It’s the end of freshman year and you must choose classes for sophomore year and you’re deciding which class to take. You want to keep up with everyone else and you’re advisor may have told you to take Organic Chemistry 101 so you go ahead and enroll in it, despite all the frightening things you’ve heard about the class including that it will take your soul away. Now, it’s sophomore year first day of organic chemistry or commonly known as “orgo.” You’re sitting there wondering how you can do well without your soul being torn out from your body. If that’s what you’re looking for then you’ve come to the right place.

1. Know and understand acid/base reactions.

Orgo involves a lot of acid base reactions and it is essential to understand. If you don’t understand that, you won’t pass.

2. Be ready for reaction mechanisms .

Reactions are something you have done before but now you will do organic reactions and you must map out their mechanism, or draw out how a certain reaction occurs. If you can grasp the basic concept for how a certain reaction occurs, you can pretty much do a mechanism for most of them, if not all.

3. Get ready to name organic compounds.

Naming may sound easy but it can get tricky from here and there as professors will try to trick you on exams. IUPAC have laid down the rules for naming organic compounds. If you can pay attention and follow the rules precisely, you can name any organic compound that comes your way.

4. Practice, practice, practice!

You think you know it? Uh, you don’t. You never completely and fully know the material so keep practicing. Get a paper and pencil and go over your reactions and mechanisms over and over again for 5 hours. Now you know it? Do it again. Not unless you can do it in your sleep, keep practicing.

5. Form study groups!

If you don’t understand something, then chances are someone else does. It’s better to get help right away rather than last minute. Getting help last minute won’t help, trust me.

6. Absolutely NO procrastination!

The day of the lecture is the day you must do the practicing. You have other classes to worry about to so get to it. If you practice after class then you won’t be overwhelmed with the material. If you practice a week later, then…..good luck to ya.

7. Don’t memorize, but understand.

Memorizing things will lead you to forget things. If you understand something you will remember forever. I am great at memorization, but it didn’t help my grade. So focus on understanding how reaction works and why the reaction carries out this way. If you do that, you can tackle any reaction that comes your way.

After reading this you may be even more frightened than before, but trust me, taking in my advice will save your grade. In fact, you’ll be on your way to an A. But, remember you must make sacrifices to get that A and yes I’m talking about your soul.