<p>Hi guys!</p>
<p>I was just wondering if anyone knew more about Chemistry 171/172. I know that it's the freshman organic Chem course and that you need a 4 or 5 in the AP to take it, but if you're majoring in NBB (let's say), which doesn't require orgo, but you want to go Pre-med, which does require orgo, does this course count as an orgo course since you have to take the orgo Chem labs?</p>
<p>Essentially, how do med schools see this course? If anyone knows. Thanks!</p>
<p>Yes, it no longer is 171/172. Its 221z-222z because it’s actually a bit more challenging than most of the sophomore sections Weinschenk, may win 1st semester though, or it’s a tie, because, by exam 3 Jose is harder. Weinschenk is much easier 2nd semester as Jose introduces and makes students responsible for significantly more advanced topics on top of those normally taught in orgo. II, so this year they granted it 200 level status. </p>
<p>However, don’t be afraid of the challenge. It’s a much smaller (thus supportive) environment with a lot of talented peers that will study with and support you. In fact, Soria sets up mentoring groups where there are 4-5 students with two upperclassmen (sophomores mainly) mentors who were successful in the course (there will be problem sets posted that you meet with mentors for guidance/discussion). And second, semester you add on top of it, synthesis sessions, in which you are put into groups of 4-5 students (depends on attrition rate from first semester, the harda** final will weed some folks out), and you work on challenging synthesis problems on par with what will be on the exams (or a little easier, but the same concepts will be emphasized enough for your success). My understanding is that the med. schools used to view it as sketch only because of the numbering. They didn’t know that Soria actually made it hard (I’ve checked freshmen orgo. at Ivies and peers, and it is much easier than the sophomore renderings and certainly easier than Soria’s class, which explains the numbering. Again, Emory’s is the exact opposite. Ideally, you’ll know so much more than upperclassmen peers that it’s ridiculous). That’s why he pushed successfully to get it moved to 200 level. However, most people wanting to get into med. school from Soria’s class did so successfully, because to be honest, it makes most classes afterwards seem moderate/easy, so it more than preps you for the rigor of other hard courses early on, whereas when others get to such courses (like NBB 301), they may be in for a shock/difficult adjustment. Thus, Soria students do pretty well in general no matter the grade in his course. It seems that his class frequently “produces”(not literally, more the student started out w/his class) goldwater scholars. My friend (my year) and another student from my year both got it this year, and many others from the class including myself are doing great things. Often Soria’s class induces motivation of some type and he’s also willing to work closely to help you explore any endeavors of interest (such as research, an internship, fellowship, w/e). The class can set you up for success, and the size makes it doable. I also recommend Soria’s lab (226/227L) as it is much more interesting and laid back than 221/222L lab. You’ll be able to accommodate the rigor of the lecture a bit better this way. Warning, the first 1-2 tests in 221 (you get none in 222) will be really easy. Okay, well this year, apparently this and last year, he put some hard problems at the very end of the 2nd exam, but I remember my year where the whole thing was a complete change from the first and was just very difficult. The 3rd and 4th exams, work your a** off.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! That was incredibly helpful. Sorry, I’m sure you mentioned this, but I’m not sure I caught it: so, are you saying that freshman can take it and then don’t have to take orgo? Or would I still have to take orgo for med school? </p>
<p>But I’m glad that the class is good! Challenging, but it sets you up for success in other courses. Sounds worth it to me. :)</p>
<p>No, you don’t have to take orgo. as an upperclassmen, once you’re done your done. Freshmen orgo. students go on to take other stuff (many take biochem sophomore year).</p>
