I have to disagree about spectroscopy, particularly NMR. I loved it! It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and you feel SO GOOD when you can come up with the structure.
As to the studying, I think that OCHEM I is hard because it's a completely different paradigm than general chemistry, and you have to get used to shutting that part of your brain off. Content-wise, however, OCHEM II is definitely harder. The sheer number of reactions you have to learn is a lot to deal with, and you just flat out have to memorize SOME things, but not all. I agree with the above that applying concepts to different functional groups is key, and if you have a good instructor they will show you that you are actually learning GROUPS of reactions, not disparate topics. For example, Grignard Reagent, Aldol Condensation, all reactions with carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters, ethers, can sort of all be clumped into one "group" of reactions separate from, say, electrophilic aromatic substitution.
Things you DO need to memorize:
1)Reagents, solvents, and other reaction players like heat, energy, etc.
2)WHY certain reactions happen. This, above all else, will save your a$$. If you can answer why, then you don't HAVE to memorize every reaction, because you can sort of reason your way through if the reaction is unfamiliar; by this, I mean it starts to become easier and easier to look at a molecule and know for certain what it will NOT do; for instance I can look at a carboxylic acid(acetic acid, for example) and know that there is NO WAY that it is going to undergo a Diels-Alder reaction.
Hope this helps
