I HATE Organic Chemistry

[SilleAngyl]

So, I just took my second organic chemistry test today. This one was on enantiomers, and all of the Sn1,2 E1,2 crap. I am sure I failed it miserably. I would love to hear everyone else's experiences so far with this horrid class.

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[PwnerOfAll]

I havn't taken it yet....but am looking forward to it.

Yes, I'm weird.

 

[ms. a]

Originally posted by PwnerOfAll
I havn't taken it yet....but am looking forward to it.

Yes, I'm weird.

I also really liked orgo. It was definitely one of my favorite classes. I always used studying orgo as the one thing I could study when I was sick of studying but had more to do. But then again, I was a physics major, and anything was easier than physics.

 

[Sweet Tea]

I really loved orgo.

I take that back...I really loved orgo the second time I took it. The second time I took it (after I graduated) I not only studied but I studied effectively, and I really loved the class. I'm also a dork.

I hated it the first time around when I had no idea what I was doing or how to study. But it was great the second time.

 

[lazgirl24]

How did you study it the second time around?

 

[spumoni620]

stereochemistry is definitely a notoriously tough subject for many ppl in orgo. so don't feel bad. it takes a while....it really does help to get a model kit and build the structures. as far for the rest of the course (and the mcat) it is important to understand enantiomers/diastereomers (esp cis trans), assigning priorities, chiral centers, etc. but don't sweat it too much - as long as you can recognize mirror images and decide when a reaction has the opportunity to produce a mix of products (i.e. look for a chiral center in the reactant), you should be ok. right now, focus on really gaining an understanding of sn1/sn2/e1/e2 reactions, because these mechanisms will come back to haunt you later on. i.e. understand what makes a good nucleophile and leaving group, the effect of sterics in forcing sn2, carbocation stability, etc. especially understand the pushing of electrons and arrows...this will be a needed skill when you get to reactions of alcohols and carbonyl groups. i know it seems overwhelming right now, but if you plug away at it and really understand it now, you will be all set for the rest of the course.

what textbook are you using? i'd recommend getting wade, both the textbook and soln manual, working all the problems and reading the sections. it made things crystal clear for me.

good luck and feel free to pm me if you have any specific orgo questions 🙂

 

[Robz]

I think organic chemistry is tough cause it causes you to LEARN how to learn. You can't just get through on straight memorization in that class. I personally LOVED organic and my friends and my classmates hated me cause I broke the curves. I attribute my A's in organic to three things.

1) Hard work. I was in the library 2-3 hours a day and even more 2 weeks before an exam just on orgo.

2) I am good at spacial relationships. I liked my orgo molcular kits and plus I had an analogy that molecules were like legos. Only certain legos could fit with other certain legos. Yes I'm wierd too.

3) My orgo professor went out of his way for the students. He was willing to spend as much time with you as was needed but he expected you to bust your butt. He promised some struggling kids in the class if they went to his office hours every day that they would pass. He stayed and they did. Teaching counts!

Also there are some good books and videos out there for basic orgo. I remember thinking the video of the standard deviants was a great one.

 

[bobby_chamo]

My orgo class is nuts. My prof got his masters and PhD from Johns Hopkins. He's as brilliant as they come, and he shows us that in his teaching.

Our tests are friggen essay tests. "Explain why this reaction goes like this." And then he asks us a reaction that we've never seen that always has some odd thing in it, so we have to apply everything we've learned and construct a reasonable argument about it.

THen we always have a couple of curved arrow mechanisms, and synthetic reaction pathways that we'ev NEVER looked at doing before. Like our last test we had to convert propene into but-2-ene with one of the methyl groups being labeled as CD3 instead of the normal CH3. We'd never covered it, so I just corey-posner'ed it on, hope its right;-)

 

[musiclink213]

i had the stereochemistry test last week. that test was the hardest thing i've ever taken, cause we also had to look at the fisher projections and the wedge-dot model (or whatever it's called) and say if they were identical, constitutional, enantiomers, or dianentiomers. doing R and S was the least of my worries on the test/

 

[Sweet Tea]

Robz and spumoni are right on... I especially liked Robz's leggo analogy! The hard thing about orgo was that you had to learn how to learn in a whole new way. If you try to go through and memorize how every single little molecule behaves in every single reaction you will most likely freak yourself out and not do very well. I suggest buying a model kit and making all the different conformations, and building the molecules to give yourself a hands-on, 3D way of looking how it works. Also, instead of memorizing "X, Y, and Z are good leaving groups", learn what makes a good leaving group and what factors effect that group's ability to leave.