<p>@bernie12 can you help explain how classes work and what people take every year? I’m really confused. is there a guideline for class order like bio first year or chem first year? how does registration work, and what is this thing about swimming test for pe placement even if you don’t want to do swimming that I heard in emory tour?</p>
<p>I think it depends on your major, but I know for the NBB major they have a “sample” schedule for all 4 years based on what you need for that major. Not sure about the other majors, however. If you have an idea about what you want to major in, you can always call that department and ask. And I have no idea about the swimming test…</p>
<p>No, you don’t have to do it. If you want to do like an intermediate swimming course as a PE requirement, then you have to take the exam. Yeah, most majors (science) have sample schedules. You normally just try to get the intros. done as soon as possible and then you take whatever you want afterwards (unless your preprof., in which case, those requirements will kind of guide what you take). </p>
<p>Registration is: Sign up for what you want and can (as in many classes will have pre-reqs, but many/most won’t) to take.</p>
<p>quick question about orgo chem and taking credit from ap chem. Do med schools like when you place out of chem in college through AP?</p>
<p>I don’t think they care. You just need to make up for it by taking another inorganic course w/lab. Ideally, this should be something higher than gen. chem. Options such as advanced inorganic w/355L or Quantitative Analysis (260) w/260L do the trick. Most take AP.</p>
<p>another question lols, when do we make our schedule?</p>
<p>@CarboxylicA:</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure we make our schedules at orientation.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t say that freshman orgo is harder than weinschenk. 171/172 classes don’t do anything with HOMO/LUMO… and from what i’ve heard, in the freshman orgo classes, all you have to do is “memorize” and nobody even understands the mechanisms because they don’t know homo/lumo.</p>
<p>but yeah, might as well take the freshman one now that it’s a 200-level course. but if you want to do REALLY well on the mcats, take weinschenk’s class. there were freshmen in my class (weinschenk) for that reason-- they got special permission to do it</p>
<p>You heard lies. Would you like to see an exam? Are you serious? If you PM me your e-mail (I will just share mines first), I will send you the exams. There is hardly no memorization. On some exams, a greater majority of the exam is application vs. Dr. W’s. Also, HOMO-LUMO is not hard. Orbitals are something that Jose just expects students to know. We don’t cover in depth on exams or in class (except for electrocyclic/diels-alder reactions), but you must know it for some problem types. Mechanisms simply try display flow of charge in chemical reactions, thus MO is not needed to understand arrow formalisms. Instead, charge distribution and resonance are needed. I promise you his exams are just as bad, and in 172/222-Z, worse than Weinschenk’s. I’ve seen Dr. W’s exams, and the stuff that is difficult to his students is more or less intuitive to a Soria student (Dr. W’s “hard part” of the exam is usually tested extensively on a Jose exam, not to mention Jose’s hard sections consist of more than one complex topic, whereas W’s does in-depth analysis on maybe one). </p>
<p>Anyway, I’ll just show you what I mean. I promise you Jose’s class preps. just as much (they both do applications). Not to mention, MCAT orgo. is super duper easy, so you really don’t need a challenging class to be prepped. If you want to know why freshmen were in W’s, it’s because many failed the Soria final pretty bad. That test is very difficult, and brutal second semester. My friend from W’s class even thought Jose’s midterms were a bit harder and didn’t vaguely know a bit of the material whereas most of W’s exam (including the hard part) are very doable (not to say Jose’s aren’t, but it certainly takes more time, even if you know what you’re doing). They also test different topics at different times.
