STUDYING ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
updated: 18 March 2008
INTRODUCTION:
Organic Chemistry can be one of the most difficult courses that a prehealth student faces in his or her undergraduate career. With this in mind, we sought out Professor Robert Kerber, who has extensive experience lecturing in Organic Chemistry, to get his advice about how students should study for success.
INTERVIEW:
James Montren: Let me start out with a cryptic and oracular question. Is there a point of no return in Organic Chemistry?
Professor Kerber: Let me give you a cryptic and oracular answer. In a few cases, the point of no return for a student of Organic Chemistry is during the first semester of freshman year when they are taking general chemistry.
James Montren: I thought that on the whole, there isn't a lot of material that carries over from freshman chemistry into Organic Chemistry.
Professor Kerber: I can understand why you might say that. A good number of students say that, too. But generally speaking, it really isn't true. Now, when I speak generally, I understand that what I am saying does not apply to each and every soul. Nevertheless, a student who thinks that freshman chemistry doesn't carry over to Organic Chemistry is probably remorselessly obsessed with details. And when that student says that this detail or that detail of freshman chemistry doesn't carry over into Organic Chemistry, they are often right. But, general chemistry provides a good part of the intellectual infrastructure for Organic Chemistry. Remember, during an Organic lecture I just talk about molecules. I don't assume any burden for reminding students what one is, or what holds it together, or why we say it has a composition C3H8. Now it may be that the student has gotten to a point when they can take that knowledge base for granted. That's fine, that's a necessary step, but it's a whole world apart from not knowing the material. Basic ideas of structure, bonding, bond angles, covalent bonding, and a number of other ideas--these are the things that trundle over from freshman chem, and we say, "You learned all this. Now here we go with it."
James Montren: Could you divide up the problems a student can have in Organic Chemistry into how they listen to and take notes in a lecture, how they read the text material, how they study and how they approach their exams?
Professor Kerber: Any of those could be a problem. In a very bad situation, they all are.
James Montren: What would you say is the most serious one?
Professor Kerber: Students get into trouble if their perception of studying is erroneous. If their mental picture of studying Organic Chemistry is of someone sitting at a desk reading their text book, then that's trouble. Some of that is necessary, but you are not working productively on Organic Chemistry if you are just reading. Just passive reading--sweeping your eyes across words on a page is not sufficient--especially if you are thinking about what you are going to do on Friday.
James Montren: So the key is to actively engage the material.
Professor Kerber: Absolutely. I encourage students to get together with a group that they are comfortable with and divide up problems and present them to each other. So, students have a social commitment to study, and they get together and discuss the problems. This way students are figuring out problems, explaining concepts to each other, and taking in and evaluating the explanations of other people. They are grappling with the material in a number of ways and that is precisely what they should be doing.
James Montren: Well, that's fine in a study group format. But how does a student actively engage the material during a lecture? After all, if I am just trying to transcribe what you are saying, I might not get the key ideas.
Professor Kerber: In order to get the most out of the lecture, first of all you should have lightly read the assignment before the lecture. I don't mean "have studied and absorbed all the material" but "read" in the literal sense. That way you know what's in the book You may not have learned all that's in the book, but you will recognize whether I am covering something that is in the book or not. If it's not, then of course you should take good notes. If it is in the book, you can just say, "he discussed such and such which I know is in the book." Listen for understanding, grasp the main concept, and jot it down. There should be a discretionary element in taking notes during the lecture so that you pay specific attention to what you don't otherwise have access to in the book.
James Montren: Why do you depart from the textbook?
Professor Kerber: I sometimes think that my way of doing something is clearer or better connected to other aspects of the course. Any time I have an idiosyncratic way of teaching something, I throw it at them, because I just think I have a superior way of presenting the material. So, if they don't get a particular concept from the book, maybe they'll get it from me.
Another thing that you have to keep in mind is that I don't just stand there and lecture for fifty-five minutes. Nobody, I think, can pay solid attention to something for fifty-five minutes--maybe a good movie, who knows. But other than that, it's too long a time, your mind wanders. Right? So, I try to not talk for more than ten minutes at a time, and then break things up by assigning a problem or several problems to different groups. Sometimes, I'll ask a question and then take a vote on it.
So, essentially, my way of lecturing mirrors the way that a student should student study the material on their own. When they discuss a problem with their neighbor it's interesting to watch because the votes do change--almost always in the direction of the right answer--mainly because the reasons underlying the right answer are more persuasive than the reasons underlying the wrong answer.
James Montren: I suppose that a student should approach their reading in the same way. Ten minutes of reading and then time for a problem?
Professor Kerber: Sure, that's the way textbooks are written now. So, let's take this random chapter from the text. Here we begin, and we go in one page and then we come to the first problem A page and a half and then there's problem two, then a fraction of a page, and problem three. I try to encourage the students to work the problems as they come up in the book. Don't just skip by them and say, "I'll come back to it." There's a reason that the problem is there, and it means that when you've gotten this far, you should be able to do that problem, and the process of doing it will let the you break into a more active mode--and that's where having a pencil and paper comes in. I think it's ineffective to have "student and book." It should be "student, book, pencil, and paper."
