What makes Organic Chemistry so strenuous?

[Anamine]

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What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

 

[samsunimomo]

What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

To some extent, I think it's dependent on the school and the types of questions that they provide.

 

[Hemorrage]

To some extent, I think it's dependent on the school and the types of questions that they provide.

Agreed. Most of the people that claim it was easy have no idea how difficult the exams get at other schools.

 

[BABSstudent]

I have heard of multiple choice tests at other schools and those students say it was easy. I wish I could be so lucky. Ours were all multi page synthesis questions with rules (like no gnignards reactions, or no using more than two carbon atoms at a time when adding to your product). If you didn't know one key reactions then you were going to fail to make the product. You had to know your stuff to do well or even okay.

 

[circulus vitios]

My organic chemistry professor bragged about pulling exam questions from MIT exams. He teaches at a bottom-ranking public school. My classmates and I aren't exactly MIT smart.

 

[plumhill]

What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

From what I've noticed, at my school Organic Chemistry is the first "new" science subject that students are taking. For Chem, Bio and Physics many students have taken the AP exam or at least a basic version of the course in high school, so they may not have to work quite as hard in the course. For all three of those courses, I've heard of students cramming the few nights before an exam and still pulling off an A or an A-. Then, they get to Organic Chemistry and even if they know that it is a difficult course, still haven't figured out how to sit down and learn a new science subject, and as a result don't do quite as well as they expected. Many people cannot cram Organic Chemistry knowledge into a few nights and still pull and A or an A- on an exam. The smartest thing to do is to not even try and cram. Organic is definitely tough; I think we all know that. But much of it will intuitively make sense if you just sit down and learn the material and keep doing practice problems.

 

[Ansar]

Perhaps its that some people take it as freshman, so it's a very rough change from HS chemistry.

Some people treat it as a Biology class, where it is just memorization, and for Ochem, you gotta know what you're doing with all the arrow pushing.

My friends who have had trouble with Ochem struggle because they never do the problem sets assigned. They're optional, but c'mon man, if the whole class is based on exams, and the professors makes these optional assignments, you can bet he pulls exam questions (and he does) from those assignments.

TL;DR - People (mistakenly) treat it as a biology class (rote memorization of rxns), not a math class (where practice problems is key to success, in my opinion)

 

[janutt345]

Sheer amount of info you are required to know as far as reagents/mechanisms are concerned. It's just a lot of stuff.

 

[circulus vitios]

Perhaps its that some people take it as freshman, so it's a very rough change from HS chemistry.

Some people treat it as a Biology class, where it is just memorization, and for Ochem, you gotta know what you're doing with all the arrow pushing.

My friends who have had trouble with Ochem struggle because they never do the problem sets assigned. They're optional, but c'mon man, if the whole class is based on exams, and the professors makes these optional assignments, you can bet he pulls exam questions (and he does) from those assignments.

TL;DR - People (mistakenly) treat it as a biology class (rote memorization of rxns), not a math class (where practice problems is key to success, in my opinion)

Math is nothing like organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is memorization because re-deriving mechanisms on an exam is too time costly. You need to have reagents, conditions, and functional group targets down cold.

The concepts of why a reaction happens aren't too hard within the scope of a typical class, it's just the way they're taught. The textbook we used never told us in later chapters why a certain nucleophile takes precedence over another nucleophile. A good student might think back to the chapter on nucleophilic strength. An average or poor student might think it's memorization or pattern recognition, or maybe just a black magic guessing game.

 

[deleted393595]

What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

O chem isn't just memorization but takes, imho, a good chunk of analytical thinking. For example, it's not just enough to memorize what the difference between E1 and E2 reactions are, but to learn to apply them. For example, suppose that you have CH3CH2OH. If you wanted to remove the OH group in THF for example, what reagent would you use? You've got to think critically through something like this and determine that the conditions would affect it, and that E1 would not be favored (Would have to use TsCl to get it off). And the only way to develop this skillset is through a lot of practice by doing a lot of problems from the back of the book, which most people don't know/don't want to do.

