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> As for the inevitability, organic chemistry, at least as it's currently taught, is hard, involving a mix of memorization and problem solving (see today's Nobe

> As for the inevitability, organic chemistry, at least as it's currently taught, is hard, involving a mix of memorization and problem solving (see today's Nobel Prize coverage if you want a greater sense of why). The memorization can be compared to committing dozens of flow charts to your brain, as each type of reaction will need different conditions and catalysts depending on the precise nature of the starting materials. Armed with that memorization, people are then ready for problem-solving: figuring out which combinations of reactions will build simple raw materials into a complex chemical like an antibiotic or polymer. This "organic chemistry is hard" idea gets trotted out pretty frequently. The paradox is that premeds also need to take classes in physiology, which in involves a lot of... you guessed it - memorization. Maybe more memorization. That said, there are as many ways to teach this course as there are teachers. I suspect some emphasize memorization because that's the easiest kind of knowledge to test for. But when approached conceptually, organic chemistry requires little more memorization than any serious scientific topic.

mjhay 4y ago
I've never taken any chemistry, but everyone seems to have horror stories. It seems like chemistry is uniquely obsessed with memorization. I can't fathom the purpose of memorizing the periodic table - who cares? Why not focus on what the periodic table actually means?
- kaesar14 4y ago
  My education only went as far as AP Chemistry in high school but we did no such memorization of periodic table. The table is organized in a way that's extremely informative with regards to ionic charge and element classification. It pretty much is exactly what you say re: learning what the periodic table means. Any high level chemistry class that's focused on such trivial memorization is doing a huge disservice to its students. The memorization bits come with remembering nomenclature and equilibriums, which you just kinda have to memorize or you're not really learning any chemistry at all. They're the building blocks of all higher level chemistry that come after, organic or inorganic.
  - mjhay 4y ago
    That sounds fine. Obviously some memorization is avoidable, but it seems like many classes just do memorization for its own sake - either to give the professors an unwarranted sense of superiority or just laziness.
    - kaesar14 4y ago
      Yeah, I think is more of an organic chemistry thing which I only got to at the end of my class so hopefully some other commenter can provide more color there. I will say the experience I had there made Orgo seem more like a language than a science - there's no way to talk about Orgo without memorizing the language as you would with French or Spanish. But again, I don't have the right context to push that analogy further
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Why do language courses ask students to memorize the meaning of the letters of the alphabet? How are you going to keep up with a chemistry course if you have to consult documentation every time you encounter Pb to remember that means lead? Organic chemistry entails a lot more memorization than that, but memorizing the periodic table at least is simply table stakes for entry level highschool chemistry. Memorizing the periodic table is month one of 10th grade chemistry 1. What the periodic table means is also taught at the same time, and is trickier than the basic memorization. Most students can get the basic memorization of the periodic table figured out in a week or two with a stack of flash cards. If you can't manage that much, what's the point in going further?
- guhidalg 4y ago
  Forget about the word memorization for a moment. How did you learn to program? You probably had someone show you the syntax, you wrote a few basic programs, learned OOP, and then you took an algorithms class. Did you need to take an algorithms class to become a productive programmer? Probably not but it certainly helped you, and maybe you "memorized" a few techniques along the way (time complexity analysis, BFS, DFS, heaps, data structures, etc...). These techniques, as varied and general as we believe they are, are merely human inventions. We, the computer science community, discovered these in the 20th century and have been using them for less than a century. There is no way to accidentally kill someone while programming, modulo military and health care. Chemistry is not like that. Chemistry kills people as much as it saves people. Mediocre chemists are at risk of accidentally killing themselves and others. Mediocre chemists "forget" the order you're supposed to mix an acid and water in (do you kill someone if you do obj == null instead of null == obj?). Mediocre chemists "forget" to work in a fume hood with volatile species. Mediocre chemists "forget" what type of container a substance needs to be stored in. Mediocre chemists "forget" what catalyst is needed for a reaction. The cost of forgetting something in chemistry is at best a failed experiment, at worst death. Organic chemistry is the first class where you start dealing with potentially deadly substances, so ya it's hard not to die or injure/kill your lab mates and if you don't like it then you should switch to an easier major. Source: I entered college as a materials science major, took up to organic chemistry, said fuck this and switch to CS.