I scanned the exams and made them blank when prepping for the final some have some stray marks.</p>
<p>“Mechanisms simply try display flow of charge in chemical reactions, thus MO is not needed to understand arrow formalisms.”</p>
<p>no. i’m pretty sure you can’t figure out a mechanism (by yourself, without memorization) without knowing homo-lumo. if you don’t know homo-lumo, it is impossible to know what orbitals are interacting together… you say that MO isn’t needed for arrow formalisms, but what do you think it is that causes flow of charge?</p>
<p>i know someone from 171/172 who got an A in the class and only memorized. and by the way, the people i knew in weinschenk’s class that were freshmen were 1st semester freshmen, and he let them in because he decided that their level of knowledge was too high for the freshman class, and he wanted them to be challenged.</p>
<p>i don’t need to see your tests. i’ve seen them before. i don’t want to argue anymore about this, but it is pretty much a known fact at emory that Weinschenk’s orgo class is one of the most difficult classes here</p>
<p>I will continue this rather you do or not. Your misinformation (I dare say lies) or misguided opinion will mislead the prospective freshmen on here into thinking Soria is easy. It simply isn’t true for them to go in thinking that they can just “memorize” for his exams. They will be really sad in the course if they take that approach. Boosting Weinschenk’s class does them no good. Telling what I know about it does. Clearly my take on it is more valid because I’ve taken the course and have TAed for it. </p>
<p>Memorization: Really, how come I didn’t memorize them? How the hell can you memorize mechanisms that you’ve never seen before, which are often asked on his exam. You haven’t seen the exams, or else you should have known better before making such a claim. I mean, how the heck do you synthesize a giant drug (synthesis probs. in W’s class aren’t important as the mechanisms. Soria’s class makes all of it important) through memory? How do you explain how a drug works using memorization? How do you explain how different reagents alter stereochem/regiochem and the overall mechanism through memorization? Again, we’ve never seen it before. Unless you’ve legit seen an exam or have tried to do harder problems on the exam, your opinion is useless and highly misguided. I’ve seen and attempted W’s problems with my friends (trying to help them). It usually was of the same caliber or less difficult. </p>
<p>HOMO-LUMO: You underestimate me and other students in organic chemistry. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You do not need to know what orbitals interact. You need to know how electrons (which is what a mech. is about) flow. MO theory is just a model used to explain the interaction of the molecules. You know better and I definitely know better. As a person who took a difficult graduate level bio-organic course, I know that I did not need to know how HOMO-LUMO works to know what a reasonable mechanism is and how to elucidate and propose them. Look up research papers on mechanism elucidation, and notice how they don’t achieve a working knowledge of it through MO theory. They instead use isotopic labelling among several techniques. The mechs. are then determined based upon approximations of how electrons flow. Surely one does not have to know HOMO-LUMO to understand how NADH or FMN molecules may work. Simply observe all of the resonance structures possible, assess what task they perform, and propose something.
Maybe they didn’t take it when Soria was teaching both semesters. Also, if so, they wanted to come in because 221/222 had a more compatible teacher to their needs. Ask any of the freshmen from the past year (or the one before) if they found the class easy and you will be proven wrong and perhaps scolded. The fact that you refuse to look at the exams indicates your level of denial or unwillingness to be proven wrong. Both teachers (Soria and W) are regarded as two of the most difficult professors at Emory. You know this man. Get real. My friend told me how W actually even hinted that Soria’s class was a tad harder when he asked if he wanted Soria or W. for orgo (he was a freshmen). Weinschenk essentially: Said, you come to my class if you “want to have fun”. Both profs. recognize how difficult each other is and has a mutual respect.</p>
<p>You do realize that HOMO-LUMO= an orbital analysis of electrophiles and nucleophiles, right? If you know either, and understand charge distribution and resonance, you can propose a reasonable mechanism w/o knowing in context of both. The only exception is things such as stereo electronic effects which are best explained via orbitals, but again, the freshmen know this and are expected to have a working knowledge of it on the exams. Also, Weinschenk hardly does HOMO-LUMO second semester because of the influx of new students. Did you find yourself suddenly having to memorize mechanisms for 222 (my friends in W’s class did not, despite the HOMO-LUMO being missing. And this even goes for those who had someone else first semester)? If not, strike down your reasoning or realize that you don’t know how to do, or much less, the point of a reaction mechanism/arrow formalism.</p>
