No, but we do offer the necessary pre-requisite courses that will transfer to a nursing program. Palo Alto College offers many prerequisite courses for nursing that are fully transferrable. Many of our students are pre-nursing students, many of whom sucessfully transfer to nursing curricula both locally and outside the San Antonio area.

The major difference between Introduction to Chemistry and General Chemistry is that Introduction to Chemistry is designed for students preparing for careers in the allied health field and General Chemistry is designed for students preparing for a scientific career. For example, a nursing student may be required to take Introduction to Chemistry while an engineering, physical therapy, or pre-med student would need the General Chemistry course.

As for the laboratory, Introduction to Chemistry, which is a four hour course, cannot be separated from the laboratory and students are required to attend the corresponding lab. In contrast, General Chemistry is a distinctly separate course from General Chemistry Laboratory and students may sometimes choose to enroll in only the lecture section of this course. In some cases, students will be transferring to a four year institution where the laboratory is not required and therefore they may elect to enroll in only the lecture section of General Chemistry.

 

Successful completion of some courses require fundamental knowlege that is introduced in a lower level course. Therefore, in the interest of student success, it is not recommended that students attempt coursework without first completing the assigned prerequisite course(s). Only under special conditions will permission be given for a student to enroll in a course for which they have not completed the listed prerequisites.

Courses that follow one another in sequence are designed so that the second semester of the course builds upon knowledge obtained in the first semester. Therefore, these courses must be taken in the proper sequence.

CHEM 1405 & CHEM 1407 require MATH 0302 as a prerequisite. CHEM 1111, 1112, 1311, 1312, 2223, 2225, 2323, and 2325 require MATH 0303 as a prerequisite.

 It is the responsibility of the student to obtain information from the college or university to which he or she plans to transfer regarding the specific course requirements of their degree program. Individual instructors within the Department of Sciences will be happy to confer with students about the transferability of the courses they teach at Palo Alto College.

 Non-science majors courses are designed as an introduction to the discipline and are taken by students majoring in fields that are not science-related.

Microbiology 2420 is a course designed for Allied Health Science Majors (Nursing, Dental Hygiene, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, etc.) and Microbiology 2421 is a course designed for Science Majors (Biology, Pre-Medicine, Pre-Dental, etc.). These courses are not interchangeable.

Our Genetics (BIOL 2416) and Microbiology for Science Majors (BIOL 2421) are taught here as a part of our A.S. in Biology degree. At many schools these are taught as Junior or senior level classes (300 or 3000 and 400 or 4000 levels) are are not transferable from a community college where they are sophomore level (2000 level) courses. Check with the institution you plan to transfer to in order to see if they will be accepted as part of your baccalaureate degree plan.

Your BEST pathway to success is our Texas A&M University/PAC Biomedical Sciences 2+2 Program. This program is designed to prepare you for professional school by taking classes taught by the TAMU Medical and Veterinary School faculty as an undergraduate. While at PAC, follow our TAMU/PAC Biomedical Sciences 2+2 degree plan, make a "B" or better in your Math and Science classes, and maintain a 3.4 GPA overall and you will have guaranteed admittance into Texas A&M Univeristy-College Station. You will also receive our AS degree in Biology. You then transfer to TAMU, complete two more years of undergraduate classes and receive your BS in Biomedical Sciences. Then you apply to the professional school of your choice, two of which are on A&M's campus in College Station.