I'm seriously considering dropping pre-med because of Orgo

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Whatyousay said:
Breaking Bad.
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Never seen it--but we did just about as much in my Orgo Lab, so I sense a trend :laugh:
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lulz, I love this website after working on problems concerning a guy standing on a mythical frictionless slab of ice pushing blocks of lead around.
 
NightGod said:
BTW, if Jesse tries refining meth out of addict's urine this season, you can thank my Chem teacher.
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Oh my God I have to watch this show. Why haven't I heard of this??
 
CodeBlu said:
You haven't heard of Breaking Bad? What are you? New?
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Okay, in my defense I live in a sorority house during the school year and most of the tv shows I get to watch contain the words "Teen" and "Mom" somewhere in the title.

But hey, the rent is cheap and it's given me a few good leadership ECs. It's a compromise.
 
CuttingCorneas said:
Okay, in my defense I live in a sorority house during the school year and most of the tv shows I get to watch contain the words "Teen" and "Mom" somewhere in the title.

But hey, the rent is cheap and it's given me a few good leadership ECs. It's a compromise.
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Youz a sorority chick? Hot damn, I LOVE sorority girls.

Hahaha, and it's true... I hear that sorority girls do watch trashy TV.
 
CodeBlu said:
Youz a sorority chick? Hot damn, I LOVE sorority girls.

Hahaha, and it's true... I hear that sorority girls do watch trashy TV.
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6a5731ada65976a.jpg
 
CuttingCorneas said:
Okay, in my defense I live in a sorority house during the school year and most of the tv shows I get to watch contain the words "Teen" and "Mom" somewhere in the title.
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hah that blows. Use your laptop to watch "good" TV shows on the interwebs?
 
paul411 said:
hah that blows. Use your laptop to watch "good" TV shows on the interwebs?
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Well, every Monday I claim a TV and watch House. I call it a personal victory because I've convinced about five other girls that it's a good show, and I've caught them watching reruns on USA in the afternoons. So I call it a win-win :D
 
CuttingCorneas said:
Well, every Monday I claim a TV and watch House. I call it a personal victory because I've convinced about five other girls that it's a good show, and I've caught them watching reruns on USA in the afternoons. So I call it a win-win :D
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Oh man, House gets real crappy real fast. Just you wait.
 
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paul411 said:
Oh man, House gets real crappy real fast. Just you wait.
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I've seen every episode! Some are good, some are meh...but then there are a few that restore your faith in the show again, and you can't stop watching. Plus the fact that it's so much better than Grey's...Seriously, the only medicine in that show is the word "anatomy" in the title.
 
I don't think so...

vin5cent0 said:
Kinda funny to read this thread two years later. F*ckin ochem.. I wound up dropping that class and retaking it with a different prof in the hopes that she'd be better, and it wound up being even harder.

I had a friend of mine come with me to lecture for a week when he came to visit us. He's the TA for ochem at his school, and even he found out lectures wildly confusing and full of errors (when learning carbonyl chemistry, the first day of lecture our prof. accidentally explained to us why the carbon acted as the nucleophile). It's no wonder I used to walk out of that class every day shaking my head in confusion.

On the plus side, I'm finding the MCAT's ochem to be a breeze now. It's amazing how much simpler something is when you don't have a professor testing you on made-up reactions (and yes, my professor once made a test full of mythical reactions because she felt some of the stuff we were learning, such as diels-alder reaction, was too simple). My life has seriously gone up like 50 rungs on the happiness ladder since that class ended! haha
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...
 
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CodeBlu said:
this this this this this.


But on another note... orgo sucks. Like for real. If orgo wasn't a pre-req for medical school.... no one, and I mean NO ONE would take it.
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Biochem would have seemed so much more menacing without the year of Orgo first. That is the only reason I could think to take it.
 
I know this thread is almost 2 years old but to anyone who feels the same way: f organic chemistry.
 
KLycos said:
Did OP fail out of ochem and never take the MCAT?
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Nah, passed it with a different (harder, ironically) prof. Ochem is probably my strongest area on the MCAT right now, either that or verbal.
 
Why is Ochem so difficult? Is it because there's a lot of detailed material to memorize or is it hard to grasp the concepts of whats happening?
 
Venom5 said:
Why is Ochem so difficult? Is it because there's a lot of detailed material to memorize or is it hard to grasp the concepts of whats happening?
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It's just different. Other science is mostly memorization--in orgo you have to understand how and why a reaction takes place, and then apply it. It's not spoonfed.
 
Oh man.. Just in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread, I want to overshare a little bit to provide hope to the masses..

I got a C+ in orgo1 and had to withdraw from orgo2 before re-taking it the next term for a C+. In the end, it's pretty much these two classes that caused me to have to attend a post-bacc (I was a bio major and my physics and bio gpa was 3.6, but my chem grades were C+ all the way down). I didn't get a single interview my first application cycle.

