What you can expect to study in the first year of a Birmingham chemistry degree

In the first year of study our core Chemistry modules cover the following areas:

Inorganic

• Atomic structure and periodicity, s-, p- & d-block chemistry
• VSEPR, valence bond & molecular orbital theory, ionic bonding

Organic

• structure, notation and representation, shape and stereochemistry
• chemical reactivity principles, acidity–basicity, nucleophilic substitution and elimination
• alkenes & alkynes, aromatic chemistry, carbonyls

Physical

• orders of reaction, experimental methods, integrated rate equations, collision theory
• laws of thermodynamics, enthalpy, entropy, free energy, equilibria
• quantisation of energy levels, selection rules
• rotational and vibrational spectroscopy’