Basically, this is how it went with Organic Chemistry. There was a bunch of hype that it was this super hard impossible greek god of fire class, I didn't buy into it. I thought it would be just like any other class.
I'm developed the wrong study skills from day one. Go to class, come home, do my homework, ace the test. That worked from day one until college.
Basically, when I started Organic Chem, all I did was take notes and then when the test came, I expected myself to be able to just spit out the mechanisms and reactions, didn't happen.
In the semesters that I did real well in Organic, it was due to a different game plan for studying. I did every homework problem in the book, probably spent 6+ hours a week on Organic Chem alone.
The first time I took Organic Chem II, I took it in the summer along with a literature class. I took only 13 credits in the Spring semester because I thought that summer classes are more condensed so I wouldn't have to write papers, wrong, I had to crank out 2, 10 page papers on some 18th century poetry. I pulled off an A- in the literature class, but an F in Organic Chem II.
This is why I think work experience matters. During my freshman year, I worked 30+ hours a week when my classmates didn't even have jobs, they just stayed at home studying or partied. Eventually, I cut it down to 20 hours a week, even that has proven tough.