I don't think anyone nowadays would try to publish a chemistry textbook without problems placed throughout each and every chapter at critical points. But the students have to play the game the way the game is intended to be played--that's the only way to win.
One of the shortcomings of modern life, or maybe just Organic Chemistry textbooks, is that answers are too readily available. The answers are irrelevant. That sounds strange, but the factual answers to many specific questions are of surpassing unimportance. Of course that statement doesn't apply to the question of how much money is in your checking account when your bills are coming due--but Organic Chemistry is different from accounting. Here, the only thing that is important is developing the reasoning processes and knowledge of key concepts and ideas that will take you to the right answer every single time. Sometimes a student makes the mistake of focusing on memorizing answers; you start collecting a mass of details, and then you get lost and overwhelmed. It's the correct understanding and application of the principles that takes you to the correct answer--that is important. If you know what you are doing, and you apply it, and you get to a solution, you generally will know perfectly clearly in your own head that you are working in an area where you are competent or vice versa.
James Montren: What about supplemental materials--like getting a second textbook by another author?
Professor Kerber: It could be helpful in a minor way. If we have chosen a good text book, and I think we have, it shouldn't be necessary. Obviously having a bad book is no good at all. If a second book encourages a student to do more work it is good, but if it causes them to disperse their efforts wider--so they are just doing more passive reading and not engaging the material--then it's bad.
James Montren: What about computers as study aids in Organic Chemistry?
Professor Kerber: We encourage them as a supplement for the course. We have a website for the course. The publisher of the textbook has a website where students using the text book can self test with quizzes for each chapter, and I have references to a number of websites dealing with Organic courses at different universities.
James Montren: What about office hours?
Professor Kerber: What about them? When I teach Organic Chemistry, I usually have my office hours--an hour and a half or so, right after each lecture. Some students come in, some students don't. We also have TA's in the course and a total of 25 or 30 hours a week of help time available. We have a small room in the Chemistry Building building set aside just for the Organic help sessions. So, all day twice a week, and afternoons on two additional days that room is open on a drop-in basis--with pretty personable and knowledgeable TA's.
James Montren: How's the traffic?
Professor Kerber: This week--pretty good. Remember that you and I are having this conversation the day before the first big exam. What really counts--the students who are going to do well will be there next week when the pressure is off. What I encourage students to do is to pick a time that is convenient and go the same time every week and that way they get comfortable with the other students as well as the TA's, and that way it's like they are in a study group.
James Montren: Now, how strong an indicator is the first test?
Professor Kerber: The first test is a very strong indicator. I use the results of the first test in advising students. Very few of the students who flunk the first exam will do well. Now, statistics are one thing and individuals are another. Statistics should serve as a guide for the practical and well-informed, not as a crutch for the timid and unrealistic. If you don't do well, then you will have to make a substantial change if you want to get a grade that is substantially better than your first test score.
James Montren: What if a student didn't do well on the first test? How should they recover? Should they study Organic two hours every single day, three hours?
Professor Kerber: In almost all cases more study time would be called for--and just how many hours are involved depends on how much the student already was studying. But a few students who didn't get good results were probably spending way too much time in the first place, because they were trying to swarm around and surround the material, rather than approaching organic chemistry intelligently.
James Montren: And that means to go for the general principles...
Professor Kerber: Go for the main concepts, and then when you are asked a question about a specific molecule, answer that question by applying the general principles to it. You see, as those principles apply to 100,000 molecules don't learn them one molecule at a time. And remember that the problem sets that are available to students in the book and on the web are the way they can and should test themselves repeatedly as to whether their grasp of the principles of Organic Chemistry is adequate. Organic chemistry is remorselessly cumulative. If your approach to it is intelligent and remorselessly persistent, success should by and large be yours. And your professor, in this case me, as well as the TA's are here to help you stay on the right track.
James Montren: To sum things up, are there any special concepts or ways of thinking that students should use to try to ensure their success?
Professor Kerber: Persistence. You don't need to be a genius. Some geniuses get into trouble because they don't think the need for persistence applies to them. Students who are really smart in high school--particularly in high school--don't get into the habit of persistent study because they don't need to. The pace of the material in high school is such that they can do very little for a while and then catch up with a few hours of work. But the case here is quite different. The only way you can possibly begin to do anything with this amount of material--and the biochemistry book is even larger by the way-- is to approach it by grasping the general principles--and there are only a modest number--and applying them to the case at hand as the need be.
James Montren: Well, thank you, Professor Kerber.
Professor Kerber: You're welcome, Jim.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONSULT
FOR ACADEMIC CALENDARS visit the registrar
ACADEMIC ADVISING
at Melville Library, Room E 2360