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"I entered college as a materials science major, took up to organic chemistry, said fuck this and switch to CS." Rumor has it, this is precisely why Organic Chemistry has the reputation for being brutally difficult throughout the university system, as it is meant to filter out students early on in their studies.
    - djmips 4y ago
      Yeah, maybe they would have been a brilliant materials scientist. I think they are justifying their decision with this talk about 'killing someone' - I feel that's way overblown.
- FiatLuxDave 4y ago
  It's not about memorizing the periodic table, it is memorizing the mapping from names to structures. So, for example, the name of a compound might be 2,3-Diphenylbenzoyl 2,4,6-trimethylbenzoate. Here is what the compound's structure looks like: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2_3-Diphenylbenzoyl_-2_4_6-trimethylbenzoate https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2_3-Diphenylbenzoy... That information is encoded in the name, but you have to memorize all the rules for the encoding to be able to translate it.
- projektfu 4y ago
  If you memorize all sorts of things, people treat you like they do people with good memories in other subjects, as a resource to help them recall what they need. If you need books and tables and cheat sheets, that's also fine. I have a mediocre memory for details and I did fine with chemistry. If I had a genuine memory problem, but could succeed with notes, I don't doubt that I could have gotten a special dispensation from the school. I suspect that's not the case with a lot of students who complain. General chemistry is hard because people have difficulty with the math that they told themselves they would never need to use in the future. Algebra, logarithms, etc. If you never learn to balance an equation, however, you will never succeed. Similarly, you will get low grades if you cannot solve an equilibrium problem, which requires algebra, logarithms, and a calculator. If you can't do equilibria, you can't do acid-base problems. If you are expected to know a few reactions for the exam, not memorizing them will probably leave you in a bad place. This is the same as for other subjects, as said above with physiology. Is it fair? I don't know, school is like that. I would say, though, that a lot of General Chemistry represents things that people do every day in Chemistry, and also represents the historical understanding of chemistry until about 1850. There's also some stuff in there about analyzing chemicals to determine what is there. Organic chemistry is a little different. Organic compounds are quite varied and do many interesting things. They are soluble in many different substances, many of which are organic chemicals themselves. They react in often surprising ways with each other and with inorganic compounds. They may react to heat and light, or even just agitating or dropping them. There's a lot to say in the subject. So the education is focused on covering a wide array of substances and reaction types, and trying to show where general properties apply and the limits of generalization. In addition, there is a large analytic component because, as you might expect, a lot of compounds do not exist in isolation and need to be identified and quantified. As a (veterinary) physician, I don't think you can really do medicine properly without grokking OChem. You don't need to do reactions yourself, but if it looks like an alien language, then a lot of the information we have about drugs and physiology won't make sense to you. People find OChem hard because it's a lot to learn in a small amount of time, and they don't put in the work. I think that the majority of students at my undergrad school could have succeeded if they put in 20 hours a week and did all the problems in the back of the book, which is what I did. The test is really checking to see if you have seen the thing before, and the only way to do that is to expose yourself to it. Maybe OChem is the Leetcode of the med school admissions process. The MCAT certainly has some OChem, as well as Physics, Biology and Biochemistry. And, I'll be honest, if studying hard enough to get an A in four courses while spending 20 hours a week on 1 of them is difficult, med school is probably not the right choice. I went through undergrad twice and the first time through I would not have pulled that off.

