What was the hardest prerequisite?

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What was the hardest prerequisite?

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That's even a class? What is the grading even based on - attendance?

Ho0v-man said:
The only pre req I got a B in was bio 101. I always did worse in the easy classes bc I thought I could slack off and not try. If a class isn't hard, I just can't make myself pay attention or even show up.

Other classes I got Bs in were calc 1, speech, music appreciation, and orientation to college.

For me, the hardest classes were the easiest ones.


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Gen Chem, not because it is harder than Orgo but because by the time you get to orgo you at least know what an acid/base is... in gen Chem 1 you have no idea what anything is and it is all very ambiguous.. orgo two is a fresh new kind of hell though not to downplay its obsurdness
 
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Oakham is one of my easiest classes. It's all concept like a puzzle practice practice practice. Physics artist, maybe causes It's algebra based and it just equations over and over again.
 
pseud0 said:
What? I don't think you understand how Organic Chemistry works.

Your exam question will be "Please synthesize X compound starting with X compound and whatever reagants you want"

your answer will look something like this
9fcc94a49e0e6c58079dabde67700fe7.jpg
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In all seriousness, a question this hard most probably won't come up unless you attend an honors ochem class at an Ivy League (if that even exists). I don't even remember being taught half the mechanisms in this problem.
 
LoveBeingHuman:) said:
In all seriousness, a question this hard most probably won't come up unless you attend an honors ochem class at an Ivy League (if that even exists). I don't even remember being taught half the mechanisms in this problem.
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...what? Just be glad you had it easy then. The ochem curriculum is pretty standardized nationwide. We had several synthesis questions as long as that one in Orgo 2 exams
 
kb1900 said:
...what? Just be glad you had it easy then. The ochem curriculum is pretty standardized nationwide. We had several synthesis questions as long as that one in Orgo 2 exams
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Yo, that's not even a synthesis tho'. (to clarify, this is not a personal attack on you :)..just wanted to point that out)

And for what it's worth, the difficulty is not necessarily memorizing that entire mechanism. It's knowing what happens when you use MeOH instead of H20..in an actual synthesis when you're supposed to "guess" how to acylate that amide without an acid chloride as your starting reagent.
 
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LoveBeingHuman:) said:
In all seriousness, a question this hard most probably won't come up unless you attend an honors ochem class at an Ivy League (if that even exists). I don't even remember being taught half the mechanisms in this problem.
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You must have had a slightly easier Ochem class then, questions like that were par for the course in Ochem 2 for me.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
You must have had a slightly easier Ochem class then, questions like that were par for the course in Ochem 2 for me.
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Same. Maybe even in the tail end of Ochem 1, depending on how your school sets up the series.

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I would say Ochem without hesitation, but then I remember the biochem professor I had who basically turned the course into Ochem 3...

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AnatomyGrey12 said:
You must have had a slightly easier Ochem class then, questions like that were par for the course in Ochem 2 for me.
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I've had my share of very difficult questions. Maybe the reason this was hard for me was because I haven't seen some of the mechanisms.

EDIT: Wait I actually can solve it. You have to turn the amide into a carboxylic acid. Reduce the carboxylic acid into an alcohol. Dehydrate the alcohol. Conduct ozonlolysis with reductive workup. Oxidize aldehyde to carboxylic acid. Treat it with alcohol to make ester. Treat eater with ammonia to make amide. Reduce amide to lithium aluminum hydride. Can someone check if that is correct? I think the reason I thought the problem was very hard is cause I haven't seen some of the steps in how it was solved. But what I just described was my method.
 
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Biology was hardest for me. The course at my school emphasized conceptual problem-solving in biology, which yielded some massively tricky exams. Each section also had a different instructor who all wrote vastly different styles of test questions, so it was as much learning what to expect for the test as learning the actual information. That, combined with no curve meant I was in office hours nearly every day.
 
I thought Physics was the hardest pre-req, but I had a sketchy math background, so I am betting that is part of why.

