Organic Chemistry: What is it?

[Nocturnal]

What is it about? Why are you required to take it? I keep hearing about it. I know minendo just took his final in o chem 2. Sounds really hard. Care to explain?

 

[BigKev]

I'm no chemistry buff but isn't that the stuff with alcohols, al kynes, aldehydes, esters, etc?

 

[JohnCU]

It's the study of carbon compounds. Anything with carbon is classified as organic, I believe.

It's super hard, or was for me and all I did was an intro chapter, naming stuff like 6,5-Trinefrizone or something.

 

[dighn]

chem that deals with stuff with carbons in it

 

[Nocturnal]

What major normally requires this course? Minendo, what are you majoring in?

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
What major normally requires this course? Minendo, what are you majoring in?

Most science majors require some organic chemistry. For my degree, I am required to have two semesters of it. O Chem I was bad, but O Chem II is pure hell.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: minendo

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
What major normally requires this course? Minendo, what are you majoring in?

Most science majors require some organic chemistry. For my degree, I am required to have two semesters of it. O Chem I was bad, but O Chem II is pure hell.

What are you majoring in again?

 

[minendo]

Food Science/Food Processing

 

[Kenny1234]

Organic chem is nothing like the first year of chem in college. It has nothing to do with math. I deals a lot with how and why certain reageants react. Like the steric(the arrangement of atoms in space) affects that cause certian things to happen. There are a lot of mechanisms that you have to know. I n fact there is just a lot of crap that you have tomemorize and apply.

 

[Kenny1234]

Originally posted by: JohnCU

It's super hard, or was for me and all I did was an intro chapter, naming stuff like 6,5-Trinefrizone or something.

The naming of the compounds is one of the easiest parts of organic chem. There are a few rules to follow and if you know them its quite easy. The only hard part with naming is when they use the common names for compunds.

 

[alee25]

i just finished taking one full year of organic chem at berkeley, and i work in an ochem research lab. It is the study of the organic compounds (ie compounds composed of C,H,N,O,S halogens, etc.) It consits of things like naming compounds (very basic), predicting chemical properties, and most importantly the synthesis of new compounds. It is like a puzzle, often times being very interesting and challanging.

 

[JACKHAMMER]

I thought Organic was easy, it is P chem that kicked my a$$

 

[Helixate1]

As Kenny1234 said, it is a lot of memorization. Not so much math compared to inorganic chem. Now, the organic chem labs will still have math in them. If you wait until the night before to study, you are screwed. If you halfway keep up between exams, then you will be ok.

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: minendo

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
What major normally requires this course? Minendo, what are you majoring in?

Most science majors require some organic chemistry. For my degree, I am required to have two semesters of it. O Chem I was bad, but O Chem II is pure hell.

I actually did a lot better in Organic II than I, mostly because I didn't know what the h*ll I was doing in my first semester; the transition from general chem to organic is huge, you start doing "real" chemistry instead of plugging in equations into your calculator. After the final exam (studying nonstop for days) things finally came together in my head and so by the start of the next semester, I was rocking.

 

[theNEOone]

yah, o chem I and II are pretty easy. just involves memorizing chemical reactions. some spatial orientation skills are helpful. some problems require you to think through 7-8 steps of reactions (let's say the prof asks you to synthesize a particular chemical given A, and you can use any basic organic compounds in any relevent solvents and in the presence of accessory compounds, i.e. platinum etc.) but these steps are pretty logical and again, it helps tremendously if you know your reactions. p chem is much harder.


=|

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Organic chemistry is just the study of carbon-based molecules and the reactions they participate in. You need to study it for pretty much any health science and all chemical-related majors (Chem Eng, for instance). What little I've seen of it seems like a major snoozefest. Then again I'm sure a lot of people find that designing nMOS circuits isn't exactly the worlds most exciting subject, but I find it interesting.