Succeeding in O-Chem

Many of you may have heard stories about how hard organic chemistry is. It's true that many students find organic chemistry one of the most difficult courses they have ever taken. Nevertheless, many students enjoy organic chemistry, and many do very well. One of the most rewarding and confidence-building experiences you can have in your education is to grab a difficult subject by the horns, and to master it. I outline some advice below on how you can make sure that your organic chemistry experience is as fruitful as possible.

• Attendance in class is mandatory. (Of course, occasional absences due to illness or extracurricular activities are understandable.) I don't take attendance or give surprise quizzes, but that doesn't make it any less mandatory. I will treat you like responsible adults who are able to fulfill your obligations to yourselves and your families without anyone looking over your shoulders. Please respond accordingly.

• You cannot cram organic chemistry! If you do not keep up with the material throughout the semester, and then you try to cram the night before an exam, you will be courting disaster. You should allocate at least six hours outside of class every week (that's two hours out of class for every hour in class) to study the material and work problems. This is not an unreasonable expectation. A full-time student takes about 12 credits, which means he or she needs to study for 28 hours each week, or about two hours per credit per week, to make up the total of 40 hours/week expected from a full-time student. Part-time students take fewer credits but need to spend a proportionate amount of time studying.

• Read the appropriate section of the book before you come to class. If you know what to expect when you come to class, you will absorb it much more easily.

• Rewrite your class notes the evening after class. When you do, you will realize that there are some points that you don't understand. Make note of these points, and ask me about them next time you see me (or make an appointment to see me). Your rewritten notes will also be much more useful to you when you study for exams.

• Working problems is the best way to master the material. Reading the book and the lecture notes is fine, but work those problems! You are permitted, even encouraged, to work together on the online homework, but each of you is responsible for entering your own responses into your own account. If you split 15 questions among 3 friends, and each of you enters the responses to 5 questions in all 3 accounts, how do you expect to learn the concepts covered by the 10 questions that you never tried to answer? There are no shortcuts to learning organic chemistry.

  For textbook questions, don't look up the answers in the solutions manual until you have made a prodigious effort to solve the problem yourself. After you have looked up the answer and you think you have understood it, set aside the problem for a few days and then work it again. Knowing the answer to a problem is not the same as being able to solve a problem yourself!

• Get help if you don't understand something. I am available to answer questions after the lectures, by appointment, or by e-mail. I strongly encourage you to make an appointment to visit with me; you will not be disturbing me. (Yes, I am busy, but helping students who want to learn is a welcome interruption from my usual chores.) Don't be intimidated from coming to ask me for help. It is my job to help you learn the material, and I want to do that job as well as I can. You're paying for my services; use them!

  If you are too intimidated to come see me (don't be), you may want to get help from the peer tutors at The Study. The Chemistry Department office also maintains a list of organic chemistry tutors. But remember, I know the material better than any of them do.

• Mastering organic chemistry requires a curious mix of memorization and reasoning. If you do only one or the other, you may have a difficult time. Understand why compounds behave in the way they do, and you will be able to apply the same logic to compounds that you haven't seen before.

• Molecules are three-dimensional objects. Make use of your molecular model kit in order to learn how to think about the two-dimensional images we write on paper in three-dimensional terms.

• Don't believe that your grade is determined by the performance of your classmates, and that the amount of effort you put in is irrelevant. I am not in cahoots with the medical or pharmacy school admissions committees. It is not my goal to ensure that only a small fraction of you can achieve your dreams of a career in medicine, pharmacy, or whatever. I would be ecstatic if the entire class earned As and Bs. On the other hand, I am willing to give a majority of the class Cs, Ds, or even Es, if the performance of the class warrants it. Your performance, and yours alone, determines your grade.

• Don't let O-Chem's reputation intimidate you. Many people do very well in organic chemistry and enjoy it, too! There's no reason why you shouldn't, either.