I saw this thread pop up on the homepage, so I thought I would throw in my two cents. I’m taking Organic I as a freshman now and just took my final. The current average is a 95. I failed my first test though and my first lab. I was discouraged, but I started using Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, Organic Chemistry for Dummies, a 3D Structure Kit, and Mastering Organic Chemistry (online videos). I’m not sure how much time your S is putting in, but I study for it at least two hours a night, and I go to weekly office hours and tutoring. Is it time-consuming, yeah, but I notice a difference from the first few weeks of the semester. I literally eat, sleep, and breathe Organic Chemistry lol. Organic Chemistry is very demanding, hence why it’s typically a weed-out class for pre-meds. However, my brother got a C in Organic Chemistry I and then managed to get an A in Organic Chemistry II. The material is harder (from what I’ve heard), but he pulled it off. Like others have said, if your son gets a C, then I would suggest he sticks it out one more semester and then decides. Did he perform okay in General Chemistry? I know they are different, but a strong gen chem foundation helps in organic. My gen chem professor, the first day of lecture, taught us how to draw some easy-medium structures from Organic. I thought he was crazy and when I got to Orgo the first day I thanked him. I will say, failing that first test was definitely a reality check for me that this wasn’t high school anymore and that if I wanted to be a doctor and go to medical school, then I had to step up my game.
A friend of mine was a pre-med at Stanford. She ran into that same orgo buzzsaw. She said that she dropped the class fairly late in the semester. The following term, she spent some time on the early material before the class began, and got a tutor to help her starting before the first class met. She got through the class, got into med school, and now has been a doctor for many years. She says it was the most difficult class she ever had, but she is glad she pushed through it.
I don’t know if your child has been doing any part-time job work during this last quarter.
My son did work while in college, but we agreed that during the Ochem semesters, he would only work on Friday afternoons (2-4 hours), so that he wouldn’t have work demands interfering.
@rvalover7
Thank you for those tips.
BTW…does your prof drop one test grade and one lab grade? For your avg to be a 95, it would seem to be the case.
@mom2collegekids Yes! He drops two lab grades, one test, and one problem set that we do. I know this is the parents forum, but I was hoping my advice maybe could help. It’s definitely a reality check!
“@DadTwoGirls A Radiologist is a physician who went to med school, internship, residency, and likely a fellowship.”
Sorry, I was thinking of “Radiology Technician”. I do understand that it is not the same thing, but got the wrong term stuck in my head somehow.
Which does sort of emphasize the point that there are lots of “medical professional” options, and that I am not quite sure what all of them are.
@rvalover7
Thank you for your tips. I’m sure that there are students and parents sharing your post!
My youngest daughter has the same pre-med goals, but to be honest I’m not sure she is smart enough. She works very hard like super hard to get her 95 numerical grade as a junior (HS all DC) now. I’m mean 3hrs per day and 12 hours on weekends of real work to pull that grade avg.
She has all A’s, but it doesn’t come easy at ALL!
With healthcare being crazy, competition being insane, the PA and NP route paying very well nothing wrong being a mid level professional.
I tell my daughter that all the time. You could be a PA at 23 and be pulling down 75k easy (avg pay 104k DFW) or a NP doing the same avg pay (134k DFW) vs getting out of residency at almost 30.
As far as your son…the grade will tell the story and if he is having a hard time now let him follow his heart no shame in PA or NP. I agree with other B or C he is okay, but F clearly not okay!
There is a reason they call medicine a practice. It truly is just statistics the first 2 visits “what is the most common diagnosis”.
Radiologist is one profession in medicine targeted by AI and computers for elimination as software should be able to read scans better than humans just a matter of time.
Two sides. Maybe the dream is fading after hitting the first big challenge. Maybe he does need to look at other options. I long suspected D2 would be happy in psych, but she wanted pre-med, a long time goal of being a pediatrician. She struggled, gave up, finally tried psych, knew that first week of the first class that she found her niche. Is now working with kids, via psych.
Or maybe he does have the stuff for med school and works that much harder and smarter, from now on, finds ways to make med school a reality.
Friend’s kid, btw, did her post-bacc at Harvard Extension, not pricey at all. Got into most of the med schools she applied to, including tippy tops, just got placed at a great hospital for residency.
Another failed ochem at a weeder school. For other reasons, transferred to what just happened to be a college with a more collaborative premed program. Ivy med school.
My point is just not to give it all up based on one course.
The main attraction of medical school, compared to other health professions, is the likely fat paycheck that will eventually come.
Great advice from @rvalover7. Even better do all these hours of preparation and study long before you take the OChem course for credit, then prepare some more. If you prepare more and study more (than all those who sign up unprepared for the course), you will easily do well. It is still introductory level material.