<p>By the way, if you go to chemistry class comments. Freshmen, when you get learnlink check it out. you will see another student, I won’t release the name, but it starts with an L. It’s a discussion on who to take for 221, he addresses all who teach it including Soria, and quite thoroughly. I think it was a mostly accurate assessment. He went from Soria to W’s class and agrees w/me that it was easier and that both were hard. He screwed up the Soria final by the way. He got B+/A- in Soria (171) and A in W’s (222). Go figure. Perhaps his “memory” wasn’t great or he was crazy to think Soria was tough. Oh wait, the student cited “out of the box thinking” as an issue in Soria’s class and then got an A in W’s (blows the mental theory away). Go figure. Please avoid trying to mislead freshmen in the future. Have more respect for their plight and stop telling what you’ve “heard”. If you want to tell what you’ve “seen” or what you’ve experienced in W’s class, do so, but do not be so quick to pass judgement on something you know little about. Also, do not conjecture about methods of learning things by saying stuff like: “You can only learn it this way, or else it is memorizing”, because that’s just plain lying or lacking in perspective. Simply say, “it worked for me.”</p>
<p>where do you find that on learnlink?? I cant find stuff like that anywhere :/</p>
<p>Do you have the first class client for your desktop? Also, it may be possible that freshmen get a learnlink “lite” version at first. Either way, just do this: Log into learnlink, go to “College Advising” and then go to a section that should say class comments. If you do not have the desktop client and are going online for learnlink, go to the following site: [Emory</a> Office of Information Technology |](<a href=“Emory's Software Distribution | Emory University | Atlanta GA”>Emory's Software Distribution | Emory University | Atlanta GA)
Click on “Software Express”, you will be prompted for a password, and then can proceed to download the firstclass client.</p>
<p>i’m not going to lie, i didn’t read past the first paragraph of your reply. you say that your take is valid because you took it? well yeah but i took 221/222 and i doubt you did. soooo you’re not really saying much there.</p>
<p>I TA for 221 
and had several friends in it (Weinschenk’s class whoever), so I saw the work and helped them w/back exams and w/e. So honestly, I’ve been exposed to and have grappled with material from most of the other sections. I and many of my friends/peers stand by my opinion. They recognize that both profs. are tough with different testing styles (often W’s is preferred) and teaching styles. Let’s leave it at that. I also think W. is a great teacher. My friend would have me sit in the back and help him with the clicker quizzes (and at other times, I was helping him and others w/exam prep.). The material is quite challenging, but again, I’ve experienced that level and have seen worse. My Asian friend, currently off to WashU med. was in W’s class while I in Soria’s. I used to ask him for help b/c he was doing well in W’s class. He had no idea about the material we were covering, meaning that Jose covered challenging material that differed and went more in depth than some that other courses taught. Just like W is obsessed w/HOMO-LUMO, Soria likes organometallics. </p>
<p>At this point, your arguments are frivolous. I’ve seen and worked with materials from both, and they are on the same level, even when it was 171/172. Whether I have taken 221/222 (most profs. whom are way easy than both Soria and W.), I clearly know organic chemistry just as well and better than many people who took it as sophomores and upperclassmen. I know the material y’all covered plus some!
And if you want proof, ask those who took it the past year, when it was 221/222. I promise that they won’t say it was easy-moderate. And that class was not too much more difficult than previous years. </p>
<p>Let’s leave it at: They are both hard. I offered the exams to see for yourself and offered my experience and insight (which could be validated by me just sending a comparable Soria exam and a Weinschenk exam and you comparing side-by-side), and you refuse to settle. You only resort to a very childish: “I have taken 221/222, I doubt you have”. TAing and tutoring for those and Soria’s class gave me exposure to both the caliber of students in the courses and the material.<br>
I’ve proven my experience and my point. Argumentation beyond this point would be really stupid after the childish rebuttal you just made. My goal was to argue that the caliber of the class is similar or harder, not that I took 221/222.</p>
<p>At this point, I just want to accurately inform the prospectives of the course. Most will not have your opinion (and most will understand the point of a mech. at the end of the course), and may struggle a lot if they underestimate it. He had an attrition of almost 30% between (from 50 to 35) 221z-222Z the past year and it wasn’t because it was easy. Anyway, for those interested in the course. Don’t underestimate it after the first 2 exams, and I am willing to help with it because it will be tough. Don’t be fooled. He’s a really good teacher and the class has a great environment, but it will not be easy.</p>