Over at Med School Odyssey, the author recently wrote about finishing Org 1, and has a lot to share about his experiences with the course. Here are some choice excerpts from that post, and from a few of his earlier posts.
1. Don’t believe the hype
Don’t let yourself get psyched out by the people around you whining about how difficult organic chemistry is. I let myself get taken in by the horror stories around the first exam and did substantially worse on the first exam than I should have simply because I bought into the idea that it was tough and I was going to fail. I learned a lot more about myself and self-confidence during the first few weeks than I did about chemistry. If you’re surrounded by negative and pessimistic people, tell them to piss off – don’t get sucked into their game. Prepare and study well – play your game, not theirs.
2. Focus on understanding, not memorization
I have no idea where people get the idea that organic chemistry is memorization. I didn’t make a single notecard for the entire course – I don’t even know what you would even memorize. Anyone that tells you organic chemistry requires gobs of memorization is seriously misinformed.
I agree with the sentiment here. I’d say that memorization is, overall, a poor strategy that is resorted to when people haven’t planned ahead sufficiently and have to cram the night before an exam. There are, however, certain aspects of the course that require memorization – like nomenclature terms, reagent names and acronmys, functional groups, and so on. While some people indeed might have these terms wired in after a few weeks of the course, others might have to resort to flash cards or other memory-centered devices in order to retain the course material. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as it’s coupled with a dedication toward understanding the deeper concepts.
3. A Physics Background Really Helps.
I’m convinced that a year of physics, even if only at a conceptual level (ie., without all the math), would make organic chemistry a lot easier. Understanding transition states, activation energies, conformational changes, and a host of other things in organic chemistry would be a lot easier with an understanding of some basic physics. My advice to organic chemistry students that want to really stack the deck in their favor: wait until you’ve had the entire physics sequence before taking organic chemistry.
If you’ve glanced at the “From Gen Chem to Organic Chem” series I put together this summer, one thing you’ll notice is just how much physics lies behind a lot of organic chemistry phenomena. In particular, a good understanding of electrostatics will make a huge difference. In addition, familiarity with the basics of thermodynamics, equilibria, and kinetics will be invaluable when trying to grasp the topics you encounter in Org 1.
4. Good Study Habits Are Key
Two good quotes here. Quote #1:
This was the primary reason I saw people fail organic chemistry. It wasn’t intelligence. It wasn’t lack of memorization abilities. It wasn’t the teaching. It was their study habits.There was a group of about seven girls in the back of our class, the ‘Chatty Kathys’, that waited until the night before the homework was due to start on it and didn’t do any outside reading or problems on their own. I doubt they failed, but they probably comprised the bulk of the C grades in the course. Organic isn’t hard, but that doesn’t mean you can just sit in lecture and expect to have the understanding and ability to solve problems to just leap inside your head. Maybe that’s part of why medical schools scrutinize organic chemistry grades so much – it definitely reveals the quality of your study habits.
Quote #2:
I don’t know anyone for whom learning organic chemistry is easy. The top five students in my class probably spent 20 hours every week studying for the class. I would say that organic chemistry came somewhat easier for me, but it still required me to put in a huge amount of time.
No surprises here. Note that the good students still have to bust their butts to do well. There are no Val Kilmer in “Real Genius”-like stories of students walking into an exam unprepared and acing it. It doesn’t happen. It takes a lot of fricking work to do well.
5. The Bottom Line
The keys to success: be prepared, focus on understanding, work enough problems outside of class to learn the concepts – you’ll never learn the concepts unless you make mistakes on problems and learn from them – and stay caught up with the material.
Does this sound familiar? It sounds a lot like a lot of the collected advice professors give to their students on the first day of class – not to mention the advice students who just finished Org 1 would give themselves if they could go back in time to the beginning of the course.
In short, there’s no magic to doing well in the course. It involves discipline, putting in time consistently, doing problems, focusing on learning concepts, and staying on top of the material. If it sounds disappointing that there’s no magic formula for success, it should at least be comforting that doing well in the course is very possible for averagely gifted students who put in the time and study effectively.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I spend about 50 hours a week and still make a C. Honestly, I think there are a variety of teachings styles when it comes to organic chemistry. Professors can emphasize either the physical aspects of a reaction; otherwise, they can emphasize some kind of memorization scheme.
I think the pedagogy will depend on the mission of the university, though. For instance, I suspect a school that revolves around medical science will attempt to use a memorization pedagogy.
I’m not saying that you won’t be able to make some sense of the mechanics involved. However, I’m saying that maybe for some schools, in some universities, there is actually a lot of memorization going on.
p.s.
I study cognitive neuroscience with plenty of background in the learning sciences. I’m really good at memorizing things. And when it comes to something like the organic chemistry, however, I find that it really appears to be a large amount of memorization IF the professor does not easily allow the physical aspects of the reaction be easily understood.
You have a point. I would argue that Org 1 is different, but seeing some midterms (from pretty prestigious schools too) over the past month or so, Org 2 can definitely be tested in a way that is just a challenge of how many reactions students can regurgitate. It really does depend on the professor. The best thing you can possibly do is find a previous copy of a midterm/final to get a good handle on how they design the test.
It still helps, however, if you can see patterns and group reactions into clusters. If you didn’t get that with your prof or TA, well, you’re exactly the type of student I’d like to help.
As a last comment, I’m a senior wrapping up his degree. I’ve got about 15 credits after this semester (I have 117 credits). I’ve seen all kinds of teaching styles, and I would have to say organic chemistry is definitely one of the worst courses I’ve ever dealt with, due to lack of guidance on how to study.
Honestly, I think the next best thing to do is spend time with the professor and/or TA in order to get a physical understanding of what’s going on (if these things are not easily being discussed/understood). Maybe the professor is emphasizing memorization; but if that’s the case, then the trick is to spend time with that intelligent person who understands the physical aspects and actually get a grasp on the physics aspects behind all of those reactions.
I’m wrapping my last quarter of ochem, I’ve got a little advice. If you want to do well in ochem make sure you learn the concepts of SN1/SN2/E1/E2 and orbital theory during in your first ochem class. These will be the theoretical concepts that apply to almost all of the chemistry your learn for the rest of the year.
I’m glad I came across this post, its nice to know I’m not the only one struggling with Organic Chem. I just withdrew from Summer Orgo I at UNC because I was looking at a C+. I’m an older student, 29, that just came out of the military about 10 months ago and hand’t been in the civilian classroom environment in about 11 years. I found organic difficult, and I truly believe it was due to a lack of proper study habits. I say this because I literrally spent all of my out of class time reading and trying to understand the material, yet still received 70′s on the exams. I’m sitting in on the classes for the rest of the summer (including orgo II), I need to get A’s so I can bring my GPA up for med school. I feel like the material is rushed and it would greatly help other students to look at the functional groups prior to starting orgo and most importantly to develop efficient study habits. I wish I had spent more time focusing on doing the problems in the chapters instead of making sure that I read every chapter. I don’t believe any of the material is truly difficult to understand, it’s just a lot to digest in a short amount of time (in the summer anyway) Anyway, good luck to anyone that comes across these posts. Stay positive and keep your nose to the grindstone!
If you’re in AP Chemistry, please read this article with great care. It will help you improve your AP Chem grade if you necessarily need to. Our goal is to help you get an “A” and get you into the college of your choice. Whatever resource you can find, take advantage of it. It will be extremely beneficial in the long run. Again, be sure to aim high and work the problems both individually and collectively to reach your goals.