The curriculum in chemistry provides broad knowledge of the field as a part of the liberal education offered by the College of Arts and Sciences. Chemistry course work is a sound foundation for students interested in advanced work in chemistry or related sciences, particularly such fields as biochemistry, geochemistry, materials science, and molecular biology.
Explore Chemistry and Biochemistry Courses
Courses within the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry offer students valuable lessons in academia and beyond graduation:
- Gain a strong foundation in chemistry’s fundamental principles.
- Explore the interface between cell biology and biochemistry.
- See how chemistry can create solutions to energy, global warming, and pollution challenges.
The University of Oregon course catalog offers degree plans and a complete list of undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Featured Courses
411/511 Physical Chemistry
This is the first term of the Physical Chemistry sequence. This course and its successors are concerned with the physical principles governing atoms and molecules' behaviors and measurements. The underlying theories are thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics.
CH 468/568 Cellular Biochemistry
This course surveys scientific discovery at the interface between cell biology and biochemistry. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how scientists visualize, quantify, and interpret how biochemical reactions are orchestrated in complex biological systems. Relationships between protein structure, function, and emergent properties will be defined.
451/551 Advanced Organic/Inorganic Chemistry
This course is designed for first-year graduate students or advanced undergraduates with a desire to use fundamental principles of organic chemistry to predict structure and reactivity. By the end of this course students should be able to propose reaction pathways using arrow-pushing mechanisms and be able to justify these pathways using fundamental principles such as frontier molecular orbital theory, resonance, sterics, electrostatics, and thermodynamics.