O-Chem actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
 
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LoveBeingHuman:) said:
EDIT: Wait I actually can solve it. You have to turn the amide into a carboxylic acid. Reduce the carboxylic acid into an alcohol. Dehydrate the alcohol. Conduct ozonlolysis with reductive workup. Oxidize aldehyde to carboxylic acid. Treat it with alcohol to make ester. Treat eater with ammonia to make amide. Reduce amide to lithium aluminum hydride. Can someone check if that is correct? I think the reason I thought the problem was very hard is cause I haven't seen some of the steps in how it was solved. But what I just described was my method.
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Well, you can use that long method and get marked points off for being inefficient. As I said, that's a mechanism (not synthesis).
 
LoveBeingHuman:) said:
The point is that it works :) Stop being salty
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Salty? Uhm...in real life, you'd get .0000000001% yield if you used that many steps in a synthesis. The point of organic synthesis is to maximize efficiency.
 
SciClin said:
Salty? Uhm...in real life, you'd get .0000000001% yield if you used that many steps in a synthesis. The point of organic synthesis is to maximize efficiency.
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You're exaggerating. And you have no idea how complicated some reactions can get.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Back on topic: I'm actually looking forward to organic. Biology is interesting, physics was fun, and gen chem was a mix of boring (lecture) and fun (lab). We'll see how I like ochem. I really suck at rote memorization though, so it might be rough.
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I like to refer to ochem as "conceptual memorization". You will have to memorize a lot of things but they're mostly concepts, so they are easy to recall because you can make sense out of them. Unlike biology where if you don't know it, then you don't know it. Ochem is a lot of studying math or physics.
 
Hahahaha wow only premeds would argue about their ochem knowledge. You guys must be a blast at parties
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Back on topic: I'm actually looking forward to organic. Biology is interesting, physics was fun, and gen chem was a mix of boring (lecture) and fun (lab). We'll see how I like ochem. I really suck at rote memorization though, so it might be rough.
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Woah for some reason I thought you were applying this cycle haha. I really enjoyed ochem. Way better than gen chem in my opinion.
 
LoveBeingHuman:) said:
I like to refer to ochem as "conceptual memorization". You will have to memorize a lot of things but they're mostly concepts, so they are easy to recall because you can make sense out of them. Unlike biology where if you don't know it, then you don't know it. Ochem is a lot of studying math or physics.
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Disagree. See:
freak7 said:
There are rules in O-Chem literally called "anti-[rule] rule" which contradict the original rule and they're both true.
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You can't just "understand" o-chem. It's not just making sense out of concepts; contradictions exist in it.
 
redsox93 said:
Woah for some reason I thought you were applying this cycle haha. I really enjoyed ochem. Way better than gen chem in my opinion.
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I'm applying to a special linked program through the military. If I get accepted and maintain a 3.2 and get a 500+ on the MCAT, I'm essentially guaranteed admission to USUHS.
 
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Nothing gets more ladies than online **** talking about who knows more chemistry on an anonymous forum.

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Lawper said:
@aldol16 would disagree i think
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He can disagree all he wants, that doesn't change the fact that the logic gates are broken. If something's not a rule but more of a guideline then don't call it a rule, call it a heuristic.
 
freak7 said:
Disagree. See:

You can't just "understand" o-chem. It's not just making sense out of concepts; contradictions exist in it.
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Right on point. The reason is that "o-chem" is all a lie. Remember how your textbook explained the way Grignards work? Look it up on Wikipedia ;). I mean, that's science, right? You use and refine a model until too many contradictions come up.
 
freak7 said:
He can disagree all he wants, that doesn't change the fact that the logic gates are broken. If something's not a rule but more of a guideline then don't call it a rule, call it a heuristic.
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Rules in organic chemistry are heuristics. There is no right rule because every rule has exceptions and contradictions that work. Perhaps chemists are using the word rule so loosely? They're chemists not linguists after all :p
 
Lawper said:
Rules in organic chemistry are heuristics. There is no right rule because every rule has exceptions and contradictions that work. Perhaps chemists are using the word rule so loosely? They're chemists not linguists after all :p
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Things like that are why I identify so much with that one xkcd.
 
Goro said:
Even back when I was a UG students (and pre-med for all of ten minutes) Orgo was throttling the medical careers of tons of my classmates. It still is for yours.
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Wait....you're not an MD/ DO? You're a PhD Doctor?
 
Back on topic:

I am convinced that organic chemists are masochists.
 
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