Advice for novice chemist..?

Question

I have been out of highschool for a couple months now..but I never finished chemistry. I need a recommendation on a chemistry set to do some hands on learning about chemistry :) I was looking at Thames & Kosmos Chem sets, which sound excellent. But I wanted some other opinions, and the C3000 set is a bit expensive. Also if anyone has any advice on chemistry texts or online resources that would be great too!

Answer 1

If you want to do hands-on learning with chemistry, I respectfully suggest that you take a course with a lab at your local community college.  You can get GREAT chemistry texts real cheap online.  Just look to see what the latest edition number is, and subtract 2.  The general chemistry book by Brown, Lemay, and Bursten is good.  The one by Silberberg is also very good.  But seriously you're going to learn more if you take classes and pay attention and do the homework.

Answer 2

I've included some links you might be interested in.

As for the theory, you can get good used textbooks from amazon for very cheap. Try the last link for the book I'd recommend. Buy the used one it's around 30 dollars.