4 replies to this topic

[Lain]

I'm on my second semester of organic chemistry in university, and it's really not as difficult as some people claim it to be. I also haven't done a lot of memorization yet, even though I've learned at least fifteen to twenty types of reactions thus far. I suppose it helps that I've done a little organic chemistry in high school (though we mostly went over stereochemistry), but I felt that the subject matter was pretty straightforward for the most part. Or at least, it seemed to me that most of the reactions occured for some known reason.

The laboratory component of the course was less fun. Many of the reactions done in lab take a lot of time (usually at least three hours), and we're only working with small amounts of material. I'm still pretty bad at doing thin-layer chromatography (TLC) too, which is bad considering how often we tend to do it to test for product purity. In any case, I still plan on signing up to do laboratory work under my organic chemistry professor.

So how about Wii U forums? Has anyone studied this subject? Anyone going to study it in school? Chemistry, I believe, is the physics of electrons. Organic chemistry focuses on organic (carbon-containing) compounds, but is still very much about the activity of electrons.

[Occult Satanist]

I've messed with some chemical mixtures of sorts and my grandpa can make just about anything blow up (way larger then firework level explosion) and he does it by making his own chemical mixtures, he learned a lot of it from the military but as a kid he also messed with things so as to pun people... I may study different areas of chemistry if i go into the weaponology field...i took physics last year and it was fun, the only problem was the teacher graded unfairly and picked favorites

Edited by CAPU-CHU, 13 February 2013 - 10:18 PM.

[meitantei_conan]

Im taking intro to organic chem right now, first year. lol. so fare its ok i dont like the labs either they are too long. I have one today and it goes from 2 to 7 pm i dont even get home till 9 sometimes -.-' , also i have 3 other courses before that. I dont find it that hard. I like all the diagram stuff, seems like im the only one who can do chair and boat configurations without a model kit XD and we also just got into doing reactions so cant say to much about that.

[dmann]

My major is mechanical Engineering, but I did organic chemistry as a tech elective, and I agree that it is a fun class to do, the labs are more interactive than a fluids mechanics lab or a heat transfer lab.

[Lain]

Im taking intro to organic chem right now, first year. lol. so fare its ok i dont like the labs either they are too long. I have one today and it goes from 2 to 7 pm i dont even get home till 9 sometimes -.-' , also i have 3 other courses before that. I dont find it that hard. I like all the diagram stuff, seems like im the only one who can do chair and boat configurations without a model kit XD and we also just got into doing reactions so cant say to much about that.

I never invested in a model kit either, though I feel I should because I'm terrible at visualizing rotations about sigma bonds. So telling if two things are the same molecule or not can be pretty frustrating. If you are doing first semester topics, you may end up doing substitution, elimination, various addition, and alcohol reactions. They aren't so bad in my opinion, but people tend to memorize through a lot of the reactions. It's definitely best to just do a mechanism for each thing, because they effectively explain why the reaction occurs. It's good practice for synthesis type problems too later down the line.

I think the only things I did try to memorize were what the good bases and nucleophiles were. pKa values for certain functional groups too.

My major is mechanical Engineering, but I did organic chemistry as a tech elective, and I agree that it is a fun class to do, the labs are more interactive than a fluids mechanics lab or a heat transfer lab.

A lot of our applied math majors do organic chemistry as an elective too, though I think only a quarter of them actually partake in labs. I haven't taken any physics classes besides the general physics series (which I'm still doing actually), but I guess I could agree with you on the labs haha. In general, I think the chemistry labs are my favorite. Marine biology is maybe the only non-chemistry (though not really) lab I enjoyed.