Math is nothing like organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is memorization because re-deriving mechanisms on an exam is too time costly. You need to have reagents, conditions, and functional group targets down cold.

The concepts of why a reaction happens aren't too hard within the scope of a typical class, it's just the way they're taught. The textbook we used never told us in later chapters why a certain nucleophile takes precedence over another nucleophile. A good student might think back to the chapter on nucleophilic strength. An average or poor student might think it's memorization or pattern recognition, or maybe just a black magic guessing game.

I disagree. You also have to memorize in math: Take u substitution and your formulas for integrating sines and cosines, and your Taylor series and LaGrange error formulas. O chem is just more memorization, but the critical thinking required to get through it is on par with Calc imho.

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

The Professor.

 

[circulus vitios]

I disagree. You also have to memorize in math: Take u substitution and your formulas for integrating sines and cosines, and your Taylor series and LaGrange error formulas. O chem is just more memorization, but the critical thinking required to get through it is on par with Calc imho.

I made straight A's as a math major and I barely scraped by with a B in organic chemistry.

 

[deleted393595]

I made straight A's as a math major and I barely scraped by with a B in organic chemistry.

😱

 

[currentlypremed]

My theory is that it is really hard because its the first class that many people haven't taken in high school.

 

[i5hina]

The Professor.

I completely agree. Your success and intuition in organic chemistry really comes down to the professor who taught you. If you dodge the tough professor in hopes to escape with a high grade, chances are you may get the A but lose the chance to really understand the detailed concepts of Orgo, which may or may not show on your MCAT score. I had a tough professor who really broke down Orgo and made me develop an intrinsic about the different mechanisms, electron pushing and so on. If you really think about it, Orgo is really just dealing with nucleophiles and electrophiles and their electron movements.

Though I got an A, it comes down to repetition, busting your butt and not just memorizing. If you focus on understanding the process and what is happening, you'll see how easy it gets. It's easier said than done, but if you put the work, the results wills show.

 

[AestheticGod]

The Professor.

Goes for pretty much every single class IMO.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Orgo isn't about chemistry, it's about logic and deductive reasoning.

 

[theWhat]

It's the combination of applying logic and memorization. You have to memorize the reagents and functional groups and there a lot of them. Then you have to apply them to unique problems which you may not have seen before, which requires critical thinking. Retro synthesis questions being the most salient example of this. I'd agree that it definitely gets a lot of hype, but it is one of the toughest courses for me personally.

 

[sliceofbread136]

What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

....
..
.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have heard of multiple choice tests at other schools and those students say it was easy. I wish I could be so lucky. Ours were all multi page synthesis questions with rules (like no gnignards reactions, or no using more than two carbon atoms at a time when adding to your product). If you didn't know one key reactions then you were going to fail to make the product. You had to know your stuff to do well or even okay.

Multiple choice here. Life is good.

 

[Mountaineer12]

I have heard of multiple choice tests at other schools and those students say it was easy. I wish I could be so lucky. Ours were all multi page synthesis questions with rules (like no gnignards reactions, or no using more than two carbon atoms at a time when adding to your product). If you didn't know one key reactions then you were going to fail to make the product. You had to know your stuff to do well or even okay.

That sounds like the tests my professor gave too. It was challenging, but for me ochem problems always seemed like puzzles and I liked that a lot. When everyone else was whining about NMR, I was loving it, okay, not loving, but at least not hating my life.

 

[Claudin]

The subject itself is not that hard, but the way they test you is. At my uni, the prof will give you a few synthesis questions for short answer. If you miss just one of them, you can lose up to 10 -12 marks. And they mark pretty strictly too

 

[lobo.solo]

Orgo isn't about chemistry, it's about logic and deductive reasoning.

Agree, to apply logic you need the fundamentals, which is to know your reagents and stuffs. I just had my O-chem 1 final and they included multiple choice questions for the first time and I disliked it.

 

[Barley426]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned how most pre-med ridden schools love to use it as a weed out course. It is a subject that requires intelligence, but I have a hard time believing it would have quite the same rigor if it wasn't a pre-med and a science major weed out course.

 

[princessbooty]

What makes it such a rough subject? What makes it so tough? Someone please provide an example.

