| Haha, glad I saved someone from boosting Dr. Vollhardt's salary. He drives a Ferrari already, for goodness' sake. Oh, and people have noticed that, oddly enough, the times when he buys a new Ferrari correspond closely with the times when he and his buddy Schore release a new edition of their book... :-P
Anywho, yeah, get the MolyMod kit, it's far easier to work with than the kit the book comes with, and it's actually a lot better for visualizing molecule structure.
A few other thoughts on Chem 33:
Professor Stack has often taken a bit too long to teach his half of the course, sucking up an extra two weeks or so that he really doesn't need. Last year, Professor Kool was forced to cram everything in the last 2-3 weeks of the course, and we were learning new stuff in the review session. Insane, right? Yeah. Hopefully, Professor Kohler (really nice, young, relatively new to the department, and my academic advisor) won't have to resort to that, but just keep in mind that the pace of the course will likely accelerate after Professor Stack's portion.
GO TO OFFICE HOURS RELIGIOUSLY: Seriously, you wouldn't believe how much clearer the course material becomes after going for an hour and talking things out with your classmates/TAs/profs.
PRACTICE LIKE A MADMAN/MADWOMAN: Practice won't make perfect, but the more practice problems you do the better. And look through the book problems in both Vollhardt and McMurry. Oftentimes the profs will take questions almost directly out of the texts, so you'll have an edge.
VISUALIZATION IS KEY: Use your molecule kit extensively. First off, the profs let you use it on the tests, so you want to be familiar with making molecules quickly. Second, it helps you get a feel for the different sizes of atoms/molecules and the different spacings let you get an idea of where reactions can happen, which is basic knowledge needed for the entire organic chem series.
Hmm...yeah, that's it for now, I'll post more later if I think of it. |