Nervous about organic chemistry... what study tips/tricks worked best for you??

[liberaeas]

Hey guys,

I am a fourth year at UCSC (on the 5.5 year plan, haha), about to start the ochem sequence at my school. I'm feeling some anxiety about succeeding in the course because everybody builds it up to be so hard, for example I've been told "It takes minumum 6 hours a day of studying," and "Do every homework assignment 4 times through." So I'd like to hear from SDNers who feel they were successful in ochem on what studying techniques worked best for them. Thanks!

Jonah

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[OnMyWayThere]

I've actually thought about starting a thread about this after I finished but never got to it.

Most importantly, find out what the teacher tests on ( homework, notes, both...). Try and get a hold of old exams through the instructor. He feels the same stuff is important as he did last year. Study that stuff. You will know if it is directly from notes, homework problems, or what was not covered (for unfair teachers). Then, study that over and over. One thing I suggest, don't try and read each chapter and understand it all.

It is a time consuming subject indeed. 6 hours a day? I don't think so! I did commit about 10 hours a weeked to it though. I feel it was easier than I thought after hearing about it. Part 2 coming up in Feb.

If you have specific questions, PM me.

 

[medstylee]

It's kind of sad that we all have to resort to finding out what the teachers test on and memorizing superficial reactions, ect to do well in orgo. If I had to do it over again, I think I'd learn some basic concepts - for example, what happens when you react a nucleophilic species with an electrophilic carbonyl carbon - rather than memorizing really specific reactions. I recently took biochemistry (after a year of organic) and I feel like learning basic reactions helped me so much more than memorizing each specific reaction from the text. So, I would make sure you understand basic trends at least. They will help you a lot with the more specific reactions (which you shouldn't have to memorize). I suggest going to your profs' office hours to discuss these things. Best of luck.

 

[The JockDoc]

Like medstylee said, learn the basic concepts, but I also say hammer them in with practice problem after practice problem. You might want to look into different textbooks also, just to see other ways of presenting the material.

 

[jlee9531]

focus on the concepts....this is the key to learning ochem...

if you can understand the concepts you can easily reason out a lot of the things you will learn in ochem.

practice problems your teacher gives you wont hurt obviously and most importantly take good neat notes.

remember....CONCEPTUAL LEARNING...

think about what you are learning and why things work the way they do using the concepts you learn in class when dealing with specific problems.

if you spent 6 hours a day studying and memorizing every little detail you will burn yourself out and in the end will have probably learned nothing in the class. concepts help you apply the things you have learned in problems you may not have encountered before, but memorization will not allow you to try and see if you can handle a new type of problem you might encounter in the class.

 

[bigbaubdi]

In my experience, people who view O-Chem as an exercise in memorization usually don't do well in it. Look at it in terms of the most basic principles (lewis acids and lewis bases) and you should be fine.

 

[Samoa]

Learning the concepts is definitely the way to go. But I found it also didn't hurt to make notecards for all the reactions and drill yourself occasionally. Being able to fly through the reactions section gives you time to spend thinking through the problems that test conceptual knowledge, and it definitely pays not to be rushed on those parts.

The first semester was a lot more disjointed than second, because we were learning basic things like nomenclature, basic reaction types, what happens to the electrons, and how environment affects the reaction, etc.. Second was easy--basically variations on a theme.

 

[KHep]

I agree with getting the concepts down. In the beginning, when you are learning all of the material upon which everything builds, I would suggest doing all of the problems in the book (end of Chapter). Later on, you probably won't need to spend as much time because you will have hopefully gotten the foundation.

But, I also suggest using notecards. What I did was to right the reactants with the solvents etc on the front and the products on the back. That way I could quiz myself.

I think the biggest thing is to realize that it isn't impossible. People get A's all the time, so why shouldn't you be one of them?

OH, and try to form a study group early on...then you have people to lean on and vice versa when things are hectic in your other classes!

Good Luck!

 

[logos]

Yep...the key to doing well is doing problems until you understand the concepts. Much of what you need to know is "chemical intuition", being able to tell what should happen because of the chemical species involved. Its not nearly as cut and dry as a gen chem class, there are often multiple answers to the same question (ie retrosynthesis...where you are given an end product and a starting reactant and must determine what reagents will turn the reactant into the products).

