Mary, I completely agree. I love chemistry. Especially o-chem. I was amazed by the number of people I took o-chem with who tried to memorize everything, instead of approaching it like a puzzle and in a “okay what do know” way when looking at a given problem. That being said, a good instructor makes all the difference. The esoteric types who either can’t teach or feel superior because they know the material 
and you don’t can take the wind out of anyone’s sails. The bain of my existence was physics. Got the concepts, hated the way it was taught. The verbage tripped me up.
Hi! I took general chemistry in 1996 and liked it despite the fact that it was a lot of work. I am starting a post-bacc this Fall and I am a bit concerned about O-Chem. For those of you who did well and liked the class, can you give us some pointers on how to do well and enjoy the experience? How much of Gen Chem does one have to be proficient in before taking O-Chem? Have a great day!
My advice for organic… Don’t get behind in the material. And learn to follow the electrons. There wasn’t as much gen chem as I thought there would be.
Good luck.
Hot on the heels of having knocked my quiz right out of the park, I have some ideas on enjoying o-chem ('cause I do enjoy it. I just don’t always enjoy the exams.) And thanks to the Miracle of the Quiz, I now have a 94.6 average to back my claims of doing well. Sure, it’s an A- but it’s a VERY HIGH A-.
The things to remember from general chemistry are acid-base chemistry, the general concept of pKa and equilibrium, polarity, Lewis acids and bases, and drawing Lewis structures really, really fast.
That’s it. You may not need your calculator at all.
Keys to success (not all of which I did regularly) are:
When you are introduced to a new reaction mechanism, draw it two or three (or more) times in succession, with and without the notes, to make sure you can follow where the little electrons are going and why. Establish the habit of getting every lone pair in there, writing down every formal charge, getting your curly arrows pointing in the right direction, so it’s automatic. Do it until it’s so automatic that you’re bored with it. If you have trouble with the concepts, the workbook “Pushing Electrons” is supposed to be very helpful. Here’s an important thing: IF THE REACTION IS REVERSIBLE, DRAW IT OUT GOING FRONTWARDS AND BACKWARDS TWO OR THREE TIMES. Start at the beginning, go to the end, and turn right around and go all the way back. This is a great help, and doing it last night is the reason I knocked my quiz out of the park this morning.
Take the reaction summary at the end of each chapter and make stupid little flash cards to learn the reagents and what the results are. No matter how many TAs tell you not to bother with this, do it anyway. When you want to brominate an alcohol and you’re doing a synthesis problem on an exam, you want to be able to spit out those reagents on the paper lickety-split.
Which brings us to 3: Once synthesis is introduced, do all the synthesis problems you can. There’s a mindset and a strategy to doing synthesis (as with any other puzzle) and you get better with practice. It also cements the reagents from your flashcards in your mind.
Tidbit–it is helpful to use a model kit when cyclohexane rings are introduced. After that I never used it again. the
If you write the reaction mechanisms, memorize the reagents, and practice synthesis, you’ll do fine.
Thanks Denise! I’m going to save this for when I’m in org. chemistry!
Denise,
I am doing the dance of joy!!! Gold star, gold star, gold star. You are on your way!!! You can remove my spleen anytime!!!
PS Everything you said, pointer wise about succeeding in o-chem. shows how well you know it. 
Great advice. Another thing that I found really useful was Barron’s “Orgo Cards”. It’s a set of high quality reaction flashcards divide by compound type with other misc information thrown in. Much neater and nicer than trying to draw my own…
Thank you for the advice on O-Chem. I am not sure if I will be taking it next semester or if I have to retake Gen Chem even though I had As in both classes. I am waiting to talk to an advisor.
I’ve probably posted about this before, but anyway, here was what I did. I didn’t use flashcards at all. Instead I’d take a blank piece of paper and draw a functional group in the middle of it. Then I’d draw arrows radiating outwards. On top of each arrow I’d write in some reagent, say hot potassium permanganate or whatever, and at the tip of the arrow I’d draw the product, like a ketone or something. I’d tend to draw similar reactions next to each other. If there were three ways to oxidize an alkene, say, then the products and necessary reagents were all there on one part of the same page for me, where I could see and compare them. This worked wonders in my experience.
I did the same thing for the synthesis of each functional group, except with the arrows pointing the other direction.
Oh and I wrote or drew details near the products. If the product was a vicinal diol, I showed that; if it was a gem diol, I showed that. Same for markovnikov, anti-markov, etc. I never managed to memorize all the details, but at least I usually had an idea what was probably going on.
As far as mechanisms, I just drew them over and over. Also, I tried to group similar mechanisms together. The complicated ones in orgo 2 are often variations of nucleophilic attack. I tried to learn things in groups that way.
Good luck!
I think the ‘visual organizer’ is a great idea. Our Orgo professor introduced us to the exact same thing you are talking about - he said that’s how he learned it back in the day.
One addition to that - I made two distinct variations of each major reaction type. In one, I had a product with where I blanked out the reagents and middle steps. In the other, I blanked out the products but left the arrow with reagants and middle steps. Then made copies of each, and when I was studying, I ‘filled’ this out. If you are a visual person, this helps tons during the test, because you know where to ‘look’ in you memory to find the right reaction.
Good Luck
M