Biochemistry or Org Chem II: Which is harder?

[DMD_DREAMING]

I have been told that Biochemistry is easier by someone and was curious as to everyone's opinion in here. Thanks,

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[Kiluminati]

At my school Ochem II's final is comprehensive starting from Ochem I...so I'd go with Ochem II.

 

[USAF_Dentman]

At my school Ochem II's final is comprehensive starting from Ochem I...so I'd go with Ochem II.

Our Ochem2 prof is nutz..seriously..We've been doing NMR for 2.5 weeks, while another professor only spent 1 lecture on it!

I have probs looking at 1HNMR graphs that have around 5-6 different functional groups plus the carbon backbone..and then trying to figure out what the structure is plus we have to do COSY specs and that blows..

Anyone know of any quick ways for identifying groups??

 

[ranark]

biochem is harder in my opinion, but i liked organic (call me crazy)

 

[Maxtor]

I think it depends on the professor.
My major is biochemistry and took both o chem and biochem.
In my case, my o chem class was really difficult.
I think my professor taught us almost all named reactions. I had to research all rxns because those are not in the textbook. Moreover, we had to draw every mechanism for the exam. This was terrible. It required a great amount of practice since some mech were amazingly long.
The hardest part students thought was NMR.
Actually, I didn't know how hard NMR was.
My prof always gave us the most complex one which is not easy to figure it out. Some people say NMR is not that difficult but I think H NMR is never easy. Just the problems in the textbook were easy.
On the other hand, biochem was not that difficult.
So I think it depends on the professor.

 

[45540]

It all depends. I thought O Chem was a breeze in undergrad and i really enjoyed it. Biochem was pretty difficult in undergrad but then it was surprisingly easy in Dental School. It all depends on how your mind works and what you find easy. I hated general biology and still think it was the hardest class i took in college but i enjoyed physical chemistry so go figure.

 

[USAF_Dentman]

I think it depends on the professor.
My major is biochemistry and took both o chem and biochem.
In my case, my o chem class was really difficult.
I think my professor taught us almost all named reactions. I had to research all rxns because those are not in the textbook. Moreover, we had to draw every mechanism for the exam. This was terrible. It required a great amount of practice since some mech were amazingly long.
The hardest part students thought was NMR.
Actually, I didn't know how hard NMR was.
My prof always gave us the most complex one which is not easy to figure it out. Some people say NMR is not that difficult but I think H NMR is never easy. Just the problems in the textbook were easy.
On the other hand, biochem was not that difficult.
So I think it depends on the professor.

My professor does a lot of research on the NMR spec so obviously he will spend the most time on it. He just goes way too indepth. I can do all the problems in the book pretty easily, but as soon as i get to his problems its like im seeing a foreign language..just ridiculous..

 

[lunguv]

My professor does a lot of research on the NMR spec so obviously he will spend the most time on it. He just goes way too indepth. I can do all the problems in the book pretty easily, but as soon as i get to his problems its like im seeing a foreign language..just ridiculous..

We spent 5 weeks on NMR. On our tests we would be given a mass spec graph, an H1 NMR, and a C13 NMR for one compound with no structural information about it and we would have to figure it out exactly. What I hated the most is that we had to memorize mechanisms for everything and the synthesis problems were ridiculous. Going from a vinyl to a p-methoxybenzaldehyde is NOT easy. We had to outline what reagents we would use including the solvents, for every step leading to the final desired product. Then again though, I am not sure if my organic classes are representative of other school's. I have a feeling our chemistry program is a little more hardcore than the avg, but I might be mistaken. Organic II was by far the toughest class I have taken followed closely by Calculus 2, Anatomy, and Molecular Genetics. I am in Bio Chem right now and it is a joke. Then again, I am a biology major.

 

[USAF_Dentman]

We spent 5 weeks on NMR. On our tests we would be given a mass spec graph, an H1 NMR, and a C13 NMR for one compound with no structural information about it and we would have to figure it out exactly. What I hated the most is that we had to memorize mechanisms for everything and the synthesis problems were ridiculous. Going from a vinyl to a p-methoxybenzaldehyde is NOT easy. We had to outline what reagents we would use including the solvents, for every step leading to the final desired product. Then again though, I am not sure if my organic classes are representative of other school's. I have a feeling our chemistry program is a little more hardcore than the avg, but I might be mistaken. Organic II was by far the toughest class I have taken followed closely by Calculus 2, Anatomy, and Molecular Genetics. I am in Bio Chem right now and it is a joke. Then again, I am a biology major.

That's ******ed..we skipped Mass spec, thank god..This is definetly harder than what we did in O-chem 1..That sounds about right for chem at least here its similar (depending on the particular professors interests)...

 

[lunguv]

That's ******ed..we skipped Mass spec, thank god..This is definetly harder than what we did in O-chem 1..That sounds about right for chem at least here its similar (depending on the particular professors interests)...

Yes. We were never even given a formula for the molecule. Just a mass spec, and 2 NMR's. Sometimes they would also give us IR's, which was very useful. But there were problems where there was no IR, just 2 NMR and 1 mass spec. So we had to figure out the functional groups from the NMR and mass spec graphs...thats fun stuff . Yes, Organic 2 was the mother of all classes I have taken .