Preparing for: Organic Chemistry

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th1nk

th1nk

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I am currently a freshman at a good university who is doing pre-med.
so far, I have only taken gen chem.

I plan on taking organic chemistry next year and, at my university, the professor is notorious for making the class hard as hell. (I am sure this is the same everywhere, orgo chem is Bitch)
​

However, I have heard from students that it is not the material that is hard to learn or hard or memorize, but it is the exams that are extremely difficult. In fact, the professor wrote the text book, so he really knows his stuff and tries to trick you. However, at my private university which has a very cup-cake reputation, he still failed 1/3 of the class.

I was told by a family member, who majored in Chem engineering at Berkeley, that before I take organic chemistry at my university for credit, that I should audit it over the summer at a community college or a university so that I can get my feet wet, instead of walking in to orgo chem, like most others, with no experience at all.

I have reached out to current orgo students about this and they have told me that I can do it and that it could be a good idea, but they have said that learning the material has no effect on doing well on this professor's exams.

I just reached out to the orgo chem professor at Stanford and got permission to audit both orgo I and orgo II at that university this summer.

But I have a few doubts about this...

I know that learning the material twice over cannot be harmful at all, it will only benefit me in the long run, however, what if the material that Stanford teaches is inherently different from how my university teaches it?

Will this even be any benefit to me? Because I will be basically wasting my summer?
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If you audit the class, won't medical schools still see that? I personally agree that preparing for Organic Chemistry in advance is a good idea, it could help tremendously since you will be familiar with all the core concepts. What I recommend, rather than taking an actual class, get the textbook you will be using and study as much of it as you can over the summer. Better yet, if you can afford it and think its well worth the time, get a tutor who has taught/tutored this course before to help you. This will be less costly and much more efficient. And you can still relax, since you are kind of making your own schedule. And this way, when you start the class, you'll hit the ground running :luck::luck:
 
Actually this will be completely free, aside from the cost of the textbook + money I may have to pay to bribe some kids into giving me their study material.
 
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th1nk said:
Actually this will be completely free, aside from the cost of the textbook + money I may have to pay to bribe some kids into giving me their study material.
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OK, but won't med schools see you audited the class? They will wonder why you did that and then took it again. And you would have to provide a valid explanation.
 
Why don't you just take it somewhere else over the summer and bypass the hard teacher altogether? Not at a community college, but at a 4 year institution with an easier reputation? Or, hell, even at Stanford, if it seems like the teacher is kinder than yours. At my school some people take organic in the summer at a nearby Jesuit school that is known for grade inflation.

Also I really doubt any place would teach organic chemistry so "inherently differently" that it wouldn't be useful to you at your school. I can only imagine it would help, but I agree with sonia 1177 that there are probably cheaper and more convenient ways to go about it. Plus, just taking the course somewhere else over the summer and not taking it at your school would save time, and stress. Good luck :)

EDIT: Depends on school policy, but I'm pretty sure at most schools there is no record of an audited course. And if it's "free" I imagine the OP is literally just sitting in on the class, not formally registering for it or anything... so no, there would be no record.
 
To quote Flava Flav, "Don't believe the hype..."

In every school there's going to be those that moan and gripe about a particular professor or subject. Don't buy into it. Orgo is though, but half those students probably go into it already defeated because they think the tests are unfair before they ever take them. The professor at my school is one of those world renowned hard profs, but I managed A's so far. Here's what I would do. Get his book and start reading it over the summer. You want to conform to the way he teaches not someone else. When you start in the fall, "Learn how to do all the mechanisms!" I can't stress this enough. Get a separate notebook, and draw out each mechanism until you completely understand them and are blue in the face. If you can do the mechanisms for each reaction it will be very hard to trick you. Nomenclature can be tricky. If you have access to chemdraw at your school, learn how to use it and draw a bunch of crazy compounds and practice naming them. Flat memorization will not get you through Orgo. This is why people fail and complain its not fair. You can't memorize the book and expect to do well. Orgo is conceptual, and requires a greater understanding and practice. You absolutely can do this, and is necessary if your interested in becoming a doc. Good Luck
 
There is no record of me auditing the course.