Sounds disheartening, right? Well, not entirely. I studied hard for my MCAT and got in to an awesome post-bacc with an 85% chance of getting into med school. If you keep your head down and figure out how to overcome the problems in your application, you can still find a way in even if they try to weed you out with Wolff–Kishner reduction.
 
...
 
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Venom5 said:
Why is Ochem so difficult? Is it because there's a lot of detailed material to memorize or is it hard to grasp the concepts of whats happening?
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I always used to think about this before I took organic, but it's really hard to explain. For me, it was confusing to have so many right answers for one thing. Doing synthesis is like trying to solve a puzzle that has 50 different solutions, but only 2 or 3 "correct" ones. And the whole idea of working backwards from a product of a multi-step synthetic workup is very strange.

The material itself is not that difficult. The fact that you need to be able to account for so many different scenarios is what makes people go crazy.
 
OChem is not conceptually difficult... Far from it.

With that said, it is still a difficult sequence. ;)
 
Venom5 said:
Why is Ochem so difficult? Is it because there's a lot of detailed material to memorize or is it hard to grasp the concepts of whats happening?
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It's hard because organic chemistry is bull****. Most reaction mechanisms are empirically observed and a mechanism is either back-traced or, my favorite, a mechanism doesn't exist (and of course these type of reactions show up on exams.) Then there are some seemingly straightforward reactions that go against what you think should happen and can only be explained with convoluted bull**** with a complete lack of rigor that has absolutely no justification other than "well this is what is observed so therefore it must correct," which makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and then you have the reactions that do follow the concepts but you can't write or solve them because you missed or forgot some part of a concept 326 pages back and the textbook and professor both assume that you have photographic memory and a 100% solid understanding of everything prior. Organic chemistry really is the worst class I've ever taken.
 
circulus vitios said:
It's hard because organic chemistry is bull****. Most reaction mechanisms are empirically observed and a mechanism is either back-traced or, my favorite, a mechanism doesn't exist (and of course these type of reactions show up on exams.) Then there are some seemingly straightforward reactions that go against what you think should happen and can only be explained with convoluted bull**** with a complete lack of rigor that has absolutely no justification other than "well this is what is observed so therefore it must correct," which makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and then you have the reactions that do follow the concepts but you can't write or solve them because you missed or forgot some part of a concept 326 pages back and the textbook and professor both assume that you have photographic memory and a 100% solid understanding of everything prior. Organic chemistry really is the worst class I've ever taken.
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Are you done with the sequence or just OChem 1?
 
circulus vitios said:
It's hard because organic chemistry is bull****. Most reaction mechanisms are empirically observed and a mechanism is either back-traced or, my favorite, a mechanism doesn't exist (and of course these type of reactions show up on exams.) Then there are some seemingly straightforward reactions that go against what you think should happen and can only be explained with convoluted bull**** with a complete lack of rigor that has absolutely no justification other than "well this is what is observed so therefore it must correct," which makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and then you have the reactions that do follow the concepts but you can't write or solve them because you missed or forgot some part of a concept 326 pages back and the textbook and professor both assume that you have photographic memory and a 100% solid understanding of everything prior. Organic chemistry really is the worst class I've ever taken.
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Preach on, brother.
 
circulus vitios said:
It's hard because organic chemistry is bull****. Most reaction mechanisms are empirically observed and a mechanism is either back-traced or, my favorite, a mechanism doesn't exist (and of course these type of reactions show up on exams.) Then there are some seemingly straightforward reactions that go against what you think should happen and can only be explained with convoluted bull**** with a complete lack of rigor that has absolutely no justification other than "well this is what is observed so therefore it must correct," which makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and then you have the reactions that do follow the concepts but you can't write or solve them because you missed or forgot some part of a concept 326 pages back and the textbook and professor both assume that you have photographic memory and a 100% solid understanding of everything prior. Organic chemistry really is the worst class I've ever taken.
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That's exactly what drove me crazy too. Teach would always lay down some massive thirty step mechanism, force us all to spit it back, then say "Now, keep in mind, this isn't how it actually happens in real life at all. It's just the path that makes the most logical sense." If that's not how it actually happens, what in the hell is the point in learning it? Building logical skill?

Plus, class was expensive cause I went through at least thirty packs of dry erase markers writing reactions over and over and over and over and over and over...
 
rockyrado said:
That's exactly what drove me crazy too. Teach would always lay down some massive thirty step mechanism, force us all to spit it back, then say "Now, keep in mind, this isn't how it actually happens in real life at all. It's just the path that makes the most logical sense." If that's not how it actually happens, what in the hell is the point in learning it? Building logical skill?