To me Organic Chemistry isn't really much harder than normal chemistry, but it is different. The only reason it should be hard is the lack of effort in your part in learning.

*Note: This doesn't apply to everyone, I had friends that thought orgo chem was a joke since they already took it in highschool, just like how they took bio, phy in high school, for them everything was just a "refresher".

A post one of my friends posted on FB pretty sums it up: "Sorry OChem,
I am unable to memorize 40+ reactions, all side reactions, all intermediate products, all resonance forms, all catalysts, all experimental conditions, all requirements, all electron flow, all mechanisms, all nucleophiles, all electrophiles, all special cases.
I am just human."

 

[jamisondb]

There is room for memorization, but memorizing different reactions didn't cut it for me and that's probably why I made a B. Being able to understand the mechanisms behind each reaction and the importance of electron pushing is much less of a headache. It's taking conceptual information and applying it to different problems.

 

[wjs010]

i hated and stressed about organic last quarter when it began, because of all of the hype o chem got at my college ( good engineering school) ...I think the reason it was so hard for me was because it really was like learning a new language...you actually have to speak organic chem..I still like it better than gen chem though, because it is less calculations and more reasoning ( something in which i needed improvement). I had half multiple choice / half reactions and the tests were hard. there were only three exams , and that's the only points in the quarter 🙁 ...I scored 89.5, 57, and 111...and because of that clueless 57, I ended up with an 89.4 in the class. lol. This quarter im a little less stressed about it, because i see that it is not impossible, but it takes loads of patience.

one frustrating thing I found with ochem is that it is really hard to just "practice"it...I ended up with such a good score on the last exam because I stopped trying to learn every aspect and reading the textbook, and I started to just read my teachers notes and curtail my studying to exactly what she wanted.

I'm doing it the same way this quarter, and hopefully I'll get an A. I cannot wait for organic to be over in May.

 

[911 Turbo]

Me: So professor, why do those electrons attack right there? This makes little sense.

Professor: Because **** you thats why LOL !!

TA: Rofl owned

 

[typicalindian]

I have heard of multiple choice tests at other schools and those students say it was easy. I wish I could be so lucky. Ours were all multi page synthesis questions with rules (like no gnignards reactions, or no using more than two carbon atoms at a time when adding to your product). If you didn't know one key reactions then you were going to fail to make the product. You had to know your stuff to do well or even okay.

Ugh our orgo exams were like this. We would have a small multiple choice section worth 20% of our test grade, then the rest of the 80% would be open ended. The whole point of the multiple choice section was to trick people so as to make it harder for us to score well even if we knew the open ended stuff. It was very tricky because they would test very obscure rules in the multiple choice.

 

[Anamine]

Agree, to apply logic you need the fundamentals, which is to know your reagents and stuffs. I just had my O-chem 1 final and they included multiple choice questions for the first time and I disliked it.

Honesty I too dislike multiple choice, my final consist of 50:50 of multiple choice and short answers. 🙁

I heard NYU is all short answers though. 😍

 

[dgsilvervid]

Honestly I think it is "stressful" because you cant get through it without studying. It was tough for sure, it took time.

 

[487806]

Agree, to apply logic you need the fundamentals, which is to know your reagents and stuffs. I just had my O-chem 1 final and they included multiple choice questions for the first time and I disliked it.

Honesty I too dislike multiple choice, my final consist of 50:50 of multiple choice and short answers. 🙁

I heard NYU is all short answers though. 😍

Wait till you get into spectroscopy... multiple choice is better in that case. Short answer is better for all those reactions.

 

[Irish1234]

.

 

[Bangersandmash]

My organic chemistry professor bragged about pulling exam questions from MIT exams. He teaches at a bottom-ranking public school. My classmates and I aren't exactly MIT smart.

Your professor sounds inept for being unable to come up with his own tough questions.

My friends who have had trouble with Ochem struggle because they never do the problem sets assigned. They're optional, but c'mon man, if the whole class is based on exams, and the professors makes these optional assignments, you can bet he pulls exam questions (and he does) from those assignments.