mjhay 4y ago

I've never taken any chemistry, but everyone seems to have horror stories. It seems like chemistry is uniquely obsessed with memorization. I can't fathom the purpose of memorizing the periodic table - who cares? Why not focus on what the periodic table actually means?

kaesar14 4y ago
My education only went as far as AP Chemistry in high school but we did no such memorization of periodic table. The table is organized in a way that's extremely informative with regards to ionic charge and element classification. It pretty much is exactly what you say re: learning what the periodic table means. Any high level chemistry class that's focused on such trivial memorization is doing a huge disservice to its students. The memorization bits come with remembering nomenclature and equilibriums, which you just kinda have to memorize or you're not really learning any chemistry at all. They're the building blocks of all higher level chemistry that come after, organic or inorganic.
- mjhay 4y ago
  That sounds fine. Obviously some memorization is avoidable, but it seems like many classes just do memorization for its own sake - either to give the professors an unwarranted sense of superiority or just laziness.
  - kaesar14 4y ago
    Yeah, I think is more of an organic chemistry thing which I only got to at the end of my class so hopefully some other commenter can provide more color there. I will say the experience I had there made Orgo seem more like a language than a science - there's no way to talk about Orgo without memorizing the language as you would with French or Spanish. But again, I don't have the right context to push that analogy further
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Why do language courses ask students to memorize the meaning of the letters of the alphabet? How are you going to keep up with a chemistry course if you have to consult documentation every time you encounter Pb to remember that means lead? Organic chemistry entails a lot more memorization than that, but memorizing the periodic table at least is simply table stakes for entry level highschool chemistry. Memorizing the periodic table is month one of 10th grade chemistry 1. What the periodic table means is also taught at the same time, and is trickier than the basic memorization. Most students can get the basic memorization of the periodic table figured out in a week or two with a stack of flash cards. If you can't manage that much, what's the point in going further?
guhidalg 4y ago
Forget about the word memorization for a moment. How did you learn to program? You probably had someone show you the syntax, you wrote a few basic programs, learned OOP, and then you took an algorithms class. Did you need to take an algorithms class to become a productive programmer? Probably not but it certainly helped you, and maybe you "memorized" a few techniques along the way (time complexity analysis, BFS, DFS, heaps, data structures, etc...). These techniques, as varied and general as we believe they are, are merely human inventions. We, the computer science community, discovered these in the 20th century and have been using them for less than a century. There is no way to accidentally kill someone while programming, modulo military and health care. Chemistry is not like that. Chemistry kills people as much as it saves people. Mediocre chemists are at risk of accidentally killing themselves and others. Mediocre chemists "forget" the order you're supposed to mix an acid and water in (do you kill someone if you do obj == null instead of null == obj?). Mediocre chemists "forget" to work in a fume hood with volatile species. Mediocre chemists "forget" what type of container a substance needs to be stored in. Mediocre chemists "forget" what catalyst is needed for a reaction. The cost of forgetting something in chemistry is at best a failed experiment, at worst death. Organic chemistry is the first class where you start dealing with potentially deadly substances, so ya it's hard not to die or injure/kill your lab mates and if you don't like it then you should switch to an easier major. Source: I entered college as a materials science major, took up to organic chemistry, said fuck this and switch to CS.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >"I entered college as a materials science major, took up to organic chemistry, said fuck this and switch to CS." Rumor has it, this is precisely why Organic Chemistry has the reputation for being brutally difficult throughout the university system, as it is meant to filter out students early on in their studies.
  - djmips 4y ago
    Yeah, maybe they would have been a brilliant materials scientist. I think they are justifying their decision with this talk about 'killing someone' - I feel that's way overblown.
FiatLuxDave 4y ago
It's not about memorizing the periodic table, it is memorizing the mapping from names to structures. So, for example, the name of a compound might be 2,3-Diphenylbenzoyl 2,4,6-trimethylbenzoate. Here is what the compound's structure looks like: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2_3-Diphenylbenzoyl_-2_4_6-trimethylbenzoate https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2_3-Diphenylbenzoy... That information is encoded in the name, but you have to memorize all the rules for the encoding to be able to translate it.
projektfu 4y ago
If you memorize all sorts of things, people treat you like they do people with good memories in other subjects, as a resource to help them recall what they need. If you need books and tables and cheat sheets, that's also fine. I have a mediocre memory for details and I did fine with chemistry. If I had a genuine memory problem, but could succeed with notes, I don't doubt that I could have gotten a special dispensation from the school. I suspect that's not the case with a lot of students who complain. General chemistry is hard because people have difficulty with the math that they told themselves they would never need to use in the future. Algebra, logarithms, etc. If you never learn to balance an equation, however, you will never succeed. Similarly, you will get low grades if you cannot solve an equilibrium problem, which requires algebra, logarithms, and a calculator. If you can't do equilibria, you can't do acid-base problems. If you are expected to know a few reactions for the exam, not memorizing them will probably leave you in a bad place. This is the same as for other subjects, as said above with physiology. Is it fair? I don't know, school is like that. I would say, though, that a lot of General Chemistry represents things that people do every day in Chemistry, and also represents the historical understanding of chemistry until about 1850. There's also some stuff in there about analyzing chemicals to determine what is there. Organic chemistry is a little different. Organic compounds are quite varied and do many interesting things. They are soluble in many different substances, many of which are organic chemicals themselves. They react in often surprising ways with each other and with inorganic compounds. They may react to heat and light, or even just agitating or dropping them. There's a lot to say in the subject. So the education is focused on covering a wide array of substances and reaction types, and trying to show where general properties apply and the limits of generalization. In addition, there is a large analytic component because, as you might expect, a lot of compounds do not exist in isolation and need to be identified and quantified. As a (veterinary) physician, I don't think you can really do medicine properly without grokking OChem. You don't need to do reactions yourself, but if it looks like an alien language, then a lot of the information we have about drugs and physiology won't make sense to you. People find OChem hard because it's a lot to learn in a small amount of time, and they don't put in the work. I think that the majority of students at my undergrad school could have succeeded if they put in 20 hours a week and did all the problems in the back of the book, which is what I did. The test is really checking to see if you have seen the thing before, and the only way to do that is to expose yourself to it. Maybe OChem is the Leetcode of the med school admissions process. The MCAT certainly has some OChem, as well as Physics, Biology and Biochemistry. And, I'll be honest, if studying hard enough to get an A in four courses while spending 20 hours a week on 1 of them is difficult, med school is probably not the right choice. I went through undergrad twice and the first time through I would not have pulled that off.