Its a strange combination of memorization and understanding. You need to memorize how the rxn procedes and some other details about it (stereochemistry, which solvents/reactants work best....in general...ie which is more nucleophillic (you just look on the periodic table to determine..))....but not specific species and what they form...

It helps a ton to get your professors old exams....they make good practice problems and let you know what he thinks is important. Our prof. puts his on the internet...and its made the class much more fair...)

Just dont get behind in the class and you'll do fine!

 

[TTSD]

HERE IS THE BEST ADVICE ANYONE ON THIS BOARD CAN GIVE..

TRY NOT TO FALL ASLEEP!

Seriously. The reason why most people do so bad in Ochem and Physics is because the complete lack of interest. They're usually the first type of class where you have to engage in some form of brute memorization in order to use the concepts that most people have ever taken. And you go in there thinking, "I need to do well, I need to love this class." About a quarter of the way through you'll find yourself dreading each moment and finding ways to ditch.. this is probably what results in most of the bad grades in ochem.

 

[SpiritiualDuck]

Ochem is not hard. I did nothing for that class and never got lower than a B+ on an exam and mostly A's. It's about learning a few mechanism and then being able to generalize to other situations. There are many, many, harder classes out there than orgo.

 

[Heal&Teach]

Ditto to all said on this board, but I think Bigbaubdi hit it on the head:

UNDERSTAND ACID-BASE CHEMISTRY! It's key in understanding and mastering reaction sequences and will help you tremendously, or at least for the 2/3rds of the course that cover the reactions of carbon compounds.

In addition, if you're a visual learner, don't be afraid to play with toys for the first or second exam. Atom models are your friend. They help you to visualize what happens in space if you truly aren't seeing what's happening on paper.

Orgo can be tough, but don't let it consume you before you even get into the course. Just take it easy, study how you study best (I personally can't sit in one spot studying for six hours straight, let alone one hour), and make an effort to put in a couple of problems or a chapter each day (so that you won't get behind as AmyB highlights below). Don't kill yourself. It's deep, but it's not that deep.

Best of luck to you,
H&T

 

[Amy B]

1. DON'T GET BEHIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Follow the electrons

 

[snapdad]

Originally posted by Amy B
1. DON'T GET BEHIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Follow the electrons

YES!!! Knowing what the electrons are doing is key. Understanding concepts (e.g., acid/base chemistry) is key.
Flash cards are incredibly useful.

Another thing that might seem frivolous, but worked for a friend who is now an MS3, is to imagine the molecules and their interactions as different people who can only have sex in certain positions. Sometimes it helps with the memorization of specific reactions. 🙂

 

[fierce tiger]

I appreciate all the advice too. I'm not looking forward to organic chem this next semester.

 

[lisa13579]

Honestly, I was nervous about taking it as well, especially as a post-bac student who was a fine arts major. But I found that I really enjoyed the class, HONESTLY🙂 It's absolutely true that you shouldn't memorize in O-Chem. I found it to be fun, almost like a puzzle. If you can think about it that way and stay ahead of the game by reading before lecture and doing the problems in the back of the book, you may actually enjoy yourself.😀

 

[musiclink213]

i did everything people say, understand the basic concepts, follow the electrons, do all the homework problems a few times and than some, and i still ended up with a B. i think orgo just doesn't like me.

 

[genome25]

hey lisa13579,
do you think art helped you? i am a double major in bio and art and i think my visual side help me big. i breezed thru ochem with A+'s and A's! i just emagined mechanisms like drawings and where electrons can move as a game. but pchem was another story. my advice for ochem is don't stress and keep up with the class.🙂

 

[CanIMakeIt]

In my experience, I found it extremely helpful to read the chapter from start to finish.. i mean literally doing all the problems at the end of the chapter and such .... and it doesn't take that long either. Also, the stick models helped extremely in case of cyclohexanes and other things. Once you get used to the models then you can form them in your head. It is not as complicated as it sounds. As someone else said... get hold of old quizzes, hw, and his/her testing style, and also DON'T LET ANY ELECTRONS SLIP BY YOU 🙂
In my opinion, orgo is not that difficult of a course as people make it sound......but it is just my experience as chem. comes easily to me .... now the botany portion of gen bio is totally diff story 🙂

Good luck man

 

[lisa13579]

My fine art is dance, but I think it might have helped. There are definitely lots of 3-D images in Orgo and with dance you have to learn kinetically through space. I probably did unconsciously use that visualization the same way I would visualize choreography and muscle memory. Wait.. I'm getting off topic here

Well I was also always good at science, so maybe that's why I did well.

