Is organic chem. easy since it is memorizing?

Question

i mean you need to know sigma and pi bonds from chemistry. molecular orbital theory from chem. then memorize alkanes CnHn+2 stuff like that. 1 h is meth-, 2 H is eth-, 3- prop-, 4- but-. Alkyl is when there is one less hydrogen or phenyl is one less hydrogen to benzene. alcohols. aromatic compounds. chiral(aysmetrical to central atom binding to 4 different atoms). geometric isomer the trans(no dipole) and cis(dipole). chair and boat form. It seems easy to me but is it really easy though like easier than chem?
I know all these from just skimming the a textbook, but is it wise to study organic chem on your own or not?

Answer 1

Depends what you're talking about - some of organic chemistry is memorizing. Other things (reading NMR plots, developing synthesis reactions, understanding chirality/stereoisomers) are not and take some thinking to appreciate. I think it's always wise to study things on your own - self-motivation is the best kind of motivation - but if you have a good teacher available, you might as well make use of 'em. One of the best teachers I ever had was my organic chemistry professor.

Answer 2

College level organic chemistry will be one of the hardest courses you will take up to that point. Memorizing the multitudes of reactions will certainly prove helpful, but not suffice. You can memorize all you want, but that does not always help when given complex molecules to synthesize or react. Organic chemistry brings on mechanisms for reactions, which involve showing how the electrons move in a reaction. Mechanisms for complex reactions are difficult. You also have to deal with steriochemistry of reactions, which also can be very difficult to deal with when complex molecules are presented. There is just a multitude of things that you will learn, that simply cannot be "skimmed" over by reading a textbook. Nomenclature of chemical compounds also is learned in Ochem to an extreme extent.

Simply stated, a lot of the stuff you stated are the absolute basics of what organic chemistry is all about. Alkanes are single bonded carbons, alkenes double bonded, alkynes triple bonded. Phenyl is a triple bonded benzene ring. There are so many reactions with alcohols, reducing them to carbonyl groups, ketones, aldehydes etc, Aromatic compounds are so complex it is hard to describe here. You can add to any one of the alpha para meta positions of the compound and each one requires a different reactant and a different mechanism.

I would def. reccomend that you take this class, and not study it on your own. I'm assuming you are considering taking this as a college course? Anyway, for most majors like pre-med, chemistry, biology it is required to be taken anyways.


(There is absolutely NO mathematics in organic chemistry. Some say that makes it easier, but i disagree)

Good luck!

Answer 3

The basic principles are fairly straightforward, but organic chemistry also focuses on chirality and molecular orbital theory, which are far from easy, especially if you have trouble visualising 3-D molecules. Moreover, merely knowing how individual functional groups behave will not allow you to reliably understand the interactions of complex molecules- the organic component of my degree mostly comprised memorising literally thousands of different chemical reactions. In my opinion it is certainly no easier than any other aspect of chemistry, except perhaps thermodynamics and quantum theory. You could certainly gain a pretty good working knowledge of the subject by independent study, but if you want a detailed understanding I would recommend at least some supervision.

Answer 4

Personally, I don't think organic chemistry as an easy to learn subject, if it were then everyone would be learning about this subject.

Also, you can learn practically anything on your own if you want to and have a desire to do so.

Answer 5

that depends on whether or not you think memorizing is easy