<p>I took an intro to organic chemistry class at CC where we covered the alkanes, alkenes, alkrynes, aromatics, amines, carboxylic acids, amino acids and proteins. We did nomenclature and structures for all the functional groups, needed to memorize the structures and names of the amino acids and a lot of other things. I picked up on the material really quickly and got a solid A in the class.</p>
<p>But I hear constant complaints and worries of people taking organic chemistry and struggling greatly in it. I know a guy who finished it with a C and had to abandon his goal of medical school because he didn't think he'd get into a good one with a C in o-chem. It's made me really nervous to take the class next semester. How much does the class deviate from what I mentioned above? </p>
<p>I struggled in General Chemistry (Cs both time around) but I enjoyed my intro to O-chem class (and hated Gen Chem). Building models and the like really helped in understanding things and the lack of clear visuals is what made Gen Chem so difficult for me. I'm hoping to be able to pull out at least a B in Ochem, though. </p>
<p>Also, how math-heavy is the class? In my intro course, the professor joked on the first day that the most "math" we'll do in that class is counting the number of carbons in a structure and she was pretty much right. I hate math and the slew of formulas I memorized for Gen Chem always made me nervous. Will any of those come into play in O-chem?</p>
<p>I received my BS in Astrophysics and was able to get into a U.S. medical school despite a C in Organic Chemistry. If there had been any Math in it I might have understood it but Organic Chemistry was something that just did not make sense to me the way Physics does. Maybe your aversion to Math will actually help you as you might get insights into solving Organic Chemistry problems that those of us who like Math search for in vain in this very unusual class.</p>
<p>Relax. It’s really not that bad, especially since you already have some background in the subject matter. I think most people freak out about o chem because you have to do more active learning and can’t just memorize everything (well, you can but that would not work out very well in the long run). People just need to learn to restructure how they learn for o chem. Once they do that, they will do a lot better.</p>
<p>There is very little math involved in entry level o chem. Count carbons and hydrogens, do a few very simple specific rotation calculations, etc.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of some of the topics generally covered in o chem (from the ACS Organic Chemistry Exams Official Study Guide table of contents). My two semesters of undergrad o chem covered all of these plus some more: nomenclature, structure, hybridization, resonance, aromaticity, acids and bases, steroisomerism, nucleophilic subs and eliminations, electrophilic additions, enols and enolate ion reactions, aromatic substitutions, free radical subs and additions, redox, spectroscopy, synthesis and analysis.</p>
<p>Let your friend know that lots of people get into med school with Cs. If you have a few Cs but have an overall good GPA, those couple Cs will not automatically discount you. If they really want to go to med school, they will find a way to make it happen. One C should not be enough to scare them away from even trying. If they are really concerned about that one C, have them call a few med schools admissions offices to discuss how it may affect their application.</p>
<p>How much of what you listed was just organic chemistry 1? That’s all I need to take.</p>
<p>Well… my organic I covered (from table of contents of the book our prof wrote)</p>
<p>Structures/bonding
Conformation/sterochem
IR, UV and mass spec
Reactivity and catalysis
Acids and bases
Nucleophilic subs
E1 and E2 reactions
Electrophilic additions
Free radical reactions</p>
<p>We essentially skipped nomenclature as we had some of it in gen chem (small school… everyone was on the same track with the same coursework up at that point). He basically told us to teach ourselves nomenclature because he didn’t want to waste our class time doing it.</p>
<p>Everyone that takes organic I takes organic II at my school though, so what we cover in one semester is not necessarily indicative of what every school covers. I know that in previous years they had a different mix of topics covered in I and II as well. Without looking at our organic II book, I can say that I remember it being very mechanism heavy and we also went into HNMR and CNMR in depth, plus more mass spec. We also had to do research that semester, so I think our organic series was a bit more lab and instrument intensive than other programs tend to be.</p>