Chemistry Department General Information

A career in chemistry offers many options. People with Bachelor's Degrees in Chemistry can move into many different areas of work, including biotechnology, earth sciences, medicine, pharmacy, manufacturing, and sales. The training in critical thinking and the development of laboratory skills involved in obtaining a degree in chemistry translate into an ability to do many kinds of work with the result that employment is relatively easy to obtain and salaries are generally good.

Las Positas offers a full lower division curriculum in Chemistry. Labs are conducted in a modern facility with excellent fume hoods, safe facilities, and modern instrumentation. There are a maximum of about 24 students in lab sections, which are taught by the same instructor as in the lecture.

Course offerings (Overview)

As of 2019-20 we are now offering:

Chemistry 1A is offered in Fall (six sections), Spring (three sections) and Summer (two sections)

Chemistry 1B is offered in Fall (two sections), Spring (once in the Summer, twice in Fall and three times in the Spring.

Organic Chemistry 12A is offered Fall only (three sections) with Chemistry 12B offered Spring only (also three sections).

Chemistry 30A is offered in the Fall (four sections), Spring and Summer

Chemistry 30B is offered both Fall (afternoon and evening sections), Spring (one evening section), and Summer (a morning section).

Chemistry 31 is offered with 3-5 sections each term in Fall, Spring, and Summer.

Chemistry 1A and 1B cover the traditional one-year general chemistry course, also known as freshman chemistry. These are rigorous courses taught at the same level as such courses are taught in the UC and CSU systems. Chemistry 1A has prerequisites. See Faqs and Courses. Lap top computers with digital data-logging is being used in these courses.

Chemistry 30A and 30B constitute a one-year course in general, organic, and biological chemistry for individuals seekijng AA/AS degrees or certificates in allied health and technological fields. Chemistry 30A is also suitable for general education as a science course with a laboratory.

Chemistry 12A and 12B constitute the traditional rigorous Organic Chemistry course. The course at Las Positas is taught at a high level so that students are highly competitive upon transfer. Instrumentation includes NMR (proton and carbon-13), FT-IR (Infrared Spectrometer with reflectance option), a UV-Visible Spectrophotometer, Gas Chromatorgraphy and GCMS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry). Each of these instruments is computer interfaced. We also have an Abbe refractometer, a digital polarimeter, and six digital melting point apparati.