How to Study Organic Chemistry

Not actually from students but from the good people who create and grade the exams—your professors. Remember, they were students once upon a time.

You Can't Do It All

Because over 10 million organic compounds exist, memorizing the structure, properties, and reactivity of all of them would be almost impossible. Luckily, a few fundamental ideas underlie all organic reactions. By understanding these themes and trends (not by memorizing them!), you should be able to rationalize unfamiliar reactions and mechanisms through analogy.

Active Studying

Understanding organic chemistry requires a regular program of active studying:

• No substitution exists for using a pencil and paper to draw and redraw structures, write reactions, and explore stereochemistry.
• Attend all the lectures and recitation sessions.
• Read the suggested reading material before each lecture and write down the main points.
• After each lecture, summarize the major ideas and concepts in your notes within 24 hours of the class.
• Supplement these notes with material learned by reading the textbook.

Psets and Review

When you think you understand the material, do the suggested problems. If you cannot complete the problems without referencing your notes or the textbook, put them down and study the concepts again. Master the material from the previous lecture before going on to the next one. Finally, spend a few minutes each day in review. If you fail to do this, you may find your review before an exam a major learning experience and could become overwhelmed by what seems like an unreasonable amount of material. You cannot cram for an organic exam!

—from the 5.12 website *

*NOTE: MIT web certificates are required in order to access class sites.