Hey guys! I’m a current senior in high school and I’m a bioengineering major with the plan for going to medical school. I have heard that organic chemistry is very challenging and I have a little trouble in chemistry. Having a decent background in AP Chem and other science courses, I was thinking of jumping ahead and taking an online college course on Organic Chemistry to have some exposure to the class. I’m still planning on taking the course in the college I will be attending.
Do you guys know of any websites or colleges that provide online courses for anyone to enroll in?
Not necessarily to enroll in, but MIT OpenCourseWare is definitely a viable source. Make sure, however, that if you do enroll you pick a legitimate site - otherwise that spells disaster.
O-chem is a course that is important to FULLY understand. I wouldn’t advise taking it online because the quality will not be the same as that at a college. Also, as a senior, just take it easy for your last semester. College will be hectic enough. Enjoy the time you have now, there’s no rush to finish all of your classes.
Do NOT take an online course. If you do poorly in it, then it will look bad to med schools…yes, they will KNOW that you took that class.
It also won’t look good if you take the online class, and then get an A later at your real school. It will just look like you needed to take the course twice to get an A…a negative to med schools.
Instead…self study using a book like Organic Chemistry as a Second Language…get it from Amazon.
I believe Barron’s has a very good book on Organic Chemistry in its EZ series. I have no personal experience with EZ Organic Chem but I plan to self-study the book since I want to major in biochemistry and go on to pharmacy school. I have EZ Biology and have read EZ Chemistry. Both books are very informative and detailed. I’ve always been a personal fan of Barrons anyways for science subjects, so I think that series could work for you as well.
Definitely self study before jumping into any class. Website wise, you could always do some Google research and see if there are any websites that just offer information on different organic chem topics. I’m not sure of any definite sources.