Also, I was going to practice orgo on my own this summer, but I think that if I studied it in a rigorous classroom environment, I would be more disciplined and focused. I have never been the type of person who was able to learn completely on my own, I would need some type of tutor or something. This is the cheapest way for me to learn from a teacher + I can study with others.
 
nickmx50 said:
To quote Flava Flav, "Don't believe the hype..."

In every school there's going to be those that moan and gripe about a particular professor or subject. Don't buy into it. Orgo is though, but half those students probably go into it already defeated because they think the tests are unfair before they ever take them. The professor at my school is one of those world renowned hard profs, but I managed A's so far. Here's what I would do. Get his book and start reading it over the summer. You want to conform to the way he teaches not someone else. When you start in the fall, "Learn how to do all the mechanisms!" I can't stress this enough. Get a separate notebook, and draw out each mechanism until you completely understand them and are blue in the face. If you can do the mechanisms for each reaction it will be very hard to trick you. Nomenclature can be tricky. If you have access to chemdraw at your school, learn how to use it and draw a bunch of crazy compounds and practice naming them. Flat memorization will not get you through Orgo. This is why people fail and complain its not fair. You can't memorize the book and expect to do well. Orgo is conceptual, and requires a greater understanding and practice. You absolutely can do this, and is necessary if your interested in becoming a doc. Good Luck
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+1 QFT

Regardless of where you take it, orgo is orgo, and thus it is going to bea tough class. One of the big keys to this class, as quoted above, is to practice practice practice! It's the only way you're going to understand orgo. Also, orgo is not a class that you can cram for. Maybe I just go to a crap university, but I can't tell you how many people that think they can crack open their notes/book the night before and try and learn it (actually, I love it when they do that....it helps the curve out quite a bit!!)

The other thing is to utilize your professor's office hours if you aren't understanding the material. The last thing you want to do in this class is fall behind!

Long story short, if you keep up with the material, practice, and utilize your resources, orgo is not that bad of a class!
 
not to steal the thread, but I am contemplating taking orgo in Summer first six weeks. If I dive into the book 2 weeks ahead of schedule, is an A manageable (honestly)
 
miabullitt said:
not to steal the thread, but I am contemplating taking orgo in Summer first six weeks. If I dive into the book 2 weeks ahead of schedule, is an A manageable (honestly)
Click to expand...

++

I'm interested as well, since I'm taking the full sequence of orgo I & II w/ lab this summer.
 
miabullitt said:
not to steal the thread, but I am contemplating taking orgo in Summer first six weeks. If I dive into the book 2 weeks ahead of schedule, is an A manageable (honestly)
Click to expand...

++

I'm interested as well, since I'm taking the full sequence of orgo I & II w/ lab this summer in 12 weeks.
 
I taught myself almost all of ORGO 1 the summer before I transferred from a community college to a major university. I took the hardest prof at my school and in our class he only gave out 3 A's.
I think it helped me immensely, just because I had already mastered the topics. I specifically did not audit the class because I did not want anyone seeing that I had already taken the course. Organic Chem is a weed out course and medical schools pay close attention to it, not because the class is hard itself but because IT REQUIRES A LARGE TIME COMMITMENT IF YOU WANT TO REALLY LEARN THE SUBJECT TO GET AN A. Plus, content wise, it is a class with an enormous amount of abstract info (for an under grad class) that might most closely resemble how you will do in a med school class.
I have been tutoring organic privately, as well as tutoring for my school. It is really not that bad. Don't believe the hype. I agree with the above poster about getting the organic as a second language, and I also HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Janice Smith Book as the orgo book to use, regardless of if your school uses a different book. IMO, it is the best text on the market because it is EASY TO FOLLOW.
 
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I do believe that audited courses are on your record. I audited a statistics course after I had a baby, and it definitely shows up as audited.
 
Honestly, I think trying to teach yourself ochem without the proper foundation would not be a good idea. Maybe taking it at a different school may be a good idea, but if your school is a large school you could just sit in on the professors lectures. I'm pretty sure no one would care and that way you would experience it for yourself which is the most important thing. Everyone has a different opinion and things that may be extremely difficult for them may come naturally to you.
 
th1nk said:
I am currently a freshman at a good university who is doing pre-med.
so far, I have only taken gen chem.

