Learn about your Presidential candidates….and maybe yourself

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would not talk politics on it, as so many other “Science” blogs do.  In fact, once I ran across an organic chemistry blog that had 112 political postings and 2 organic chemistry postings.  I don’t particularly like the acrid nature of politics in this country right now, and by the nature of my day job I am surrounded by it, however………

I was trolling USAToday the other day and found a neat little site where if you answer 11 questions, and rank how important certain issues are to you, it will tell you which candidate is most in line with your beliefs.  The caveats are that 1) the answers to the questions are a little limiting, and 2) it only addresses a few issues.  However, it was interesting, and maybe even a bit surprising, to see where I fell. 

 The site is http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/candidate-match-game.htm

 For those who care: My take-home message on this is two-fold.  First, it doesn’t matter who you vote for as long as it is an informed vote.  Once you take the time to read what each candidate has to say, you might be surprised by who you are closer to politically.  Second, as hard as it may be to remember sometimes, whether you are left, right, lib, neo-con, clean, or a hippie, at the end of the day we are all Americans.

Practice tests and practice questions: Good or is the time better spent playing Halo 3?

For the record, all I know is that Halo 3 is a video game that everyone loves.  Anywho…

The short answer to that question is YES, practice tests are great. But the real question that should have been asked is “what practice questions do I want”?  First, you want to get old exams from YOUR professor.  Different organic chemistry professors focus in on different things.  Your professor might focus in on physical organic chemistry (orbitals and such) where as another prof might focus on synthesis.

Next, if you have the time, will, and extra food, surf the net to find other profs at other schools and their tests.  If you can answer both sets (yours and the other guys) of questions, you are well on your way to a nice fat A. 

Helpful Organic Chemistry Site of the Week

Hey Everybody, so we are in full swing this semester.  If you are in 1st Organic chemistry you should be very familiar with nomenclature, alkanes, cylcoalkanes, and the good-old CHAIR conformation.  In fact, I bet a lot of you have had your first exam.  Nice.  Hope it went well. 

 Anywho, this week’s O-chem helpful site is from the Arizona State University chem department (they are the “Sun Devils”, not the “Scum Devils”).  It is a site full of organic chem practice tests, with the correct answers.  They cover most of the major topics in 1st and 2nd semester classes.  Well worth bookmarking this and going back once a week or so to quiz yourself.

The site is:  http://www.asu.edu/courses/chm332/problems.html

Happy Reacting!

Memorizing vs. Learning–Organic Chemistry Nomenclature.

I got a good question from a student recently:  “Should I memorize this or not?”

To be breif on this introduction, there are two types of students: memorizers and learners.  Which is better?  Both are a good, but being a combination of the two is the best.  That being said, there are certain times where one is essential.  Nomenclature is one of those.

Meth – 1

Eth – 2

Prop – 3

But -4

Pent – 5

Hex – 6

Hept – 7

Oct – 8

Non – 9

Dec – 10

If you memorize these now, you will save yourself a world of trouble down the road.  So, in conclusion, I am not a HUGE fan of memorization, but this is one instance where it is a good idea.

For good results in your Organic Chemistry Lab class

Hey Guys–

 So when I was teaching, the one thing that I always heard was: “O-chem lab is a waste.  It is a ton of work for only one credit.”  I am not going to lie to anyone about this; yes, it is alot of work for that miniscule credit that (frankly) few people are going to care about.  I have been told, however, that medical schools DO care about o-chem lab.  So if you are one of those aspiring students who hopes one day to be abused as a resident at a busy hospital working 100 hour work weeks but not having quite as much fun as those crazy kids on the hit TV show “Scrubs”, you care about organic chemistry lab.

 Now here is the way to an easier time in organic chemistry lab:

1) Pre-lab preparation–  this is the most underrated portion of what goes on.  Go to my favorite site www.chemfinder.com and print out information on every chemical you are going to use and bring it to lab with you that day.  It will be a great resource to refer to when you need it and will keep you from saying to your already cranky TA, whose English is iffy at best: “Does this look right?”

2) Post-lab write up:  The biggest mistakes here are bad calculations and spending too much time writing things that your TA is never going to read.  When calculating things like % yield/recovery of your product, remember that you CAN have a yield over 100%.  This is usually due to impurity in your final product and is most likely that you did not remove all of the solvent sued, which makes your product heavier.  The key is to be concise, and make sure that the process of your calculations is correct.

While this quickie blog post is NOT going to turn that guy who is a lab disaster into a Nobel prize winner, they are the most commonly made mistakes.  Keep it all in mind next time you head into the great unknown which is o-chem lab.