CHEM 2421

Terrible TA...condescending, rude...tried to arbitrarily take off points from my lab reports because I refused to suck up to this jerk unlike many of my classmates. Asked for a regrade from Hunt and ended up with a B. Hunt is actually really nice and was more than willing to explain topics I didn't understand for the final. I actually got extra help one on one with him and it helped a lot. Stay after lecture and ask for some help. He's really an awesome teacher, but you usually don't get the personalized attention in lecture.

This class really isn't as bad as everyone says. Dr. Hunt is a good lecturer and his lectures are really helpful for writing the lab report if you record them and take the time to understand the material. He is a lot calmer this semester, and even makes funny jokes in class. With that being said, be prepared to work. Don't take the class, knowing that it will be difficult, and then complain that you received a C but spent 5 hours a week on the lab reports. That's because the people who received As spent 10+ hours a week on the lab reports and truly understood the material. Yes, there is a lot of memorization for the final, but if you have to memorize every step of every mechanism, then you're doing something wrong. If you understand the material and work hard, you will receive a good grade and learn a ton about Orgo. Yes, this class is the pre-med weed out course, but idiots and lazy people can't be doctors...

Also, Dr. Hunt's grading system does make sure that those who deserve As receive them. I wouldn't be shocked if the negative comments you see below were made by the students who thought 5 hours a week would suffice.

And while your TA does influence your experience with the course, you're not necessarily screwed with a bad TA. My TA last semester was horrible- he always skipped parts of the labs and discouraged us from explaining the mechanisms in our lab reports. While this was a great timesaver, it put the entire section at a huge disadvantage for the final. I taught myself the material, studied a ridiculous amount for the final, and received an A in the course.

By the way, Brandon Wade is a great TA. He's really helpful, is good at explaining things, and always makes himself available to students.

The lab reports are very doable but the final is extremely difficult.

This is the hardest class I've taken at UVa. Lab reports take forever to write and in the end they aren't worth that much. You'll spend a lot of time pondering how the grading works. You get ranked amongst your lab section based on your lab reports because every section has a different TA. I was ranked near the bottom of my lab section, but still got an A- because I studied my ass off for the final and was presumably in a smart lab section. If everyone in your lab section does well on the final then you're in good shape. Learn every single step of every single mechanism as well as all reagents and catalysts used in the lab and you'll succeed. Not for the faint of heart but also not the end of the world.

As much as I hated 2410/20, I loved the labs. As long as you read the lab book ahead of class and go to lectures, you can easily be the top scoring student in your section. Although a good TA helps with that as well.

Spend lots of time studying and writing lab reports, they help when it comes to the final. which isn't impossible. just understand everything and Hunt is helpful if you go to him

Spend A LOT of time doing the post lab questions and lab reports. Go to lectures and make sure you understand each step of the lab/reaction mechanisms. If you're the top of your lab group, you'll probably get an A in the class.

This class is tough, but not as hard as people say. For lab you go in and perform an experiment and then you have to write up a lab report explaining the theory and your results. If you write a good report, these end up being about 4 pages single-spaced. It sounds daunting, but there's a review session every week led by a TA and he goes through everything you need to know. The material isn't that tough to grasp, the tedious part is synthesizing all of it into a report. I would also recommend a recorder for these.

Most people are confused with how the grading works, so I'll break it down for you. Basically everybody in the lab is divided into lab sections of 15 people headed by a different TA. The TA grades your lab reports, lab notebook, post-labs (basically a worksheet with a few questions on the lab you just did), and whatever else; this past semester we had random quizzes during lab. You're then given a rank in the lab, but being #1 in your section doesn't guarantee an A+. The final exam serves two purposes: it re-ranks you within your section (if you were #1 and flunked the final chances are your rank's gonna drop) and it determines what kind of letter grades will be assigned to your section. Your section's performance on the final is compared to how well other sections did. Sections who did well on the final will have better letter grades assigned to their section, so if your section had 3 "A's" assigned to it, then the top three ranked people would get those A's, and so on.

That being said, the lab reports, pre-lab notebook entries, and post-labs took me anywhere from 8-10 hours a week to finish. Take that with a grain of salt though, because I'm kind of a perfectionist and was really nitpicky about my stuff. It's an endurance contest, because grinding out a report like that every week wears you down, and in the end I think it's whoever puts in the time that'll get that #1 rank and that A+. So just don't get lazy, as cliche as that may sound. Get those reports out of the way as soon as you can, because writing a report the night before is crazy.

As far as the final is concerned, go through the postlabs and write down all the mechanisms over and over. There can be some slight variations on how each mechanism is written (little things like proton transfers, etc.) which got frustrating, and Hunt likes to throw in answer choices like "A+B" "B+C" "All of the Above". Just do the practice final in the back of the lab manual to get a feel for these kinds of questions.

This course is definitely not easy. Be prepared for this to take up your entire life. In order to get a decent grade, you need to attend pretty much everything: lab lecture, recitation, and office hours. Even then, your grade is on a curve so you can still get a bad grade even though you were ranked decently high in your section. A good grade is pretty much determined by the final. Tom Dawson wasn't very helpful, nice guy, but you can also attend other office hours which may be more useful.

This class is really hard, but required for pre-meds. It is not about how well you are doing in orgo lecture, but rather how well you can apply those concepts and write about them in the weekly lab report. I thought some of the experiments were kind of fun compared to gen chem lab, but they take a long time and can sometimes result in no yield, which is very frustrating. This class is a marathon, not a sprint, do son't fall behind or lose motivation or else your grade will suffer.