Reddit reviews Introduction to Organic Spectroscopy (Oxford Chemistry Primers)

As said above, Klein’s book and Mastering Organic Chemistry(I paid for it for a few months) were very helpful. I personally didn’t use Khan Academy very much but I know many that did. Once we got into spectroscopy, you might not do it until OChem II but we did, I found this book to be great on actually explaining how it works and the theory behind it- Introduction to Organic Spectroscopy (Oxford Chemistry Primers) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198557558/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_I3IcBb7XBWTDY. I wouldn’t call it a necessary purchase but if you’re a hardcore chemistry major you might like it as it’s really not a complicated read imo.

Here’s the thing about organic. Everyone has a completely different experience, minus the suffering. For me, my textbook was my best friend. I carried it everywhere I went. I took notes out of the book before lecture, so that way I could be ready for the ridiculous clicker questions we had. I stopped taking notes in class because our professor just took the PowerPoints right from the book and I listened to his/her lecture. You hear many complain about the class and you’ve obviously heard it’s about it’s notorious difficulty. The subject truly isn’t as bad as it seems; people just don’t learn how to study until it’s too late. Organic, as Klein puts it, is a movie where you are there to watch and understand the plot. Don’t treat it as rote memorization, see the beauty in what’s going on. The more you can appreciate the complexity, the more you will enjoy the class. Honestly, as a ChE major it was my favorite class this semester and I made some very good friendships along the way because of it, a few of us came out with A’s in both semesters me included 😅.

The tests were hard, but most of the points that people lost in my class were points not stated specifically in the directions (making sure to draw all lone pairs, resonance structures, and byproducts). So, keep your ducks in a row and take all of the test period if you have to.

Here’s the Golden Rule: Never assume you know everything you need to know. I was in an intense study session with some friends and two girls were in there that stopped studying and started talking about games and other stuff. She then talked about how she couldn’t handle another B because her GPA was a 3.8 (cringe). Come test day, she starts crying in the middle of it (honestly, the test was very fair and not too impossible) and the TA comes over and says “Can you please be quiet?”

I don’t mean to make the class sound easy, as it is incredibly difficult, but if you put enough work in and learn to enjoy the class then it will go much smoother. Good luck!