Plus, class was expensive cause I went through at least thirty packs of dry erase markers writing reactions over and over and over and over and over and over...
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I would always mess up a step, get the same end product, and get points taken off. "It doesn't happen like that." Oh, could you quantitatively predict that without observing the reaction? No? Then how the f am I supposed to know it doesn't happen like that. So I'm supposed to memorize organic chemistry? "No, understand the concepts!"

:boom:
 
circulus vitios said:
I would always mess up a step, get the same end product, and get points taken off. "It doesn't happen like that." Oh, could you quantitatively predict that without observing the reaction? No? Then how the f am I supposed to know it doesn't happen like that. So I'm supposed to memorize organic chemistry? "No, understand the concepts!"

:boom:
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I once missed 7 points out a 15 point question because I forgot the word "antiperiplanar." Truth.
 
jakefsu said:
ha, i also loved ochem.
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Me too. It was hard, but I had a very good professor. The people in my cohort who had it with the other professor, as a rule, did not like organic chemistry.

OP: Don't be afraid to consider dropping it and retaking it with a different professor, if it's not too late to do so. Ochem is very prof-sensitive.

N.B. "good prof" does not equal "easy prof," you need to have this stuff down for the MCAT. It's half the Biological Sciences section - more if you're lucky :)

Best of luck with ochem, whatever you decide!
 
Physics is my kryptonite, and I'm taking it in the summer.

Just get your C and get it over with, don't drop out. I'm aiming for low grades and as long as I get at least a C I'll be more than satisfied.
 
cge0 said:
I hate you so much.
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Lmao...


Orgo was a lot of work, but I really liked it in the end. As others have noted, it requires a different kind of studying strategy and it is similar to learning a new language (I used the same strategies for Ancient Greek). From my experience, there are two kinds of people, those who hate gchem and those who hate orgo.
 
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Gnomes said:
Me too. It was hard, but I had a very good professor. The people in my cohort who had it with the other professor, as a rule, did not like organic chemistry.

OP: Don't be afraid to consider dropping it and retaking it with a different professor, if it's not too late to do so. Ochem is very prof-sensitive.

N.B. "good prof" does not equal "easy prof," you need to have this stuff down for the MCAT. It's half the Biological Sciences section - more if you're lucky :)

Best of luck with ochem, whatever you decide!
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Um...you realize that this thread is from a year ago, right? OP just commented like 5 posts ago and said that they were done with it...
 
rockyrado said:
That's exactly what drove me crazy too. Teach would always lay down some massive thirty step mechanism, force us all to spit it back, then say "Now, keep in mind, this isn't how it actually happens in real life at all. It's just the path that makes the most logical sense." If that's not how it actually happens, what in the hell is the point in learning it? Building logical skill?

Plus, class was expensive cause I went through at least thirty packs of dry erase markers writing reactions over and over and over and over and over and over...
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Yes I believe that is exactly the point of learning it.
 
I cant share your idea of ogranic chem being hard, its my favorite subject. I might even take advanced organic chem.

When I took orgo i found nmr to be the hardest, everything else is generally easy. Theirs a guy who has posted youtube vids and through out orgo when ever I was confused I'd go to his vids on it, here you go, look for his nmr series it might help you.

http://www.freelance-teacher.com/
 
I actually found NMR to be among the easier/more interesting topics in ochem. Like others noted, the multi-step backwards synthesis problems were more annoying.
 
paul411 said:
I actually found NMR to be among the easier/more interesting topics in ochem. Like others noted, the multi-step backwards synthesis problems were more annoying.
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IR is the best. The answer is always 3500 nm, 1700 nm, or both. :laugh:
 
CuttingCorneas said:
:thumbup: This.
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CodeBlu said:
this this this this this.


But on another note... orgo sucks. Like for real. If orgo wasn't a pre-req for medical school.... no one, and I mean NO ONE would take it.
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I'm with CuttingCorneas and ColdeBlu on this one.

CuttingCorneas said:
Agreed. Except chemistry majors and gunner cocaine dealers.
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Lol. Yup. Meth dealers might take it too.

Whatyousay said:
Breaking Bad.
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Never seen it, but it is filmed in my town.

zeppelin125 said:
6a5731ada65976a.jpg
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citizen_cane.gif


paul411 said:
hah that blows. Use your laptop to watch "good" TV shows on the interwebs?
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Tvduck and tvshack are good for this.

CuttingCorneas said:
It's just different. Other science is mostly memorization--in orgo you have to understand how and why a reaction takes place, and then apply it. It's not spoonfed.
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Exactly.

CuttingCorneas said:
I once missed 7 points out a 15 point question because I forgot the word "antiperiplanar." Truth.
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Wow that blows. My orgo I prof wasn't nearly so rough on the grading. I would have only missed three or four points for that.

paul411 said:
I actually found NMR to be among the easier/more interesting topics in ochem. Like others noted, the multi-step backwards synthesis problems were more annoying.
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Same here I found NMR and other spectroscopy stuff to be very interesting as well and fairly easy.
 
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