TL;DR - People (mistakenly) treat it as a biology class (rote memorization of rxns), not a math class (where practice problems is key to success, in my opinion)

This is so true. I did practice problems more than any other kind of studying for orgo and got A's both semesters. 80% of my tests were short answer / synthesis, so the pure repetition of practice problems allowed me to see things much better on tests than people who studied mechanisms and reagents on slides. I knew what to apply and how to apply it.

That sounds like the tests my professor gave too. It was challenging, but for me ochem problems always seemed like puzzles and I liked that a lot. When everyone else was whining about NMR, I was loving it, okay, not loving, but at least not hating my life.

NMR and IR were the easiest parts of orgo IMO. Memorize the rules (not too many) and the rest is intuitive. Some people had trouble though.

Anyone who complains about the amount of reagents and reactions to memorize is going to have a rude awakening come anatomy class and an even ruder awakening come medical school. It's a rough combo dealing with the amount of info and the conceptualization, but it is certainly less to know than anatomy.

 

[AsianPersuasion]

Orgo is like a whole new animal by itself.

 

[theWhat]

Your professor sounds inept for being unable to come up with his own tough questions.



This is so true. I did practice problems more than any other kind of studying for orgo and got A's both semesters. 80% of my tests were short answer / synthesis, so the pure repetition of practice problems allowed me to see things much better on tests than people who studied mechanisms and reagents on slides. I knew what to apply and how to apply it.



NMR and IR were the easiest parts of orgo IMO. Memorize the rules (not too many) and the rest is intuitive. Some people had trouble though.

Anyone who complains about the amount of reagents and reactions to memorize is going to have a rude awakening come anatomy class and an even ruder awakening come medical school. It's a rough combo dealing with the amount of info and the conceptualization, but it is certainly less to know than anatomy.

I felt that anatomy was easier for me, probably because it was more interesting. That and I get frustrated by the subtle differences between sn2 and e2 mechanisms that were on the exams. One mistake and 10 points easily lost.

 

[Cinclus]

O-chem is like an endurance race rather than a sprint. It's very hard to cram for it or get by on sheer memorization. You really have to put in the time in order to succeed.

 

[Bangersandmash]

I felt that anatomy was easier for me, probably because it was more interesting. That and I get frustrated by the subtle differences between sn2 and e2 mechanisms that were on the exams. One mistake and 10 points easily lost.

I'm not saying anatomy is harder, I'm just saying there's a lot more info to memorize than orgo. The hardest part about orgo for me was combo of concept and memorized info. In anatomy, you have hundreds of muscles each with origins, insertions, actions and innervations. If you memorize them though, you just regurgitate it without pause.

In orgo, you have maybe 50-100 reactions/reagents/mechanisms. However, if you're given a starting material and a product and asked to give a 4 step reaction to make it, you can't just regurgitate something memorized. You need to know your reagents but also figure out newly formed intermediates and conceptualize what happens every step of the way.

So for anyone who wants to complain about knowing 50 reactions, I don't have any sympathy for.

 

[notbobtrustme]

A post one of my friends posted on FB pretty sums it up: "Sorry OChem,
I am unable to memorize 40+ reactions, all side reactions, all intermediate products, all resonance forms, all catalysts, all experimental conditions, all requirements, all electron flow, all mechanisms, all nucleophiles, all electrophiles, all special cases.
I am just human."

If that's the way you are learning orgo, you are doing it wrong. There's probably 25-40 essential facts/rules you need to learn and then the rest is simply derived from that.

Brute memorization is exactly the wrong way to approach orgo.

 

[iforget2]

O Chem should count as foreign language credit

 

[Anamine]

O Chem should count as foreign language credit

 

[Belle Melodie]

But really the textbook that the wrote is amazing. 😉

I was going to ask if anyone here used this book. Im taking orgo I next spring an wondering if the book actually has topics that are taught on the classroom and goes in depth with those topics.

 

[Anamine]

I was going to ask if anyone here used this book. Im taking orgo I next spring an wondering if the book actually has topics that are taught on the classroom and goes in depth with those topics.

