I am registering for my classes for next semester, and I was wondering whether it’d be good to take Organic Chemistry. I’m currently in/finishing General Chemistry now, and have a borderline B/A, but do have an excellent understanding of the material. I’m an Education major, but taking Organic Chem and one additional CHEM elective will allow me to declare/finish a minor in Chemistry by next spring (2019), but I don’t know what to do. So some help would be greatly appreciated!
Also, if I should take it, what are some good study methods/tools for Organic Chem.
Do you want to teach chemistry?
Yea. I’m currently pursuing a General science credential, which would let me teach all science grades 6-9, along with Earth Science 6-12. I really like chemistry, and i wouldn’t mind teaching it.
As long as it does not displace any other courses needed for timely graduation, that is perfectly fine as an elective choice.
Flashcards for reaction mechanisms are very helpful for daily review. DON’T rote memorize specific examples - there is a rhyme and reason to why certain mechanisms occur, and your brain will be less stuffed if you clearly understand the actual reasoning behind a mechanism or favored product (via resonance, sterics, thermodynamic reasons, kinetics etc). Over time you’ll realize there are a lot of patterns that come up over and over again, and noticing those patterns are crucial for extrapolating your knowledge to predicting things about examples you’ve never seen before. Using a molecular model set (doesn’t have to be fancy or anything, just functional) is also incredibly useful for learning stereochemistry, especially cyclohexane stereochemistry/conformations.
Doing any and all practice problems recommended by your professor is a must. Ochem is something you get better at by actually doing it, not just reading and memorizing your notes. It sounds like obvious advice, but it’s so easy to study ochem the wrong way.
I personally really enjoyed organic chemistry (more than gen chem tbh), so hopefully you like it as well haha!
Organic chemistry has almost nothing in common with general chemistry.