Casper6060 Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 I had my 5 pre req courses all planned out by semester and got a work schedule that is flexible enough to allow me to take a few classes and today I discovered that pretty much most schools won't accept online lab classes. I'm already registered to take Chemistry 1 this summer and now I have to drop it. That puts my entire plan behind schedule. I'm not sure how I missed that important detail. Almost every class I have includes a lab and that schedule kills, especially for summer. IT's all day classes. I wish I could just quit work and knock everything out in 2 semesters. Oh well, looks like I'll have to push it all back a year. Sucks! Ok end of rant. What a frustrating time! Thanks for listening! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuralER/Ortho Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 Out of curiosity, how does an online lab work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reality Check 2 Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 I am old - can't figure out how one would actually do a chemistry LAB online.... Handling chemicals and producing reaction and showing lab capability doesn't seem possible online. Curious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper6060 Posted May 20, 2016 Author Share Posted May 20, 2016 I'm not actually sure, either. I know I was very excited when I found out they had Chemistry online at my school, though. That way I could take a summer class and get things moving faster while still working all week. The site I was sent was called latenitelabs.com. In this day and age, it's all virtually simulated like every thing else! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UGoLong Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I know that some schools have accelerated chemistry with labs in the summer. Perhaps you can find something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HMtoPA Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I took online labs through Colorado Community Colleges Online, a consortium of several different schools. You choose a "home college," which is basically one of the participating schools that issues your transcripts and handles some administrative functions, but take classes online, lumped together with other students from any of the other home colleges. Anyway, I took biology, A&P, micro, and chem online. Lab kits were several hundred dollars and sent to your home, in addition to textbooks (the company that produces the kits is called Hands-On Labs, this is their website, which looks much updated from when I was using them in 2008-10). I was able to culture agar plates, cause and observe chemical reactions, perform microscopy, even do several dissections (my wife was a little bugged out by the vacuum-sealed fetal pig that came in the mail, lol). It was all very convenient, because I was stationed in Spain at the time and didn't have access to traditional schools. To be honest, I found the labs to be more time-consuming (especially some of the reports) and required more discipline to excel in, than traditional labs, and I had done a few semesters at a four-year university as a bio major many years ago. Looking at my transcripts, they just show that I took classes at Pueblo Community College, there's no annotation to show that they were online classes. I suppose an adcom could put two and two together (for example, "You lived in Spain and went to school in Colorado?"), and I'm not suggesting lying to a school. I went to IPAP, which is obviously a very non-traditional program, and one in which many applicants have had to complete pre-reqs piecemeal while working busy military careers - so I think they're pretty flexible with online pre-reqs. But anyway, I do think that these prerequisite science courses are totally doable online, and can be legitimate learning experiences. They certainly prepared me to successfully get through PA school. I think there is a general snobbiness sometimes about completing pre-reqs at community colleges, or especially online pre-reqs, or even not going to the "right" PA school with the name recognition. In the end you should do what makes the most sense for you and what you can afford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishbum Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I'm not actually sure, either. I know I was very excited when I found out they had Chemistry online at my school, though. That way I could take a summer class and get things moving faster while still working all week. The site I was sent was called latenitelabs.com. In this day and age, it's all virtually simulated like every thing else! My general chemistry courses used latenitelabs. Basically, you get a virtual lab on your screen. You have a procedure that you follow just like in a real lab. You get containers, put stuff in them, take measurements, etc. just like you would in a real lab. The observed results depend on what you did. (Just for fun, you can do the wrong procedure and cause an explosion, or something like that.) I don't understand the bias against online labs. I don't think the point of a lab is to master the manual skills involved in chemistry so much as it is to understand the concepts involved. I mean, does it matter that I can DO a titration in real life, or is it enough to understand what that is and how it works? For what its worth, I went on to take organic chemistry in a traditional classroom/lab setting and did just fine...I'd picked up all the skills I needed and will now never use again. When I took physics (also in a traditional format), we used a combination of traditional labs and online simulations...there's no reason that one shouldn't be able to take those labs online too. OP, there are quite a few PA schools that do accept online labs...is there a reason that you couldn't confine your applications to those programs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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