getting a jump start at Organic Chemistry

[fullefect1]

From what I have been reading Organic Chemistry is the most difficult pre-req that a pre-med takes for undergraduate classes. I am a freshman right now taking biology the first semester then starting my first semester of Inorganic next semester. Is there any way i can get a jump start and start memorizing certain aspects of Organic in the Summer? Is there any books that I could read that would give me a jump start for an A? Or should i just wait till I start taking the course, or at least until i finish my full year of inorganic?

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[Cantal]

Right now would be a bit too early to start studying for organic if you have yet to take inorganic (unless you took inorganic in high school and REALLY understood everything!)

What I did was take gen chem 1, genchem 2, and then I read parts of the book ahead of time for ochem. If I could do it again, I would have just gone into the course "blind" because it is not a difficult course if you put time into it.

Above all, I highly suggest NOT memorizing most things in ochem. I took ochem 1 year ago and avoided memorizing anything but a few very basic structures. Ochem is not easy at a big ten, its the conceptual learners who will get the really great grades unless you have some photographic memory and memorize every common starting product.

-Cantal

 

[Amy B]

You have a ways to go before you need to worry about Organic.

Wait until the summer between general chem II and Organic I before looking at the material. It is not the major horrible class alot of people make it out to be. I found it no more hard than any of my other 300 level courses. Go into it with an open mind and just study hard and you should be fine.

 

[DunkinDOnut]

I doubt you are starting with inorganic chemistry. Surely you mean Gen. Chem I.
Org. is not that bad. Don't worry about it. I hated general chemistry and liked organic.
If you must start now, get a textbook and start reading. That's what's great about textbooks; they are condusive to self-teaching.
My advice: don't worry about it.

 

[Cerberus]

Organic chemistry is not a hard course - you just cover a decent amount of material in a short amount of time. Dont be a gunner - just workd hard when you do take it and you'll be fine. Oh, and learn some of your general chem well (most of it is irrelevent to organic) but hybridization and pKa's are important.

 

[cwb]

The problem with organic isn't the difficulty, its the time required. As far as material its probably one of the easiest classes I've ever taken, nothing that they can throw at you will be impossible to understand. However they can throw a lot of information at you at once which is hard if you fall behind.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

as Cantal stated above, the key is to learn the idea and concepts behind the reactions and more importantly the mechanisms. after you fully understand why things happen it just clicks and you're golden. that's what happened with me and a couple other kids in my class, we did well, the ones that memorized couldn't apply the knowledge and would get bogged down with increasing amounts of extraneous information. furthermore, when reviewing for the MCAT, the conceptual frame of mind lends itself more to the refresh of the subject.
as to getting a head start, it can be good if you do it right, I took a semester of OChem in the summer at a state school so that my schedule would be easier on me and then flew through it since I managed to understand it during the summer.

 

[jlee9531]

o-chem is kickass.

you learn a bunch of sweet ass reactions.

and if your teachers are cool, they will actually say why this is even relative by using a modern example.

but yeah. dont worry.

ochem is a subject you need to build a foundation for if you want to learn it. just concentrate on what you need to do first with your other classes.

 

[umass rower]

Don't bother buying books ahead of time. Just make sure you stock up on anal lube.

Or at least that's what I would have done, if I had known then what I know now. My prof was terrible, and so I didn't learn crap. With a decent professor the class probably isn't too bad though.

 

[Nutmeg]

Originally posted by Cerberus
Oh, and learn some of your general chem well (most of it is irrelevent to organic) but hybridization and pKa's are important.

Definitely! But also electronegativity! Central to pretty much everything in ochem. Enjoy!

 

[gdk]

i would also wait to start on organic. just look for a model kit on sale and start reading the back of the shampoo bottle.

you will probably get an intro to organic in gen chem (maybe one chapter). after that you'll have an idea on where to start.

organic really is more like physics than gen chem. in gen chem it's like, you take this and this, how much of that do you get? then you number crunch.

to me, organic is more like "make me this" or "if i mix these two, does anything happen? what? how? name it." you have to know where to start (like drawing the free body diagram in physics - or the lewis dot structure in organic). i would say org uses more applied knowledge than brute force memorization (but don't worry, there will still be plenty of that).