Anonymous wrote:A trend now is to take OChem in the summer at a community college and then repeat it at your 4-year. You aren't using the CC class for credit, but to prepare you to get a good grade in the one that matters.

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

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Anonymous wrote:Who calls it orgo?

It was called Orgo by all the premeds at Georgetown in the 90s. This isn’t new.

I was a ChemE major and I never heard Orgo before DCUM. We call it OChem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who calls it orgo?

It was called Orgo by all the premeds at Georgetown in the 90s. This isn’t new.

I was a ChemE major and I never heard Orgo before DCUM. We call it OChem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who calls it orgo?

It was called Orgo by all the premeds at Georgetown in the 90s. This isn’t new.

Anonymous wrote:Who calls it orgo?

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Anonymous wrote:In my sophomore year, I withdrew from orgo 2 weeks in and made arrangements to take it at summer school. I couldn’t manage the bandwidth it took to think through the reactions plus 4 other courses. Once I was in the summer class and thinking about nothing but orgo (and my mindless 2nd shift job), it finally made sense and came together.

Finding a summer orgo class that you can transfer may be the answer. I was not pre-med but my class was 98% pre-meds who knew the secret.

Another option, is to find a OC class at a community college that the university will accept. My brother did that years ago and it was the only way he would have made it through pharmacy school.
I have a PhD in Chem and hated Organic.

I’m the PP you’re replying to and I was at an Ivy. We were allowed to transfer in 2 outside classes so I went home to a local small, private university with a strong nursing program to take orgo. I chose it based on affordable cost and reputation of the course and professor. Kids from my HS passed down the info about the class.

Start asking around- kids who are seniors in college or in med school who went to your kid’s high school will have local recommendations.

Even if your college accepts the transfer, how do you know the medical school you apply to will view it as the same rigor?

Orgo is the same rigor whenever you go. This isn’t high school honors history vs. regular history. Score well on your MCATs, get a great GPA and get As in all your pre-reqs and no one will question rigor.

Now if you had a lot of Cs in pre-reqs at your Ivy and an A in a pre-req at a non-Ivy, then yeah, it would raise red flags

Anonymous wrote:Who calls it orgo?

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Anonymous wrote:The professors also all hate organic so you often don’t get the best instruction.
My kid is at a top 10 school and getting bs and cs in orgo — her chem advisor says she’s doing fine with those grades. Her other classes are all super easy for her—this is the only slog. But it really depends a lot on the school — it’s hard everywhere but in some schools, it’s really hard and C is considered a pretty good grade. Some other top schools grade inflate a little more and do like a B curve instead of a C curve.

I’ll never forget an orgo test with the top score setting the curve from a 36/100.

What is the point of an exam where the best student only gets 36%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The professors also all hate organic so you often don’t get the best instruction.
My kid is at a top 10 school and getting bs and cs in orgo — her chem advisor says she’s doing fine with those grades. Her other classes are all super easy for her—this is the only slog. But it really depends a lot on the school — it’s hard everywhere but in some schools, it’s really hard and C is considered a pretty good grade. Some other top schools grade inflate a little more and do like a B curve instead of a C curve.

I’ll never forget an orgo test with the top score setting the curve from a 36/100.

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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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my sophomore year, I withdrew from orgo 2 weeks in and made arrangements to take it at summer school. I couldn’t manage the bandwidth it took to think through the reactions plus 4 other courses. Once I was in the summer class and thinking about nothing but orgo (and my mindless 2nd shift job), it finally made sense and came together.

Finding a summer orgo class that you can transfer may be the answer. I was not pre-med but my class was 98% pre-meds who knew the secret.

Another option, is to find a OC class at a community college that the university will accept. My brother did that years ago and it was the only way he would have made it through pharmacy school.
I have a PhD in Chem and hated Organic.

I’m the PP you’re replying to and I was at an Ivy. We were allowed to transfer in 2 outside classes so I went home to a local small, private university with a strong nursing program to take orgo. I chose it based on affordable cost and reputation of the course and professor. Kids from my HS passed down the info about the class.

Start asking around- kids who are seniors in college or in med school who went to your kid’s high school will have local recommendations.

Even if your college accepts the transfer, how do you know the medical school you apply to will view it as the same rigor?

Orgo is the same rigor whenever you go. This isn’t high school honors history vs. regular history. Score well on your MCATs, get a great GPA and get As in all your pre-reqs and no one will question rigor.

Now if you had a lot of Cs in pre-reqs at your Ivy and an A in a pre-req at a non-Ivy, then yeah, it would raise red flags

Anonymous wrote:The professors also all hate organic so you often don’t get the best instruction.
My kid is at a top 10 school and getting bs and cs in orgo — her chem advisor says she’s doing fine with those grades. Her other classes are all super easy for her—this is the only slog. But it really depends a lot on the school — it’s hard everywhere but in some schools, it’s really hard and C is considered a pretty good grade. Some other top schools grade inflate a little more and do like a B curve instead of a C curve.