Build a strong foundation of chemistry knowledge and skills, preparing for first-year chemistry in this online one-week course!
CHEM4U is a week-long course that is designed to help prepare students coming into CHEM 1001 or CHEM 1101 by emphasizing the importance of chemistry fundamentals. By having a strong grasp of underlying concepts that are common to all chemistry courses, you'll enter first year with a solid foundation of knowledge and skills you can use and build upon. You'll learn how to manipulate, understand, and solve for variables in simple chemical equations, which you can later translate to do the same for more complicated systems. Starting university with a strong basis of chemistry knowledge, problem-solving and metacognitive skills will ensure you feel confident (and successful!) going forward in your studies. CHEM4U is coordinated by the Science Student Success Centre in the Faculty of Science.
Dates and Fees
CHEM4U runs from August 18th to 22nd, 2025. Registration for CHEM4U will open with your time ticket. The fee for CHEM4U is $375 including HST.
What is CHEM4U?
Generally, CHEM4U aims to teach students basic fundamentals about chemistry problem solving that they’ll need for first-year general chemistry and future CHEM courses. Some of this material will be review from high school, while some will tackle subjects and practices that will help students better conceptualize and solve problems in CHEM 1001 and CHEM 1101. Some of the broad topics that will be covered in CHEM4U include:
- Simple chemical reactions: stoichiometry and balancing, calculating reagents, neutralization reactions
- Units: conversion between units, identifying and using SI units
- Physical properties of solids, liquids and gases: density, volume, using the ideal gas law
This course also embeds a metacognition module which will help you learn and practice metacognitive skills - skills that help you understand your own learning processes and are beneficial for all courses!
Metacognition is defined as the ability to recognize and analyze your own thought processes and learning. Essentially - thinking about your own thinking. It involves planning, monitoring, evaluating, and making changes to how you build knowledge and abilities. Each day of the course, you will learn a new metacognitive skill and apply it to practice problems in the tutorials.
We recommend considering registration for CHEM4U if you plan to take a first-year general chemistry course during your studies.
Sign Up Now! Click here for a step-by-step explanation of how to register for CHEM4U.
CHEM4U will be instructed by Contract Chemistry Instructor, and Post-doctoral Fellowship, Dr. Alisha Szozda, PhD. The program is designed to provide students with a mix of lecture material, step-by-step tutorials, online activities, demonstrations and worksheets; this format will let students listen to material, see it being used and demonstrated, and then finally be able to apply this knowledge to problem-solving situations. You can view the tentative schedule for CHEM4U here.
Still Thinking About CHEM4U?
Have questions about CHEM4U? Visit our FAQs page for helpful information and answers to common questions. Whether you're curious about how the program works, the topics it covers, or how to get started, our FAQs provide clear and detailed answers to support you. Explore tips and resources to support your learning journey with the CHEM4U program.
Please meet CHEM4U Instructor, Dr. Alisha Szozda!
Dr. Szozda is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Instructor and is very much looking forward to meeting the 2025-2026 cohort of incoming Science Students.