Also, do a little bit every day. You cannot cram for orgo. Just designate 1-2 hours a day as orgo time, and really focus during that time. Do all the problems your teacher assigned you, and then do them again. And do them again. Don't just memorzie how to do it, learn why it works that way. Organic chemistry is all about sizes, shapes, and pattern recognition. Once you learn the properties and rules of the game, you can figure out what happens when given a new situation.

 

[kiahs]

HI I know all that stuff can be really difficult I didn't do awesomw in organic but I really liked it. For your enantiomers and stuff have you done Fischer projections that really helped me out instead of doing the filliping and stuff in my head it's a way to do it all on paper and saved me big time. Look it up it's really good. For the SN2 and others just try to go though as many problems as you can that's the only way you know you really know it. Good luck hope it gets better for you🙂

 

[Amy B]

One phrase sticks in my mind when I think of organic........

My professor would always say, ""FOLLOW THE ELECTRONS, THEY WILL BE YOUR GUIDE."

If you can determine what is happening to the electrons then you should be able to know what is going to happen in the reaction.

 

[SilleAngyl]

My class uses the Solomons & Fryhle text. I don't mind this book, it is actually a pretty easy to understand. For anyone out there that has this text have you found anything that works better for you than the text does?

Anyway, I did study my butt off for this exam, but I really just blanked on the test. If the reactions don't look exactly like they do in the text, I have a problem identifying them. I guess this just means I need to study even more?

 

[Sweet Tea]

Originally posted by SilleAngyl


Anyway, I did study my butt off for this exam, but I really just blanked on the test. If the reactions don't look exactly like they do in the text, I have a problem identifying them. I guess this just means I need to study even more?

No, it means you need to study better, not more.

Learn what makes a reaction go...counting electrons and really making sure you understand how orbital shells fill up will help. The goal is not to memorize certain reactions; the goal is to learn what properties are going to make a reaction go in a certain way so when you get to an unfamiliar test question you can list out the properties of the reactants and figure out how the reaction is going to go from there.

Good luck to you!

 

[fun8stuff]

I did very well in Organic, but I will have to say it doesn't take 3 hours a day as mentioned above. Maybe 3-4 hours in a normal week, 6 or so the week of the test. I did well by memorizing concepts and reactions, then I would do as many problems as I could find. After you do enough problems, you learn the concepts anyways. I really think you have to force yourself to apply the cocnepts as much as you can and in as many different circumstances. I tried to do some problems everday, even if it were only for 30 mins. Strive for understanding of the big pictureS.

Models also helped me out in the beginning. After you make the models a few times, it becomes easier to picture things.

Good Luck.

 

[Bones2008]

I came up with this analogy when I learned orgo, and I've taught it to all my orgo tutees in the years since. Organic chemistry is easy to understand if you remember one thing before anything else, and that is: organic chemistry = 🙂 . This sounds ridiculous at first, I'm sure. Think about it, though. What determines whether a SN2 or SN1 will predominate - whether the molecule is "happy" with a unimolecular intermediate. What determines which product is the major one - the product the results from the "happiest" (most stable) transition state. What conformation is a cyclohexane in most often - the chair, because it's "happiest" (steric interactions are at a minimum) there.
Seriously, everything in orgo can be brought back to 🙂 . Learn it, live it, ace it.

 

[chaeymaey]

I took my third Orgo test today over the same subjects and it totally sucked too. We're all hoping for a big curve. It's not the subject that bothers me, it's the fact that questions are unclear on the test and seemed like they came from nowhere.

 

[UCLAstudent]

Organic was my favorite class... the best thing that I can recommend is doing lots of practice problems.

 

[fun8stuff]

Originally posted by chaeymaey
I took my third Orgo test today over the same subjects and it totally sucked too. We're all hoping for a big curve. It's not the subject that bothers me, it's the fact that questions are unclear on the test and seemed like they came from nowhere.

