<p>Soon...I will be a in college freshman</p>
<p>What makes Orgo so hard? Is it truly something archaic and esoteric</p>
<p>Or if you study a little everyday you'll be fine?</p>
<p>What's the catch to this course and it's lab?</p>
<p>One last thing... Is it harder than physics?</p>
<p>Althouh this nytimes article explains it well. <a href=“How to Get an A- in Organic Chemistry - The New York Times”>How to Get an A- in Organic Chemistry - The New York Times;
<p>If you are more of a memorizing, visual learner, that does well with concepts, O-chem will come easy or simple to you.</p>
<p>If you are more of a quantitative, numerical learner, that learns things from methods and calculations, and likes problem solving, you will probably find O-chem to be more difficult then physics or general chemistry.</p>
<p>Unlike General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry’s primary focus is not the numerical calculation of things like pH, pKa, Ionization Energy, Stoichiometry, and Enthalpy etc, but it uses information like that about organic compounds, to predict how they will react with other compounds. The overall goal of organic chemistry for a pre-med route is learning how certain organic compounds can be made through various reactions, and later applying that knowledge to reactions and synthesis that happens in a biological system. The goal of organic chemistry is also figuring out how to synthesize new organic compounds, through specific types of reactions.</p>
<p>It’s generally regarded as hard because it’s nothing at all like AP Chemistry, or anything that the student has seen before. But it’s like a puzzle though, you have to use concepts to figure out the answer, but it’s not quantitative. </p>
<p>OK, I’m going to be snarky here, but I have to disagree with you about this statement:
</p>
<p>OChem actually is quite precise and methodical and has pretty straight-forward mathematical models. The reason why you don’t see it (and indeed most pre meds don’t see it) is because you don’t have enough math and physics background to understand the deeper foundational principles which are based on quantum mechanics.</p>
<p>According to D1, a physics major, and my husband, who is a PhD physicist (and has a BS in Chem), and another friend who has a PhD in organic chemistry (and teaches OChem to pre meds), Ochem makes perfect sense once you understand quantum mechanical rules behind it. D1 said she never had to memorize a single reaction pathway when she took OChem (after acing senior quantum and grad quantum) because once you understood the physics the answer was obvious.</p>
<p>@wayoutwestmom happy mothers day !
Do you think many O Chem students have a sufficient physics experience (400 level or higher) to truly understand the quantum mechanics involved ? </p>
<p>I think very, very few undergrad OChem students have a sufficient background in physics to understand the quantum and statistical mechanics involved. But just because one cannot understand/grasp/see the underlying physical reality/first principles doesn’t mean it’s not there.</p>
<p>But most undergrads could probably apply Clarke’s 3rd Law to OChem.</p>
<p>You don’t need a background in quantum mechanics to study organic chem without memorization. I was a sophomore in college concurrently enrolled in Intro Physics when I took Organic Chemistry, and I didn’t memorize much at all. In fact, I think that if you try to memorize your way through organic chemistry, you are making life needlessly difficult for yourself and setting yourself up for failure (or, at least, working too much for success). It’s all a matter of seeing patterns and understanding why electrons go where they go; I don’t mean the precise quantum mechanics behind it, but rather asking questions like “is this element more electrophilic, or that one? Is this molecule more stable, or that one? Is this element more electronegative, or that one? Is this conformation more stable, or that one?” etc. I’m sure the quantum and statistical mechanics behind these behaviors would explain things more precisely, but you don’t need to know high-level physics to apply these basic concepts. I had zero background in those things, just like the rest of the students in my OChem class.</p>
<p>My organic chem professor always stressed that if we understood the principles from chapter 1 of our textbook, we’d do well in his class. His exams frequently presented us with reactions and problems we’d never seen before. I (and the other successful students in the class) didn’t have trouble with these because we hadn’t tried to memorize reactions, rather we had learned to apply the basic principles and periodic trends.</p>
<p>But I do agree that being a visual learner can help, particularly with manipulating molecules in your head.</p>
<p>By the way, I think Carey’s textbook is hands down the best textbook for organic chemistry.</p>
<p>@AuraObscura , would you say Carey’s textbook is better than That of David Klein?. His reviews on amazon are amazing… </p>
<p>DS mentioned one of his orgo professors told his students frequently that he had a lot of difficulty in explaining orgo concepts in a proper way because of the inadequate preparation of the students in math/science, i.e., quantum and statistics physics/chemistry.</p>
<p>DS said at one time that even many students in his med school (not in his premed classes) are annoyed when some professors get into the detailed derivation aspects of the subject (physiology maybe?). Many of them just want to be exposed to the material at the “board test” level and anything more in depth could drain the previous time that can be used for something else that may be more “productive”. I guess the premed mentality where the grade efficiency is their main concern is still there. (got to allocate as much time as possible for those ECs outside of the avademics.) Most MD/PhD students are different in their attitude. (Is it because they still need to study the science in a more traditional PhD/graduate school way?)</p>
<p>Talking about ECs, it seems DS (as an MS3) still volunteers every Saturday for quite some time this semester. I do not know what he has been doing though. I inly know he is sometimes more tired when he talked to us on that day because of this additional volunteering work as a already quite busy MS3 student. It seems he started to have a “bigger heart” after he had been in med school. I guess his peer med school students influence him in a positive way. (Unlike when he was in college, he was reluctant to hang out with premeds and to do too much “premed stuff.”)</p>
<p>^ I don’t blame him for not hanging with the pre-med crowd in undergrad. Seems like half are no longer “pre-med” by their sophomore year. And depending on the college, as many as half of the seniors who apply won’t even get into medical school on their first try (ex. UMich says 40% of seniors who apply are rejected). In short, the majority of pre-meds are obnoxious poseurs.</p>
<p>^ Some examples where people DS hang around ended up doing after graduation: One becomes a teacher (not the kind of “temporary teacher” who just wants to do “teach for America” and use it as a capital for shooting something bigger.) His parents own their own successful business.