I plan on taking organic chemistry next year and, at my university, the professor is notorious for making the class hard as hell. (I am sure this is the same everywhere, orgo chem is Bitch)
​

However, I have heard from students that it is not the material that is hard to learn or hard or memorize, but it is the exams that are extremely difficult. In fact, the professor wrote the text book, so he really knows his stuff and tries to trick you. However, at my private university which has a very cup-cake reputation, hestill failed 1/3 of the class.

I was told by a family member, who majored in Chem engineering at Berkeley, that before I take organic chemistry at my university for credit, that I should audit it over the summer at a community college or a university so that I can get my feet wet, instead of walking in to orgo chem, like most others, with no experience at all.

I have reached out to current orgo students about this and they have told me that I can do it and that it could be a good idea, but they have said that learning the material has no effect on doing well on this professor's exams.

I just reached out to the orgo chem professor at Stanford and got permission to audit both orgo I and orgo II at that university this summer.

But I have a few doubts about this...

I know that learning the material twice over cannot be harmful at all, it will only benefit me in the long run, however, what if the material that Stanford teaches is inherently different from how my university teaches it?

Will this even be any benefit to me? Because I will be basically wasting my summer?
Click to expand...

Top 1% of my Ochem class + ochem tutor here.

It's not that hard, if you study hard and are a visual learner. No need to pre-study. Just study hard during the semester.

If you can't make it through Ochem, it will be tough tackling anatomy and biochemistry later on. :thumbup:
 
To be honest, auditing it might not be the greatest idea. Because taking the class requires you yo go home, self teach, and practice, so unless you do those things it won't be of any help. And then comes the part where you have actually remember everything when you take it.
I took organic1 in the fall, but when I was studying for the final I made my self a study guide that I can refer to later on so I can remember everything that I need to know, if those concepts ever come up again. So if you take it in the summer make sure you do that.

Now with that being said, three-four things can save you in organic
1. Organic I/II as a second Language (I am sure some one must have said it by now)

this book is the greatest book ever, helped me out a ton (the reason it helps you out a ton is leading me into my second thing, but the book explains key concept and reactions and how to understand and not memorize.

2. PRACTICE

Thats what makes the second language book so great, it provides so much practice. And your text book will also, so make sure you get sol. manual for your text. Do all the homework. And if you don't understand something figure it out, if you still can't, go to your prof office hours and ask. I go almost every week and ask questions that I simply cant seem to understand why, and it has helped me a ton.

3. Organic is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Its though granted but a lot of the people that complain about it just dont put in all the time that they should have.

4. This resource didnt help me, because I was too busy slacking when this material was presented in organic1 (I failed my first exam 41%), but friends did well and they used these videos by freelance, he explains very well and teaches it with tricks usually.
http://www.freelance-teacher.com/

Other than that, Organic is alot of fun, (minus NMR/IR/Mass Spec). Its going to require alot of time on your part but its worth it. And if you stay on top and do everything on time, then after a bit organic wont dominate your life, and come exam time you'll be all prepped.
 
OP, no need to audit. Just take it. People tend to overthink Ochem. It's really not such a bad class. Actually... it's kind of "fun" for a chem class. At minimum, it's an easy course if you take the time to figure out what's going on. All of UG organic can be summed up in 2 words: "Opposites attract." That's it. If you understand that, you don't even need to take the course. You could probably just about pass the ACS exam if you just understand "Opposites attract." (The reality, of course, is that the devil's in the details and sometimes understanding where the positive or negative partial charge(s) is (are) is quite difficult, but if you get the opposites attract rule and take things out of the abstract -- i.e., understand molecules as REAL OBJECTS -- you'll have an A in no time.)
 
I've seen the course material for Orgo at both Stanford and NYU, and the course material is not inherently different. The testing style is different, of course.

My opinion is that if you're going to sit through a whole bunch of lectures during the summer, you might as well take the course.

If you want to develop the core skills you will need to succeed, however, that's something you can do on your own time during the summer and still have some semblance of a life.

