Gardening and Greenhouse

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There is good news and not such good news. The good news. Depending on who teaches the class, there is not a great deal of information that you must know from general chemistry for organic chemistry. There is much more transference from general chemistry to organic chemistry lab.

The not so good news. A problem with chemistry is that although we like to think that the sciences are very black and white, right and wrong, you will find that organic chemistry is more gray. Here are some paradoxes you will encounter in organic chemistry. From the electronegativity tables, carbon is more electronegative than hydrogen yet it is a better electron donor than hydrogen or that iodide has the least ionic content in a reaction yet it ionizes the most easily. Fluoride has the most ionic content yet it resists forming an ion. You will need to have two thoughts. One for the chemistry and one for your professor. If your professor tells you fluoride has the highest ionic content, then it does. If you are predicting reactions, you will know that iodide is the best leaving group because it forms an anion most easily. You can read my thoughts on this here, http://www.curvedarrowpress.com/tloc/electronegativity.html.

Overall, I was never concerned about students having even had general chemistry or not. I think it could and should be taught before general chemistry.

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I agree with the first poster, and will provide some other “good” reasons your school should have this class.

1) Self Defense. Bugs are the biggest threat to human existence, and you won’t know how to use pesticide unless you undergo a very careful year-long study structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation and/or synthesis of carbon compounds, hydrocarbons, and derivatives. All exterminators have done this, which is why they do occasionally dangerous things for not much money instead of working in chemistry labs at major universities. They are so busy thinking about how great their jobs are and how happy they were that taking organic chemistry allowed them to hold those positions that they won’t be able to answer your call or help you defend yourself against terrible giant mutant insects. Only you can do this, not professionals, not adults in your family, only you. And if you don’t take O chem you won’t know how to aim for the bugs and press the trigger on the pesticide spray.

2) Saves money. Your dean will say its too expensive to hire a new teacher with a grad degree, but you can assure her that all of the students who want this class like you (I’m guessing there are many others, right? A bunch of kids who don’t like free time, extracurriculars, getting exercise through sports, but instead want to major in chemistry or biochemistry in college and get all of the credits NOW) will graduate with a full understanding of all the college-junior level material. You’ve heard of a lot of people who act this way, right?

3) You Deserve It. Your parents pay tuition/tax dollars, and that entitles you to this kind of educational challenge. Taking organic chemistry without second-level high chemistry (equal to first year college chemistry) is like trying to take AP Calculus BC without Algebra II, but you all are totally smart enough to overcome this small technical problem. You can learn 2 years of material in one, and it doesn’t matter if that places an unfair burden on your teacher, or distracts from you pursuing something that could potentially make the school look better. After all your school has probably done for you, it only makes sense for them to help you pursue your farfetched interests further now instead of later, when others take organic chemistry classes.

4) It’s Not Like You Want to Take Anything Else. Let me guess, you’ve already taken Earth Science and Biology and/or Chemistry 1. You want a premedical degree in biology, but it’s not like you want to take Bio II at the AP level. You’d like to major in math, but you don’t care at all about physics, which most colleges require for admittance. You are also not interested in taking Chemistry level 2. Clearly the most strategic thing for you to do here is take organic chemistry instead of other science classes, and to get ahead in one highly specific area instead of being a well-rounded high school student in sciences and math as well as the humanities and communications departments. You don’t need to write or think analytically to fulfill the english and history requirements that will be leveled at you even if you major in science, and doctors don’t need to know much about critical thinking, only how to use pesticide. Obviously.

5) Make Your School Famous. Hurray, your high school will be the only college prep school to offer a complete organic chemistry class. Some math/science specific public high schools have a basic introduction that only covers nomenclature, basic chemical reactions, and infrared (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and that alternates with teaching of AP Chem, but yours will be revolutionary, especially since it has figured out how to offer 4+ hours of lab time without counting normal lecture time to a group of high school students meant to take other classes that meet 4 or 5 times a week. What kind of school doesn’t want to be famous?

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Well…I have good news and bad news. The good news: organic chemistry really has nothing to do with general/inorganic chemistry. You’ll be working with organic molecules and learning how to name them, identify them, how to synthesize them, etc… Concepts you learned in gen chem may be brought up, but they’ll be explained if it is relevant to what you’re learning. So I wouldn’t worry about refreshing. The bad news, organic chemistry is NOT easy. I’m taking o. Chem II right now as a 4 week summer course (I just took o. Chem I last month) and I can honestly say I’ve never had a more difficult course in my life. O. Chem I wasn’t too bad, I ended up with an A-. It’s basically an introduction to everything, but make sure you understand and remember all of it because you’ll need it for the second semester. O. Chem II is ridiculous. It is CRUCIAL that you pay attention in class and keep up with the practice problems in the book. Memorizing the material (especially the reactions) is not enough. You have to understand why compounds react the way they do. There is a lot of info to learn and if you try and wait the night before a test to study, you’ll fail the test. I’m not trying to scare you, and keep in mind I’m taking it as a 4 week course (8 weeks in total) so it probably is more difficult compared to taking it for a year, but I want you to be prepared because many students don’t really think it’s that bad and a significant amount end up failing. Buy an o. Chem book now and try getting a head start. It is possible to earn an A, but you’re going to have to want it, and you will suffer many nights (and with me…basically every night lol) but it’s worth it. I just got a 98% (class average was 72%) on my first test because I literally killed myself to make sure I was prepared for the exam. Now some students say that’s it easy, others say its impossible, but to me I think that the ease of the tests depend on how hard you study and prepare. So good luck!!!! Buy an o. Chem book now and start cracking. You’ll thank yourself.

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You need to know elementry chemistry fairly well before you can lay hand on organic chemistry.
You must have a good understabding of chapters / portions relat to structure of atom, bonding, hybridization, shape of molecules, electronic displacement, polarity, cause of reactivity, etc.

If you study regularly without getting scared / afraid of organic chemistry. Slowly you may fall in love with it. If you do not try to understand and depend only on memorizing it then you are bound to hate it and run away from it.
Try to hold the knowledge which you have acqired and began to understand. Because what you learn today will be used later on to undersatand more of organic chemistry.

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Information is below.

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Although it is indeed the same material, grading standards vary widely. For this reason the most selective medical schools do indeed “frown” upon taking organic chem at a community college. I don’t necessarily agree with this, but it is true.

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Organic chem is important for chemical engineering, I have finished my chemistry requirement for chemical engineering and I find that organic chem really complements my knowledge especially in material science class and later on when we’ll take polymer science classes and also when you take petroleum engineering classes.
My advice is enjoy a full year of organic chem, because its really a challenge to complete it and it makes you a better engineer!