Nvr Ending Jrny,
The strict definition of organic chemistry is the chemistry of compounds containing carbon. Carbon is nifty because it can make four nice neat little bonds to things. (sp3!) This allows to you make huge molecules with it, like plastics and persons.
If you are in Chem 101 right now, you are probably covering some concepts that will be very useful to you in understanding organic chemistry. Though they are usually taught as very different sorts of classes, they are both chemistry classes, and hence not as mutually exclusive as they are often made out to be, in my opinion.
I am in the second semester of Organic right now, so I am not the ultimate authority, but I think I've isolated a few reasons why people think it is such a hard subject. As was previously mentioned, yes, it is a lot of information in a short amount of time. Your professor might spend 5-10 minutes talking about something that it took you hours, or days to understand. Another challenging aspect is the interconnectedness of ideas -- from day one, you will need to know and use almost everything you learn in a cumulative fashion, and in some cases apply it in novel ways. (If your professor is, shall we say, imaginative.)
There are some students, I suppose, who do fine just memorizing things. But if your course is like mine, your professor is not going to give you chances on the test to just rattle off reactions you know. (Well, maybe a few.) He will ask you questions that force you to apply a number of ideas in concert. You're gonna have to memorize a lot of stuff, don't get me wrong, but you're going to have to think plenty too. To some it comes naturally, to m-- er, I mean to other people, it may not.
If there is one thing you'll surely cover in general chem that is surely going to be useful in organic it is... (drum roll)...
ACID/BASE -- This is huge. Study acids and bases, speficially the Lewis definition. Get used to the idea of angry electrons doing a 'drive-by' on the positively charged part of another molecule. Get used to the idea of a one molecule stealing an H+ from something else that doesn't want it as bad. (Sort of like a gunner ruining the curve, brutalizing a slacker.) Know what electronegativity is and how it contributes to acidity. Also, realize that a conjugate base is an ion -- and therefore, the more the ion is able to handle/distribute its charge, the more stable it is, the more likely it is to exist! Sorry, maybe this is too much.
Memorize this now and repeat it over and over:
"An acid will donate a proton to the conjugate base of any acid with a higher pKa."
Also useful:
Molecular Geometry. The shape of something is very important to how it behaves.
Lewis Structures/Formal Charges. Get used to drawing a lot of things. Taking notes in organic class is like drawing a long cartoon of molecules slapping each other around and having little adventures.
Thermochemistry... this is more of an abstract thing, but it really is all about free energy and stability of end products and the activated complex and all of that jazz. You will be thinking a lot in organic 'hmm.. what is going to happen here?'. Not saying you'll be sitting there and calculating delta H or delta G for a given reaction, but knowing something about the stability of reactants vs stability of products might be useful when you are sitting there agonizing over whether something is going to go SN2 or E2... wait, it isn't going to help you at all, scratch that.
The length and scatter-brained nature of this message should tell you that it is also possible for organic to drive you insane. Don't worry, this is normal, and it is actually kind of fun. Just because you start mentally rotating every solid object you see, and pretending that a certain part of it is the chiral center and there are four things hanging off of it, does not mean you cannot function normally in society. Just don't go to the DMV and ask the lady at the counter if anyone has ever told her that her eyeglasses are meso. I know this from experience.
My study partners and I have figured it out, taking physics and organic chem together over the course of the last year. With organic, it is all about putting in the time. Put in as many hours as you can. Wish I could say the same for physics, for as we theorize, if you don't get it, you are SOL. (Not a chemistry acronym.)
Another note. I've heard that organic chem is a lot like med school, in as much as you need to learn a bunch of concepts and apply them all together, and there is a ton of information and it all comes very fast. Any med students out there who care to corroborate this theory, please feel free.
About organic lab: It is really cool. If you like working in general chem lab, that is, you like sitting around waiting for stuff, you don't mind the fog in the goggles, you enjoy the odors and head rushes, you are going to have a blast. It isn't any harder than gen chem lab, just more involved. And the glassware looks cooler.
I'd like to add to this already loquacious message, but I have to go study organic.
P.S. I don't know why, but it bothers me when people call it 'orgo'. Where is the other 'o'? Maybe 'orga'.
Sincerely yours,
asp