Before the course even gets started you should have the following skills as a goal:
1) understand chemical formulae (especially bond-line notation, including wedges/dashes) and be comfortable drawing the same molecule in several different ways.
2) the concept of formal charge and how to calculate it
3) the concept of resonance and how to draw (as well as judge the stability of) resonance isomers
4) How to draw and interpret curved arrows (translate them into both bonds and charges).

This is an attainable summer project you can do without burning yourself out.

Hope this helps - James
 
Is Organic Chemistry purely conceptual along the lines of Physics and unlike General Chemistry?
 
greensoup said:
Is Organic Chemistry purely conceptual along the lines of Physics and unlike General Chemistry?
Click to expand...

Because physics has no practical applications? Or because I have to understand trends in the period table to get through my daily life?
 
WeAreNotRobots said:
Because physics has no practical applications? Or because I have to understand trends in the period table to get through my daily life?
Click to expand...

?
Understanding vs memorizing/practicing is what I was getting at. Opinion?
 
WeAreNotRobots said:
I think the goal of any topic of study is understanding.
Click to expand...

True, but something like Bio cannot be passed by trying to understand your way through the course. Heavy on the memorization.

Something like Math can go both ways
 
greensoup said:
Is Organic Chemistry purely conceptual along the lines of Physics and unlike General Chemistry?
Click to expand...

It's not purely conceptual. There ARE lots of new concepts to understand, which tend to be introduced near the beginning of the course. Things start to get tough when these concepts collide, and the trick is knowing which one to apply in which situation. That's what drives people crazy.

To give a concrete example, knowing when OH(-) acts as a base versus when it acts as a nucleophile is something which gives people nightmares.

On top of that there are some things (like reagents) which must be just taken "as-is", and therefore memorized.
 
th1nk said:
Already ordered it for Orgo 1 & 2 :D
Click to expand...

good. work through it for a couple of weeks before the semester, and again during the semester (since a lot of it is review of the appropriate gen chem topics). the first 4 or so weeks of ochem are the most important. after that it becomes a matter of application plus adding a few new rules etc, but it's more intuitive if you've mastered the concepts in those books and aced the first few weeks. organic ii was the easiest science pre-req class i've taken (aside from maybe gen chem). it was the same professor i had with ochem i, but it's just not as conceptually difficult as ochem i and it's more fun :)
 
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Can't you just sit in on the class lecture without officially "auditing" the class?

There's bound to be people who drop/skip and leave open seats.
 
1. Don't buy the hype. Every year I take classes that are considered hard. Heck, when I took gen bio everyone I talked to mentioned how difficult the prof was. The class was cake if you actually cracked open the book and studied for the tests. Go into it with the mentality that you're going to do well. If you go in expecting to get a C, you probably will.

2. There's no reason to learn orgo twice. Your time would be better spent elsewhere. Just learn how to study efficiently when you take it for real. You have to learn to adapt your study methods until you find what works. Those that don't do that are probably the majority of the ones that do poorly in the class.
 
Just remember the HOMO attacks the LUMO! lol.

Organic is one of those classes that everyone says its killer. I guess really it just depends on your teacher. I mean if you have a prof that only gives out 3 A's like the guy above then obviously its gonna be tough (although it depends on the class size if you have a class size of 10 then 3 A's is pretty generous).


You have to really know the basic things that you learn at the beginning of organic. Don't just memorize reactions that is not the way to succeed in organic.
 
You're over analyzing it. It's just a class, you don't need to do all of this.

Just be ready to study once the semester starts, people who can't pass orgo just don't put in the work and try to cram 90% of the time.

Learn the concepts in organic 1 and organic 2 will be a breeze. I'm doing better and not putting in near as much work. Organic 1 I had to constantly study and organic 2 I'm just studying the few days before and doing fine.

Good luck.
 
i had the same teacher for orgo 1 and 2. like other said once you learned all the concepts in orgo I orgo II is extremely easy in comparison. so do well in orgo 1 lol
 
sonia1177 said:
OK, but won't med schools see you audited the class? They will wonder why you did that and then took it again. And you would have to provide a valid explanation.
Click to expand...
Med schools wouldn't know.
 
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