't know. It could be anything, and you certainly didn't study. How would you take that test? Would you get anxious, clam up, overthink every question? That's what a lot of people would do. But the best "test-takers" would see this as an opportunity to take a breath and think outside of the box.
In a multiple choice test with four answers per question, randomly guessing each one would get you 25%. Eliminating one would give you 33%, and eliminating two brings you to a coin flip. Most people have the reasoning skills to eliminate at least one bad answer. Take it a step further. If a problem asks "of these options, which is true," what does that imply? That the other options are false. So, if a question down the line asks the opposite question, "which is false," about the same topic, then you have context that you can reference back to. If a question presents a problem and offers a constant (like the speed of light, c = 3.00 × 10⁸ m/s) and a question down the line presents a problem about the speed of light without providing the constant, then Bob's your uncle.
I am not brilliant. And statistically, the chances are you are not either. But we can THINK like a brilliant person would. We have to slow down, open the frame of our minds, and not tunnel-vision into each question. Each is a battle, but the test is the war.
5. Personal Responsibility
I have high confidence that anyone who would actually practice this framework can learn and do well in chemistry, or ANY subject that they hope to learn. But in the end, "practice" is an action verb, requiring action. No one can learn a subject for you. There is no shortcut, no way to instantly download anything into your brain. This closes the loop, returning us to intrinsic motivation. Is the "why" behind your pursuit of chemistry strong enough to bear you through any "how"?
The chances are that your experience with chemistry will not be perfectly ideal. You may have a poor teacher, or tests that don't quite match up to what you learned in lecture. But you must bear the responsibility for your success on your own shoulders. With resources like YouTube, paid tutoring, or AI models that can break down any topic into the simplest lessons, there is no excuse. You must resolve in your mind that to score 100% on the test, you will study to score 120%.
This is the framework that led me to scoring 100% on numerous tests, and an A in every single chemistry class I took. Again I will say, I am not brilliant. I was just very motivated.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gen Chem required for pre-med, pre-pharmacy, and nursing? For most medical and pharmacy programs, yes. General Chemistry I and II are standard prerequisites, and Organic Chemistry usually follows. Nursing requirements vary by program, so check the specific schools you are applying to.
What if I already bombed my first Gen Chem test? You are not out. One exam is rarely the whole grade. Go back through every missed problem, figure out whether it was a concept gap or a careless mistake, and start the reps now. The students who recover are the ones who treat that first test as a map of what to fix. (Plus, sometimes professors will drop a test grade as a reward for good attendance. So go to class and make that first test your drop-test.)
When should I get a tutor for Gen Chem? Before you feel desperate. The best time is right after the first exam, or as soon as the "taught in a different language" feeling sticks around for more than a week.
Let's Build Your Framework Together
I tutor General Chemistry I and II and Organic Chemistry for pre-health, pre-pharmacy, and pre-vet students, in person in Johnson City and online. Every new student starts with a free intro session where we look at your syllabus and work real problems from your class. Learn more about Gen Chem tutoring.