I read both of these orgo as a second language, but it really didn't help me much, all it did was give me the bare bones of orgo. I would just use the textbook.

I read multiple textbook when I studied orgo, but one of my favorite is this one: (and Leroy G. Wade)

 

[Romz]

I have heard of multiple choice tests at other schools and those students say it was easy. I wish I could be so lucky. Ours were all multi page synthesis questions with rules (like no gnignards reactions, or no using more than two carbon atoms at a time when adding to your product). If you didn't know one key reactions then you were going to fail to make the product. You had to know your stuff to do well or even okay.

Omg, I'm starting to remember why I hated my organic chem II class. Flat out memorizing the reactions wasn't enough.

 

[Bangersandmash]

I was going to ask if anyone here used this book. Im taking orgo I next spring an wondering if the book actually has topics that are taught on the classroom and goes in depth with those topics.

It was suggested at my school, but I didn't get it. Many of my friends got it and said it explained things to them very well and they liked it. However, I got the A and they didn't, so I'm not sure how much it helped them on the study front. I did find Organic Chemistry I for Dummies to be helpful for extra practice problems and quick review. There's two books, one with practice problems and one with a review. Didn't use it for Orgo II though.

Review books definitely won't get you through orgo though.

 

[theWhat]

I'm not saying anatomy is harder, I'm just saying there's a lot more info to memorize than orgo. The hardest part about orgo for me was combo of concept and memorized info. In anatomy, you have hundreds of muscles each with origins, insertions, actions and innervations. If you memorize them though, you just regurgitate it without pause.

In orgo, you have maybe 50-100 reactions/reagents/mechanisms. However, if you're given a starting material and a product and asked to give a 4 step reaction to make it, you can't just regurgitate something memorized. You need to know your reagents but also figure out newly formed intermediates and conceptualize what happens every step of the way.

So for anyone who wants to complain about knowing 50 reactions, I don't have any sympathy for.

I definitely agree. My anatomy class was known as a weed out class for the sheer memorization and difficult multiple choice questions where you had to think more critically about the material. However the memorization wasn't that hard once I could see the physiological connection to the structures. It's harder to see the connection for me in orgo cuz its not as relevant to my interests. I agree there aren't as many structures and names to memorize, that's easy. But remembering the rules, exceptions to rules and subtle behaviors of such molecules is more difficult.

 

[deleted393595]

If that's the way you are learning orgo, you are doing it wrong. There's probably 25-40 essential facts/rules you need to learn and then the rest is simply derived from that.

Brute memorization is exactly the wrong way to approach orgo.

+1. So much in O-Chem can be "memorized" by just knowing the basic facts. For example, it's easy to memorize the principles behind Markovnikoff Additions if you understand carbocation stability, and it's easy to get your other addition reactions down if you understand the principles behind why they occur. For example, hydroboration is Anti-Markonikoff because the Boron is sterically hindered from interacting with with the 2 and 3 carbons, and so kicks off its hydrogen and bonds to the 1 carbon since that's easier (before being removed via a base and peroxide reaction). The problem is that so many people try do to direct blank memorization of everything without taking time to figure out the reasons for why stuff is so. And that's what hurts them in class since they think that they had "studied extensively for the test", but ended up forgetting 1/2 the stuff they went over since they didn't take time to connect the dots.

 

[bala1]

i thought math was harder.

There are many more crappy math teachers than chem teachers that is for sure.

 

[lcm2020]

I did well on my first OChem test (99), but then on the next two where we had reactions really going I got lower grades (83 and 86), I was clueless of how to study, until I realized I needed to connect the dots instead of trying to memorizing everything, so I got a white board (it worked for me and was kinda fun) and for every problem in the back of the book I'd solve it on the white board showing all mechanisms and writing out there why things happened when they made little sense to me.

The result was a 99 on my last exam and a 98 on my final!

So this is not a hard class if you actually figure out how to study, the study method used for other science intro classes does not work very well here

 

[Nexus007]

I really depends on the professor....they can make the course as easy or difficult as they like. At my undergrad university one of the professor's exam averages were in the 30's, while another professor teaching the exact same course were always 90+.