Uni

I’m currently in my second year of a chemistry degree, and I did Scottish Advanced Higher Chemistry before uni. From my experience, a lot of first-year content was an expansion of what I had already learned or covered the same concepts in more depth. That being said, the exact content and structure of first-year chemistry can vary depending on the university, so it’s always worth checking the course information online or reaching out to the university to see what’s covered beforehand.

One of the biggest differences I found was the regular weekly lab sessions. At first, they felt a little overwhelming, but my university provided a lot of support. Before each lab, I had to complete a pre-lab quiz, which was a short set of questions designed to help prepare me for the experiment. I found that reading over the experiment beforehand and highlighting key information also really helped me feel more confident going in.

For revising/keeping up with the workload, here are some things that work for me:
-After lectures I write summaries of the content, and then later in the week, I attempt practice questions. Once I’ve done them, I check my feedback, and if I’m unsure about anything, I reach out to my lecturer for help.
-Every week, I organise my lectures, labs, due dates, and work shifts. This helps me visualize how much time I have for studying &relaxing, which keeps my work-life balance in check.
-I break down my lab reports into smaller tasks and tick them off as I go. Doing it this way makes it feel way less overwhelming!
-I try to regularly study with people on my course I find when doing so explaining things out loud reinforces what ive learnt in lectures & also sometimes having something explained differently is just what you need for it to click!

I see you asked about specific resources; there's a variety of different textbooks & websites out there for specific areas – usually in lectures these will be recommended to you as a revision tool!

-If your not understanding something don’t hesitate to ask questions!- your lecturers & lab demonstrators are all there to help so don't be afraid to get in touch with anything! - they will be happy to explain, and will likely have an in-office hour where you can meet to get help and also an email to contact them!

I hope this helps!- Please feel free to reach out if there’s anything specific you’d like to know more about and best of luck with first year!