Skip to the content of the web site.

Chemistry Specialization Plan

The Chemistry Specialization Plan is intended for those students who have an interest in the area of computational chemistry. This plan has eight specialization core courses, eight specialization elective courses, split into two groups, and five free elective courses. The eight specialization core courses are intended to provide students following this specialization plan with a thorough grounding in physical and computational chemistry. The specialization electives have been split into two groupings, referred to herein as Group A and Group B electives. The four Group A elective courses are to be chosen from a list of three two-course sequences structured to allow a student in the Chemistry Specialization to broaden her/his overall chemistry background in two traditional areas of chemistry other than physical chemistry. The five Group B elective courses are chosen from a list of courses that allow a student in this plan to acquire additional depth in at least one of the two areas from the Group A courses.

Core Courses (3.0 course units + 1.0 lab units)

CHEM 140L Introductory Scientific Calculations Laboratory
CHEM 209 Introductory Spectroscopy and Structure
CHEM 254 Introductory Chemical Thermodynamics
CHEM 340L Introductory Computational Chemistry Laboratory
CHEM 350 Chemical Kinetics
CHEM 356 Introductory Quantum Mechanics
CHEM 450 Computational Physical Chemistry* or
CHEM 450 Topics in Computational Chemistry*
CHEM 460 Molecular Modelling* or
PHYS 339 Scientific Computation 2*

Specialization Electives (4.5 units)

Two of the two GROUP A course sequences:

CHEM 212 Structure and Bonding and
CHEM 310 Transitional Element Compounds and Inorganic Materials or
CHEM 313 Main Group and Solid State Chemistry

CHEM 220 and 221 Introductory Analytical Chem. & Multi-component Analysis

CHEM 264 and 265 Organic Chemistry 1 and 2

Five of* GROUP B:

CHEM 305 or EARTH 305 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
CHEM 323 Analytical Instrumentation
CHEM 360 Organic Chemistry 3
CHEM 404 Physico-Chemical Aspects of Natural Water
CHEM 406 Environmental Organic Chemistry
CHEM 450 Quantum Mechanics in Chemistry
CHEM 450 Chemical Thermodynamics 2
CHEM 450 Properties of Bulk and Nanomaterials
PHYS 359 Statistical Mechanics or
CHEM 450 Statistical Mechanics

Free Electives (2.5 units)

*Any of CHEM 450 (Computational Physical Chemistry), CHEM 450 (Topics in Computational Chemistry), CHEM 460 (Molecular Modelling), PHYS 339 (Scientific Computation 2) may be chosen as a Specialization Elective if it has not already been identified as a Specialization Core course.

Information on Electives:

The Group A electives have been arranged in columns that correspond to inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry and organic chemistry, respectively: a student must choose pairs of courses corresponding to two of the three columns in order to obtain sufficient coverage of two of these three areas of chemistry.

The Group B electives have been arranged in columns corresponding to physical/computational chemistry and other areas of chemistry, respectively. Students are to choose any four from this list. Notice that CHEM 450/452 appears four times in the Group B listing: this happens because this course number indicates that it is a 'Special Topics' course that must ultimately be identified in terms of both the course number and the course title. Thus, four courses with the course number 450/452 but with different course titles represent four distinct courses and, as such, all four courses may be taken for credit; note that such courses are not antirequisites to one another.

The specific titles for the CHEM 450/452 courses in the list of Group B electives include:

Note that either CHEM 450/452 (Computational Physical Chemistry) or CHEM 450/452 (Topics in Computational Chemistry) may be taken as a Group B elective if it has not already been identified as a Chemsitry Specialization Core course.

Other courses labelled 450/452 may also be chosen as electives in Group B, but only upon approval by the Computational Sciences Program Advisor.

More Information