General Chemistry I

Course Description

General Chemistry I is the first half of the majors-level general chemistry sequence. The statewide description is recent and explicit about its audience: the course is “designed for students pursuing careers in the sciences or who need a more rigorous presentation of chemical concepts than is offered in an introductory course”, and covers atomic theory, electronic and molecular structure, measurement, stoichiometry, bonding and periodicity.

It is carried by 16 Florida public institutions as a lecture at 3 credits, with a further 4 running the integrated CHM2045C at 4.

⚠⚠ The statewide title carries the (GE CORE) marker.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply measurement, units and significant figures correctly in calculation.
• Carry out stoichiometric calculations, including limiting reagent and percent yield.
• Describe atomic structure and electron configuration, and relate them to periodic trends.
• Predict molecular structure and bonding using Lewis structures, VSEPR and hybridisation.
• Apply the gas laws and the kinetic molecular theory.
• Apply thermochemistry: enthalpy, calorimetry, Hess’s law.
• Describe solutions and carry out solution concentration calculations.

Optional Outcomes

• Laboratory technique, data treatment and uncertainty (in the laboratory half).
• Introductory kinetics or equilibrium, where the institution places them in the first course.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Matter, measurement and dimensional analysis.
• Atoms, molecules and ions; nomenclature.
• Stoichiometry and reactions in solution.
• Thermochemistry.
• Electronic structure of atoms; periodic properties.
• Chemical bonding; molecular geometry and bonding theories.
• Gases.

Optional Topics

• Intermolecular forces and properties of liquids and solids.
• Introductory kinetics and equilibrium.

Resources & Tools

• Brown & LeMay, Zumdahl and Tro are the widely adopted texts; OpenStax Chemistry is free and in growing use.
• A scientific calculator; online homework systems are common and often a separate purchase.
• The laboratory half carries a fee at most institutions and requires eye protection and closed footwear — the safety rules are enforced strictly and a student without them is usually turned away.

Career Pathways

Required by most ABET-accredited engineering programmes, and named on the Mechanical Engineer path in this repository, where it underpins the materials sequence — corrosion, bonding and phase behaviour. It is also the gateway to chemistry, biology, biomedical and environmental degrees and to the health professions.

Special Information

⚠⚠⚠ Florida numbers general chemistry TWO ways, and no institution carries both

This is the single most useful thing on this page for a student who is transferring, dual-enrolled, or simply looking their own course up.

⚠⚠ Zero institutions carry both. Same course, same lower-division level, same content, and the credit articulates either way — but the other number simply does not exist at your school, so a student searching a catalogue or a degree audit for the wrong one finds nothing and concludes something is wrong.

⚠ Look up which family your institution uses before you go looking for the course. The one anomaly worth knowing: Santa Fe College uses CHM2045 for the first course and carries both CHM1046 and CHM2046 for the second.

⚠ And check the packaging, which is a second axis

Within each family the course is sold two ways. The bare number is a 3-credit lecture and needs a separate 1-credit L laboratory — two registrations, two grades, 4 credits. The C form is the integrated lecture-plus-lab at 4 credits — one registration, one grade. Daytona State, FSCJ, Lake-Sumter, Northwest Florida State, Polk State, Seminole State and Valencia use the C form. Both are complete and both transfer; they are packaged differently, and packaging is not divergence. What matters is that if your institution uses the bare number and you register for the lecture alone, you have not taken the laboratory, and every programme that requires this course requires the laboratory with it.

⚠⚠ Dual-enrolled students: the two halves earn DIFFERENT high-school credit

SCNS records what a dual-enrolled high-school student earns, and it is not the same across the sequence:

⚠ The college credit is unaffected either way. What differs is the high-school requirement it fills — so a student taking general chemistry I expecting to clear a high-school science requirement may receive elective credit instead. This is not a quirk of the prefix: across the 41 active lower-division CHM numbers the field splits 22 elective to 19 science, so it genuinely discriminates and is worth checking rather than assuming. Confirm with your counsellor and your district’s articulation agreement before you enrol, not after.

A Florida General Education Core course

The statewide title carries the (GE CORE) marker, identifying a course on Florida’s limited General Education Core list (s. 1007.25, F.S.). It satisfies its general-education subject area at every Florida public college and university and carries that status in transfer. ⚠ The protection attaches to the subject area, not to a laboratory component — whether a programme’s “science with laboratory” requirement is met is a programme rule.

Two packagings, and they are equivalent

Florida teaches general chemistry both ways. 16 institutions run CHM2045 as a lecture alongside CHM2045L, a separate laboratory carried by 16; 4 run CHM2045C, one integrated course. The outcomes are the same and transfer works either way — lecture plus laboratory completes exactly as the combined course does. Institutions are given this latitude deliberately.

⚠ Get the registration right: where your institution splits the course, enrol in both halves. They are normally corequisites, and an engineering or science programme that requires a laboratory will not accept the lecture alone.

⚠⚠ This is the majors sequence, not the general-education course

Florida numbers a one-term general-education chemistry course separately for non-majors. The statewide description of this course says plainly that it is for students pursuing careers in the sciences or needing a more rigorous treatment. Where a programme names this number, the non-majors course will not substitute — and the reverse substitution, taking this one to satisfy a general-education requirement, is usually fine but is worth confirming.

Dual enrolment

SCNS records ELECTIVE high-school credit for this course, in common with the other revised General Education Core entries. The college credit is unaffected; confirm with your counsellor before relying on it for a high-school science requirement.