Vintersorg Genesis

[The Nomad]

Originally posted by heather
i personally think organic chemistry is about the coolest subject ever... i keep a world of synthesis in my head... just because i spent far too long memorizing it all in the first place.

The memorization is exactly why I hate organic. I've nothing against chemistry (hell, I'm a ChE), but sweet merciful crap, I can't remember 150+ generalized reactions with catalysts for an exam!

 

[heather]

oh nomad, the beauty is in the details...
if you can simply follow the path of electrons from start to finish, its all in there. every carbonyl reaction is the same, every reduction, oxidation... they're all repetitive.
organic exams were almost fun... i know five different ways to synthesize this molecule from two carbons or less... how do i want to do it? no other course has provided me with such freedom. a person can make anything with the grignard reagent, a carbonyl, and a little PBr3.

 

[The Nomad]

Originally posted by heather
oh nomad, the beauty is in the details...
if you can simply follow the path of electrons from start to finish, its all in there. every carbonyl reaction is the same, every reduction, oxidation... they're all repetitive.

I'm not a fan of details unless they're part of an overall structure that I can grasp and comprehend. And that never happened for Orgo. Perhaps the teaching method isn't the best method (here's a bunch of reactions, go memorize them). But even when I was taught the mechanisms and their basis first, it only helped a little.

The problem is that I usually learn and retain based on concepts that are relatively intuitive or easy to grasp. I can talk your head off on transport phenomena (Mass, Heat, and Momentum transfer), because I can easily understand gradients in those terms. For Organic, the basic concepts are the reaction mechanisms, and I couldn't glean the fundamental principles guiding those. It just seemed like more memorization... and I have the memory of a dead rat.