<p>I’m taking orgo 2 right now with a prof who wasn’t my orgo 1 prof.
In the back of my orgo 2 syllabus there’s a list of topics under “What should you know?”
While reviewing the chapters under “What should you know?” I was shocked to know that my orgo 1 prof never covered even a single page of my orgo text’s Chapter 10 (Reactions of alcohols, ethers and epoxides) or Chapter 6 (Reactions of alkynes). I’m surprised and overwhelmed to see so many different reactions and reagents contained in those two chapters alone.
At the end of orgo 1 I remember my orgo 1 prof saying that we wouldn’t be covering some chapters because of lack of time. Throughout the semester he proceeded through the course really slowly so that’s probably why he failed to cover all the chapters on the syllabus.</p>
<p>What I want to ask is, will those reactions be important for success
in orgo 2? Will I be fine even if I don’t know those reactions in
Chapters 10 and 6 at all?
Please dont tell me to just learn those rxns by myself cause I seriously don’t have time to do all those self studying now. If I had known about this before the semester started, I would’ve had time to do those extra self studying and catching up but it’s too late now to do so, with my heavy EC’s and courseload this semester.
I’m aware that there will be many other new reactions in orgo 2. Will I be fine in orgo 2 without knowing those reactions (alcohols, ethers, epoxides and alkynes)?</p>
<p>I asked about this to my current orgo 2 prof but he is a major oxyanion hole.
He said, “If you feel that you should not be reposonsible for knowing those reactions,” then he can “offer me no help or assurance that this will not effect” my performance in orgo 2. :(</p>
<p>I’m aware that different universities = different amount of material, and even within same university = different amount of material, just as my experience shows. I’m hoping that my orgo 2 prof will focus exam questions on ochem 2 knowledge. But I’m especially worried if, on the exams, he’ll give us synthesis problems that involve and require reagents and reactions of orgo 1’s alcohols, ethers, epoxides and alkynes reactions. If he does that, then it’ll be difficult for me to ace his course, even if I mastered orgo 2 reactions and stuffs.</p>
<p>the bottom line is yes, you will need to self study those things if he’s not covering them, especially alcohols, which will show up all the time. I’m really surprised that those things weren’t covered in orgo 1, but it’s really not that big of a deal to learn them on your own, the mechanisms are generally similar. Unless orgo at your school is taught in a VERY elementary way, the new material will build on the old, and many complex synthesis problem you need to do will require you to remember those reactions. Particularly with carboxylic acids you’ll see the alcohol stuff again, and the aromatic chemistry is pretty much the same as the previous stuff but with a benzene ring involved.</p>
<p>Well. If you don’t have time to learn them on your own, what’s the point in asking? It evidently won’t affect what you do, since you can’t even if it’s important.</p>
<p>Yeah, never covered epoxides in either semesters of O-Chem. What are they?
But my O-chem II professor didn’t stress too much stuff from O-chem I. You don’t have to know about alkynes, triple bond chemistry rarely comes up anyways. But, yeah, you should definitely be familiar with alcohols and ethers too.
Can’t believe you guys haven’t covered alcohols in O-chem 1. I mean, it’s like one of the fundamentals of Organic Chemistry.
I sugges you buy a study guide or something and do an overview of chapters of ethers and alcohols, especially. Shouldn’t take you more than a day and you are going to have a basic, albeit not thorough, understanding of them.</p>
I don’t have time to self study them if I were to be keep doing all the things I’m doing right now. I could certainly make time by giving up on some EC’s and stuffs but I didn’t want to do that unless I really had to and unless those rxns were critical in orgo 2. I asked that to find out if those rxns are really that important so that I can decide on whether I should modify my activities to invest time in covering those chapters on my own.</p>
<p>I have Dummies book for Orgo. It has a concise and accurate summary of all those rxns’ mechanisms, reagents and regiochemistry and stereochemistry. Would it be sufficient to learn those reactions by using that book, instead of reading the two thick chapters in the text? I want to save as much time as possible while still managing to cover those rxns by myself.</p>
<p>from the above posts, I think it’s pretty clear that we cannot answer that question for you, given the variability in content covered in different courses. I suggest you ask people at your school who’ve takenn orgo 2 already.</p>