4 ms·

I have an NYU chemistry degree and I took quite a lot of organic. I wasn’t pre-med and had planned, at the time, to get a PhD with research in organic chemistry

I have an NYU chemistry degree and I took quite a lot of organic. I wasn’t pre-med and had planned, at the time, to get a PhD with research in organic chemistry/material science. Even though my classes were with this guy’s predecessor’s predecessor, everything described about the challenge of this class and the complaints from premeds was exactly the same ~20 years ago. Organic Chemistry 1, 2 and 3 at NYU have always been considered challenging and “weed out”. I was and am very proud of my moderately successful academics in chemistry from NYU and find it a bit sad that the expectations given to me are changing.

Ekaros 4y ago
When I start to think about. Organic chemistry is in subset of courses that actually train people for their work, that is being in chemistry. So everyone should expect certain level of competence from those passing the course. Now to use it for filtering med-school students seems the broken aspect.
shbooms 4y ago
> Organic Chemistry 1, 2 and 3 at NYU have always been considered challenging and “weed out”. It seems this "weed out" culture around orgo is very much an established thing in the world of the sciences/pre-med which is a little strange to someone like me that is not in that world. How come one particular subject is used so universally to weed people out as opposed to just weeding out the bottom x% of people with lowest overall GPA's? Is orgo so much more important to scientists and medical professional compared to other subjects such as biology, anatomy, etc?
- johnkpaul 4y ago
  It’s “weed out” from the perspective of medical schools, not chemistry path people. It is a challenging subject for many, but the people who aren’t premed have an inherent interest to work through the material, imho. I think that if the MCAT removed all organic chemistry, organic would lose all the “weed out” categorization

Ekaros 4y ago

When I start to think about. Organic chemistry is in subset of courses that actually train people for their work, that is being in chemistry. So everyone should expect certain level of competence from those passing the course. Now to use it for filtering med-school students seems the broken aspect.

shbooms 4y ago

> Organic Chemistry 1, 2 and 3 at NYU have always been considered challenging and “weed out”. It seems this "weed out" culture around orgo is very much an established thing in the world of the sciences/pre-med which is a little strange to someone like me that is not in that world. How come one particular subject is used so universally to weed people out as opposed to just weeding out the bottom x% of people with lowest overall GPA's? Is orgo so much more important to scientists and medical professional compared to other subjects such as biology, anatomy, etc?

johnkpaul 4y ago
It’s “weed out” from the perspective of medical schools, not chemistry path people. It is a challenging subject for many, but the people who aren’t premed have an inherent interest to work through the material, imho. I think that if the MCAT removed all organic chemistry, organic would lose all the “weed out” categorization