My daughter (sophomore in neuroscience) is taking it this semester and it has been her most challenging class by far. She is managing to hold on to a B but it is taking more work than any of her other classes. She is going to office hours and study sessions. We have offered to get her extra tutoring but so far she has resisted. She does not want to go into medicine but it's still required for her major.

Anonymous wrote:(If someone dislikes working with patients then I recommend pathology.)

lol

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

I have heard some say that BioChem is harder than Organic Chem.

Maybe for a few rare professors, but biochem is mostly an intro level course that is just getting kids started on the concepts of proteins, structure-function, enzymes, metabolism and other basic concepts. It gets very hard at the graduate level, but the intro class usually isn't too bad.

In thought orgo was far easier than biochem. In orgo the reactions follow rules that make sense.

In biochemistry most of the action is by enzymes, which can easily break the “rules” - for instance, there are hydronium ions (H-) all over the place in biochemistry, which is nuts.

Orgo = learn some rules and reason it out
Biochem = memorization

Anonymous wrote:Get the textbook solution manual. Do every problem in the book. Get old exams. Do all those problems, you can memorize you have to practice a ton.

This?

https://a.co/d/dA4dIFF

Anonymous wrote:Anyone on this thread recommend a chemistry major for a science-oriented Sr?

I’m the doc who worked in industry as an organic chemist for a few years (technically a BS level medicinal chemist)

I’m glad I majored in chemistry because it’s fun (tho I agree with the person above that quantum mechanics is a nightmare - it’s just so bizarre).

After seeing how industry works, I went to med school. Industry is unstable - they will just eliminate a division if a drug candidate looks like it will fail. Lots of layoffs. Also, there’s a bunch of dopey MDs running the show in industry and telling the super-smart PhDs what to do (and sometimes the MDs demand that the chemists to do really dumb things).

I think I’d stay away from academia as a chemist, too. So much luck and politics are involved, and there are so few jobs.

If you like chemistry I strongly recommend medicine.

Agree with the person above that each patient is like an organic synthesis in that you need to reason each patient’s symptoms out.

Let’s say you have an anemic pt and want to know why. You put together the pts age, sex, lab values, medications, medical history, etc etc, and try to piece the puzzle back together.

And when you are stuck, you go on pubmed and get together with colleagues to try to hash it out and see if they have any ideas. It’s fun! Each of my patients is like an organic synthesis - I just have to run it backwards to figure out where things went wrong and how we can work together to fix it!

(If someone dislikes working with patients then I recommend pathology.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

I have heard some say that BioChem is harder than Organic Chem.

Maybe for a few rare professors, but biochem is mostly an intro level course that is just getting kids started on the concepts of proteins, structure-function, enzymes, metabolism and other basic concepts. It gets very hard at the graduate level, but the intro class usually isn't too bad.

Anonymous wrote:Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

So much if how you feel about these classes is really how your brain works. I loves orgo and went on to get a PhD in it. My second favorite classes was quantum chem and I added a physics minor so I could take more quantum mechanics. So interesting and fun.

Biology majors and pre-meds seem to really struggle with these classes because they're so used to being able to just memorize for the test. When I was teaching orgo, they'd even come to me and ask how to do a problem and I'd start to show them. They'd stop me and say they just wanted the answer to memorize. That's absolutely the wrong way to learn organic chemistry. You have to treat it like math and solve the problems. I know the reactions have names, but that's not the same as anatomy where you can just flashcard your way through the course. You have to think and understand. That's why med schools use it as a weed out class--you don't want doctors who can't think and solve problems.

Anonymous wrote:Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

chemist here again...let you kid know this is a popular type of final exam question (at least 30 years ago it was). How to you make "x" starting with A and/or B/C. If I remember correctly, ours was how to make polyethylene starting with ethanol.

Anonymous wrote:Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

I have heard some say that BioChem is harder than Organic Chem.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone on this thread recommend a chemistry major for a science-oriented Sr?

As a chem major myself, unless they're committed to going the academic route, not really. If someone likes Chem I'd consider Chem E or Materials Science.

Chemist here, yes orgo is hard, and for non chem majors it will probably be the hardest class they ever take. For chemists, I actually thought quantum chem was a nightmare.

They call it a pre-med weed class, and my bro couldn't hack it and dropped his desire to be a doctor. and I think this is why it's a weed class...

It teaches a level of logic you don't see in other STEM majors in that it involves both visual and order awareness, which I think is a necessary skill if your ever want to be a surgeon. Orgo also requires more memorization then needed in maths or physics. I honestly trust doctors who majored in chemistry better than other docs lol.

I had flash cards for orgo that I still have in my desk! Each reaction had it's own flashcard and I memorized those cards until I could visualize each one in my head, so when I saw the rxn on a test I could draw it with no prob at all.

Anyone on this thread recommend a chemistry major for a science-oriented Sr?

Get the textbook solution manual. Do every problem in the book. Get old exams. Do all those problems, you can memorize you have to practice a ton.

I was a ChemE and my experience was that ChemEs did better in Chem than the pure science majors. OChem is all about the process - how to get to an end molecule and so you have to understand what would happen if you add certain reagents. It’s a thinking man’s chemistry.

Also chiral centers and enantiomers requires good special awareness. You can’t just memorize them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do they need to weed out pre-med? We need more doctors!

Becoming a doctor should be very difficult to do!

Anonymous wrote:This was the worst class for many of my doctor friends and known as the weed out class. One got a C in the class, but still managed to get into a Top 15 medical school.

apparently not?