One of my relatives audited OChem at local public U the summer before taking the course at her private U. She attended all classes and read the textbook and did all the homework. She was able to do very well in OChem and got into all the podiatry schools schools she applied to.
Another relative was freaked out about OChem because he was and is very diligent but found it very tough. He’s completing his 1st year if Med school at his 1st choice if Med schools.
One of the biggest mistakes I have made as a parent – and I admit that I am tremendously lucky not to have had the opportunity to make a lot of big mistakes – was counseling my son to stick with the second quarter of Organic Chemistry after he got a C in the first, and to cut back on the number of courses he was taking and extracurriculars he was doing in order to devote more time to it. He was absolutely miserable; he still hated it; he hated everything else he was doing, too. So, at the end of that quarter, with a second C in Organic Chemistry, and with a pretty hard push from his college’s pre-med advisor (who saw weeding out as part of his job), he decided he wasn’t going to be a doctor. He was instantly happier, and 100 times more engaged in his studies. He found things that he loved and could do well. His whole experience of college turned around.
There’s nothing tragic about his not going to medical school. In his field, he’s unlikely ever to out-earn an orthopedic surgeon. But he was always unlikely ever to become an orthopedic surgeon. (His dream was to join MSF.) If he got himself out of the academic world, he might very well out-earn, or at least roughly match, his public-health oriented physician spouse who did fine in the same Organic Chemistry course in which he floundered.
I don’t know what it is about Organic Chemistry. I never took it, and I never had the kind of difficulty with any course that my son had with that. His grades and test scores, including with General Chemistry his first year of college, did not suggest he would have trouble mastering some topic that thousands and thousands of kids survive every year. None of my MD friends, several of whom are medical school faculty members, think Organic Chemistry is particularly useful for doctors, except perhaps as a combination mental calisthenic/hazing experience. I know a number of people with extremely impressive intelligence whose encounters with Organic Chemistry drove them out of a medical-school path, and a number of MDs without extremely impressive intelligence who presumably did at least OK in an Organic Chemistry course sometime.
As to the suggestion of being a PA…the prerequisite coursework is identical and admissions almost as competitive as med school. Pick a program and look at the stats of the incoming class. PA isn’t a good choice for somebody who felt like he or she wasn’t quite med school material. And NP? Well, keep in mind you have to first be a nurse. There may not be Ochem, but there is nursing school to get through, and admissions to 4 year programs are quite competitive.
I think one of the reasons kids stick with the pre-med dream long after they should is because they feel like they don’t want to admit that they failed at it. I really hate it when 16/17/18 year olds say that they’re going to be a doctor, and dont know why… it’s just the thing to do when you’re smart. Then they go to college and work their butts off and do poorly in some of these courses, the parents who have little dreams of their kid being a highly paid and respected doctor keep pushing them to carry on, most of whom also do not know the reality of being a doctor. Advisors and premed also are not showing them the reality of becoming a doctor. They should have a course for pre-meds that really shows the path to an MD and the actual work of being a doctor. Having residents speak to them would be great. These kids really romantic size the work, you only realize the slog after they’ve already invested too much time. I know one kid who is always repulsed by scrubby people and doesn’t want to be around them but wants to be a doctor. Coming from an upper-middle-class community their concept of scrubby people mean that 80% of the US population (who would be their patients) fall into that category!
Just to add my 2 cents: I don’t think many med schools will accept or look kindly on community college organic chemistry. You can do it if you want but beware. Better to take it at another college or university (pre-approved by your school) if you plan to take it over the summer.
My D majored in a chemistry field and was frantic, from the summer before freshman year about organic chemistry. She decided not to do it as a freshman, but to take gen chem first (she could have placed out) on the advice of her adviser. Turned out to be fantastic advice for her. She refreshed herself in chemistry basics, got familiar with the way the department worked, and found herself a mentor in the professor. THAT was enormously helpful to her the next year when she took organic chemistry because she had a familiar person to offer support and make sure she understood what was normal and what was a problem. as the poster above stated, she used a lot of outside resources, set a rigorous study schedule every week, never missed a review session and also made serious use of the professor’s office hours. She passed with quite a nice grade and, strangely, having done so, really feels that she is tough and competent and can handle just about anything that comes her way.
The OP has not been back, but not sure how telling her what her son should have done is helpful.
I agree with Blossom that if the son still wants to be a doctor, he should talk to his adviser or the med school adviser ASAP to figure out how this impacts his chances. One bad grade in organic, especially as a freshman, may not derail him especially if everything else is stellar and if he is at a top college. If this is the first semester of organic, and he wants to continue on the med school path (or needs organic for his major), my advice would be for him to study on his own this summer and get a tutor in the fall for the next semester of organic. If he is done with ogranic at this point, it will be very important for all his other grades to be very high.
Some kids want to be doctors because they aren’t quite sure what else to do. Others are completely passionate about the field. He has to decide what his path is.