The course presented here is the exact General Chemistry I course that I taught as a university professor in a Chemistry Department that was certified by the American Chemical Society, the professional organization for chemists. All topics that are essential to any General Chemistry I course are covered here in detail. My teaching style for this Udemy course is exactly how I taught in the lecture halls. Each topic is explained in detail, terms are defined and then examples are done to show how the theory is applied in practice.
As was the case when I was teaching at the university, students have access to ample supplemental material, all of which will be in the Resource Folders. In addition to the 30+ hours of lectures, I have included a downloadable audio mp3 file of each lecture. For all but three lectures, I’ve included a Practice Assignment where you can test your understanding of the material. Also included is a detailed answer key for each Practice Assignment. A total of nearly 100 examples are worked out in the lectures and for each section (except section 8), I have included a list of the problems that you can download and follow along. For learning nomenclature; i. e., the systematic naming of elements, ions and chemical compounds, I have included flash card videos that you can download to drill yourself. I’ve also included a number of memory aids (mnemonics) to help you remember the symbols for the commonly used elements and important concepts in chemistry. Any graphs, figures or tables presented in the lectures are also available as downloadable files.
This course assumes that you have no prior knowledge or experience with chemistry. In fact, this course is ideal for anyone who needs to take General Chemistry at the college level but did not have it in high school. This course is also well-suited for those who need to refresh their knowledge of General Chemistry before taking it at the college level.
Since chemistry is a quantitative science, a working knowledge of high school algebra is needed. If your math skills are weak, this course will show you what types of math calculations are needed and you can hone those skills prior to your taking the course.
For this Udemy course, I used the Openstax Chemistry textbook which can be downloaded free of charge in pdf format at their website. A downloadable copy is also available in the Resources Folder for Lecture 1. However, if you already have an old textbook, that may also work for you. Topics may be presented in somewhat different order, however.