 

[Cerberus]

Rule 1:
If you find yourself doing nothing but memorizing rxn's you are doing something wrong! The key to organic chemistry is learning the concepts, not memorizing a ton of reactions. Organic chemistry is actually a very logical course, which builds upon itself.

Rule 2:
Its all about mechanisms. When you are trying to learn organic chem rxn's do not learn by memorizing the products of a reaction. Instead, draw the mechanism over and over until it makes sense. If you do this, no set of reactants should through you for a curve.

Rule 3:
DO NOT CRAM. I am the king of cram and let me tel you, you just cannot do it in organic chemistry. Study a little every day or every couple days and then a lot the week of the exam.

Rule 4:
The book is your friend! Read your book. The detail will likely be better than what you get in lecture.

Rule 5:
Don't get scared, organic chem is one of the easiest prereqs IMHO. I didnt study anymore for organic than I did for any other prereqs. You can do this, just stick with it and put a little effort into understanding it!

 

[dmoney41]

Well, the thing to remember is that organic 1 is almost like two different classes: the first half, where you're learning ideas and fundamental stuff about the field, and the second half, where you learn reactions and specific details about how stuff behaves. The first half of orgo 1 isn't memorization, it's things you NEED to understand, the second half (and all of orgo 2) is memorization.

My prof was a huge fan of synthesis questions, so I had to memorize the solvent conditions for a Cr2O7 oxidation, etc. The alkenes chapter particularly sucked - there were like 15 different reactions with minor differences (Mark/anti-Mark, syn/anti, etc), plus I waited until the last minute to cram. But I still did okay, because I studied really hard in the first half and then slacked off the second half (I'd study the entire day before the test and nothing else). The ideas in the first half are absolutely what you need to know - chirality, stereochemistry, and the stuff on Sn2 that teaches you how to analyze reaction conditions to figure out what's going to happen. If you understand the first half of orgo 1 you'll be set for the rest.

It's really not terribly difficult inasmuch as everything pretty much makes sense according to the general rules (electron deficiency/excess, that sort of stuff). Except for the fact that acid-catalyzed epoxide ring openings still show stereochemical inversion. Lies! Lies!

 

[Noeljan]

I agree with the rest of the posters. Organic is pretty easy, if you do the work early on. Try and skim the chapters before class and then reread after to make sure you understand everything. Make models, DO NOT wait until the night before a test to try and look at them. Really, sit down and just make models of things make models of enantiomers and convince yourself that they do not superimpose. Make models of ring compounds, make everything you can think of. There is some memorization involved, knowing which set of reagents do what. I mean you have to study that. I personally never did the homework problems, but rather the book in the chapter itself and made sure I could do every single one with ease. If I couldn't, I would go to office hours. I got a very high A in Organic 1, now I am about to take Organic 2. Hope this helps, any more questions you can PM me🙂

 

[liberaeas]

Thanks guys, all this advice is great. Contrary to how I might have came off initally, I'm not sitting at home ripping my hair out stressing about failing ochem; I actually am relatively confident that I will do fine. In my experience with science classes just keeping up with the reading and homework assignments is usually enough to put me in the A-/B+ range. I think the problem is that sometimes I doubt my own capabilities -- I think "what if I do all the homework and reading and still don't get it?" I felt the same way before I started physics last quarter, and gen chem freshman year, and I got As in both those classes. So anyways, keep the advice coming, I'm sure other people are benefitting from this thread as well, and I'm excited to report back after my first few tests with what I found works!

 

[exigente chica]

After all of the rumors about organic being the hardest class ever..and similiar other horror stories..I didn't know what to expect...

😱

But, I took the class with an open mind and treated it like any other class and LOVED IT😍

This is what I did:

1. Paid attention in class
2. Took great notes
3. Read notes over that nite
4. Went to tutoring session every day
5. Read book
6. Did problems at back of book
7. Study groups sessions
8. Lots of clubbin

No really, just pay attention, study and apply things so you can learn them better..

Good luck

I love Orgo😍