...Hence, the need for doing many, many practice problems AND masteringall of them :-d There are practice problems in your book, online, in MCAT prep books, old tests, etc, etc...

 

[jlee9531]

the title of the thread is one of the saddest things i have heard.

i love organic chemistry.
berkeley ochem rocks.

props to professor bertozzi and pedersen for teaching it in such a fun and conceptual way. always doing things to show some application to real life.

i did well enough to be asked by my TA to recommend me to take the necessary steps to TAing the course as an undergrad.

it is a different way of learning and thats what i loved about it. i never liked g-chem or p-chem. but i clicked with o-chem right away. i learned the material conceptually at first. not worrying about memorizing any specific reactions or anything. if you know the concepts and focus on the sneaky tricky things that happen in reactions and of course show up on exams it shouldnt be too much of a problem.

of course there are those professors that force you to learn every last bit of detail and present it in a manner that leads students to fear and despise ochem. oh well. its too bad since ochem is really a great subject and fun subject.

i feel like reading my old notes now haha.

JK!! dont throw stuff at me please 😉

 

[rogersce]

How can you people like organic chemistry? Maybe I'm "weird", but I like getting drunk and watching college football.

 

[twinklz]

On the first day of my organic course my prof handed out two sheets 1) "Organic Chemistry is fun" in huge letters 2) A distribution of the number of hours the average person studies and the grade he or she makes. (He recommended 14 hours a week)

I didn't study quite that much but I did work most of the problems in the book (Carey...it pretty much sucked) And if you need to, ask your prof for more difficult reaction/ synthesis problems. B/c a lot of the stuff in the back of the books in just repetition without much thought behind it. And I know my tests required a thorough understanding b/c all we had were about 6 questions per test. And geez were they hard.

 

[Robz]

Originally posted by rogersce
How can you people like organic chemistry? Maybe I'm "weird", but I like getting drunk and watching college football.

I love getting drunk and watching football too. Hell, I go to the University of Tennessee where football is a religion and as a student I get free games. WOO HOO. I did love organic and it was my favorite class along with medical ethics.

 

[ATPase]

I liked the first semester of organic but definitely disliked the second semester. So much more to memorize.

 

[topherius]

I think it's half professor, half attitude. I took it first semester of my freshman year and it SUCKED in a way I would never have thought possible. It was so terrible I wound up having major second thoughts about medicine and departed the pre-med curriculum for the next two years. Then I changed my mind, came back to the pre-med fold, and took the second semester my senior year. I had a much better professor and a totally new attitude, tempered in large part by the intervening two and 1/2 years of college and had a totally different experience. I wouldn't say I loved it, but neither was the the bane of my existence.

You know one thing that actually helped me was the labs. Seeing the reaction take place and then going home, sitting down and figuring out what had happened at the electron level really helped, especially with subs/elim rxns and the carboxylic acid derivatives.

Also, try looking at the problems as puzzles. You've got to figure out why something happened, or what the result will be, and you know these certain rules. It becomes fun, in a weird, twisted sort of way. Even (or especially?) synthesis problems.

 

[jlee9531]

i got drunk, watched ncaa football and bball, and still enjoyed ochem.

have my cake and eat it too yo...

as tradition i always took a shot of goldschlagger before an exam and good results always came about haha. i lost a bet and thats why i had to do that but it was all good. 😎

 

[Sweet Tea]

Originally posted by rogersce
How can you people like organic chemistry? Maybe I'm "weird", but I like getting drunk and watching college football.

me too, but i prefer basketball (go heels!!) 😀

no reason why you can't like organic and going out. balance is key.

 

[Noeljan]

Hey
I love Organic, and I think that Robz post was right on. I do a little every single day, and read ahead (and after🙂 ) I think a major thing with organic is keeping up, and practicing. The model kits help a lot.
By the way I go to SUNY Buffalo, and this is my first time taking it. Although I don't think repeating will help any without an effort (I have friends in my class now who are repeating and still only making C's, but they don't put even half the effort into it as I do)

 

[OnMyWayThere]

My instructor allows us to use model kits on the tests. These save you... If you can't use them on the exam, use them out of class. They let you imagine what the hell is going on. It's going by, ....