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Organic chemistry, a course considered intimidating by many students, desperately needs an ambassador. California Professor of the Year Neil Garg, who has been wildly successful in getting UCLA students to love organic chemistry, is more than happy to fill that role.
"The field of organic chemistry has made a tremendous mistake," Garg said, "in not showing students and the general public its importance and why they should love it — or at the very least, appreciate it."
That's why Garg cooked up BACON (Biology And Chemistry Online Notes), a set of fun and engaging online tutorials that make connections between organic chemistry and such topics as sports, health, genetics and even popular television shows. Garg's students have been eating it up, and now science educators around are using the tutorials to inspire their students as well.
"BACON makes organic chemistry less intimidating and really helps students learn chemical reactions and retain the knowledge ... while keeping the stress level down, said Michael Bailey, Jr., a UCLA senior and pre-medicine major. "The BACON tutorials completely changed my view of organic chemistry. I laughed, I cried, I learned."
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday October 21 2016, @11:21PM
I don't know shit about general chem, much less O-chem, but the people I've talked to say that it's basically memorization (because there are exceptions to the rules etc.)
Being retarded in chemistry (shit, I couldn't even get sig-figs down) is the main reason why I switched from bio to CS. I was very fortunate my physics professor didn't give a shit about sig-figs or else I would be stuck with my lowly A.S. degree and not about to graduate with my B.S.
The more people who actually have taken at least O-chem actually post here, though, the better this discussion will be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @12:02AM
I am taking second semester O-Chem (required for both chem and bio majors). I hate chemistry but as a biology major I must take all this chemistry.
I agree, most of it just seems like memorization. I'm sure there is logic there someplace but I have yet to figure it out. I feel so retarded when doing chemistry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @01:01AM
I slogged through two semesters of OC to get barely passing grades. It just seemed like mountains of memorization, from the compound names that could be traditional, systematic or completely unrelated, to justifying why reactions didn't complete as intended (the stars/molecules weren't aligned properly...). Practical experiments had to be done in a lab on shitty dirty glassware. I even took PC to see whether it was just organic I couldn't grok, but while it was more interesting, my math didn't match because I had not taken a class in differential equations.
I moved to CS and it was the best thing I did, should have done that from the start, but I didn't know CS was going to be so hot when I graduated. I don't think chem majors are doing so well.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 22 2016, @01:22AM
That's the part that pissed me off about having to memorize all the ions' names in gen chem - the conventions weren't consistent. For Anions you have -ates that are charges -1 and -2 depending on the elements, or an -ate and an -ite for different elements that are both -1. For cations one element's -ous and -ic are +1 and +2; for another element it's -ous and -ic are +2 and +3. And for the sake of tradition and making sense of the madness, our (admittedly competent) professor mandated that we memorize them all. Fuck that. Damn shame, too, because they started doing hydrocarbons right before I dropped.
Before I took that crap I came from electronics, which is much more consistent in its rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @02:34AM
>"the people I've talked to say that it's basically memorization (because there are exceptions to the rules etc.)"
Parent AC here. As I said, they are teaching to their most common customer base: pre-med students. These are people who need training in memorizing every triviality because that is how modern medicine functions. If the tests are designed to ask about all the exceptions rather than the general rules, well, that class will suck for anyone who likes coming up with "universal rules" and the like. In my case I was able to learn the general rules, get an intuitive feel by looking at the structural formula, and get good grades. Maybe I had an exceptional teacher without realizing it, I do remember all the (other; I was only a half assed one) pre-meds struggling constantly though... Or maybe it was just all that cough syrup.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Saturday October 22 2016, @11:18AM
Organic chemistry involves a lot of memorization indeed. I guess it becomes more fun when you have also got your 2.5 years training in practicum under your belt, and can apply what you learned to think up new synthesis pathways.
I specialized in physical chemistry instead (that involves coffee, rollup tobacco, large computers, small plastic models of molecules, and a good 3D imagination).
As part of my training I got 4 semesters of Organic Chemistry, and 2 of Biochemistry I believe, and I was glad to be done with it after my second year. I don't know how to make a Grignard reagent (I suspect it involves magic), and I can't for the life of me remember how to do a cycloaddition, but I know it is difficult.
Those of my compadres that chose the organic chemistry route ended up working in the lab 90% of the time, doing lots of the grunt work like cleaning test tubes, and learning the ropes. From my perspective it looked like a mediæval guild: the master (professor) and journeymen (PhD students) teach the apprentices how not to blow up the lab, and how to remember which of 2 components to keep and which to flush down the drain after a 4 month long, 16-step synthesis.
Remember: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!
The science has advanced enormously since the times of Humphry Davy [wikipedia.org]; lots of Darwin Awards have already been achieved, and you'll probably live almost as long as people in other occupations.
There were some who worked in the organosulphur group, and they were not very popular at parties. The smell cannot be scrubbed off easily.
There seemed to be a lot of "team spirit" amongst the students that chose org. chem; Especially when it was Sinterklaas:
"Zwarte Piet was walking around on the roof of lab building U, when suddenly an enormous flame burst out of a ventilator opening. Of course, it meant that student X had made another mistake at her nitration experiment!"
And that you're careful and conscientious and helpful to you practicum partners in trouble, doesn't mean that you can't have the occasional laugh with surplus liquid Nitrogen.
(Score: 2, Informative) by soybp on Saturday October 22 2016, @06:28PM
My background is Chemical Engineering and I have remained in a university setting for analytical chemistry for 25+ years. I do computational analysis and am therefore also the 'IT guy' in most crowds. As such I can relate to the view of both chemists and computer specialists.
One key point about the 'memorization' aspect of chemistry is that there are several levels of STEM classes such as mathematics and chemisty which are taught to varying groups. Just as one can follow the 'calculus series for non-scientists' series (this also includes Pre-Med), one can follow the 'chemistry series for non-scientists'. In both cases the 'non-scientists' version does not focus on logic and derivation from first principles, but instead uses more 'take this as a given' approaches which do not give the low-level understanding needed in my opinion to actually practice the field. As such, many introductory chemistry classes tend to be somewhat nonsensical and focused on memorization as indicated above.
My advice to students nowadays is that the 'hardest series' of both math and chem classes are the easiest, because they focus on fundamentals and tend to build the ability to think in terms of the needed background to solve problems.
Perhaps my intended insight is this: If you talk to those whom took the 'non scientists' version of calculus, you will find they probably do not use calculus after leaving college, and may have had a bad experience with not understanding it. However if you talk to practicing engineers/scientists (who likely took the math/chem for scientists/engineers), it is much more likely (in my experience) to find they enjoy and use what the mathematics they studied in college. In my view, this relationship also exists among those who studied chemistry in college. In my case, the extremely logical book for O-chem and excellent chem professors I had as an undergrad made it so interesting I was compelled to add chemistry to my engineering toolbox.