Two of them whose parents were physicians but both of them did not choose the medicine. One started a church-affiliated charity organization while attended a law school on the side. Actually he got into a T14 law school (likely a top 5 one) but decided not to go because he wanted to start that charity organization (I think it was originally for homeless.) Money is not an issue here as his parent is physician.
The other, who had actually completed most of premed classes with good scores before stopping being a premed, attended Berkeley School of Music for a short time (btw, he had performed at Carnegie Hall twice before college.) He is now a member of a successful band.</p>
<p>Two of the students he was occasionally with (as they were in the same suite for many years): one in Harvard Law first and now work in some quite rural state. The other in a med school in his state (just graduated I think.) They never participated the same club activities but they were occasionally playing video games together. DS kind of said the other premed (who is a more main stream premed than DS) would once in a while feed some essential premed related info to him otherwise he would be even more “out of touch” with the “main stream” premed crowd. It was somewhat funny that the parent of that premed’s friend kind of half-jokingly said to us (when we met during the commencement, we stayed in the same dorm room for parents) that our son now has some “catchup work” to do for being a premed. He was very aware that our S was not very enthusiastic in building up his premed CV outside of the academic area – even though he had completed all of his premed classes relatively early in college. Another CCer here said that basically his school saved him in the end (he did have a “wustl-worthy” LizzyM score though.)</p>
<p>“What makes Orgo so hard? Is it truly something archaic and esoteric
Or if you study a little everyday you’ll be fine?”
-no, but studying a lot will result in A.</p>
<p>@WannaBeDocc </p>
<p>I honestly don’t know, I’ve heard good things about Klein’s book but have never read it myself.</p>
<p>By “numerical” I was indicating that there is nothing to calculate in an undergraduate organic chemistry exam. There is nothing to solve for in a sense. Didn’t mean to generalize it into higher levels of organic chemistry.</p>
<p>I think it’s a somewhat self-perpetuating fear. Students hear that orgo is hard so it is. They get intimidated. Organic chem has definitely not been my hardest class. If you are a visual learner, this helps, and just using general good study habits and keeping up with the homework. Orgo is hard to cram for, and that bites a lot of students.</p>
<p>I think DS is very likely a visual learner. That may be a reason why he did not have much trouble in orgo.</p>
<p>I remember that when we sent him to a preschool, he was really very “behind” in his English skill. After a short few months, he somehow managed to decode the names of all of his classmates (on the back of the chair for each preschooler, there is a name tag, likely to encourage the preschooler to recognize his/her own name - it was somewhat funny that occasionally a kid from an English speaking family would ask DS, who was not as fluent in spoken English as him/her, what chair is his/hers.) One preschool teacher even accused us of coaching him written English but we really did not. Our only concern at that time was he needed to catch up in his spoken English. (Playing “Wee Sing” and “Hank the cow dog”, etc., as often as we could. Those audio tapes and those Disney video tapes were his main “teachers” before he was sent to a preschool, which was only 4 hours a week.) We were busy in taking him to all story telling sessions for very young children offered in all public libraries in our city. We even hired older siblings or mom of his classmates for many years - in order for him to have more exposure to spoken English. At one time, we hired 3 family members of the family of DS’s kindergarten classmate at the same time in order to maximize the number of hours. (What English-speaking families take it for granted cost us money for many many years! How would we know that, years later, he is relatively so good at verbal - SAT and MCAT!)</p>
<p>“I think it’s a somewhat self-perpetuating fear.” - EXACTLY.
The class is NOT anyhow harder than upper Bio classes and by far much easier than academics at Med. School. So, be a “man”, get over and do whatever it takes. There is no trick, no magic, just hard work and you better be prepared if Med. School is your future.<br>
In regard to visual, it could be the case. D. has been into art lessons all the way thru graduating from HS. Sport, Music, Art were her personal ECs. She said that she is very very good at visual recognition. Did art lessons (outside of school) made her this way? We do not know. One thing is evident looking back. If one is engaged in something of her own interest, putting all heart into it and enjoying it, it does pay off later one way or another. Everything that D. has ever been engaged outside of academics, and considering within academics but outside of math / schience classes, has paid of in much bigger way than we have anticipated. And, yes, languages are one of the majors here, 2 learned academically. one outside of academics. However, I believe that Music made learning languages easier for my D.
Again, use whatever you have and, please, stop listenning to all ney-sayers. Looking positively at everything also makes a difference. I have to remind this to my D. also, she is a worrying kind. Worrying does not help. Got to assess your personal situation with cool head, develop plan and stick to it, while evaluating at every step to see if it is working or not. If not, than adjustment to the original plan is required. </p>