CHEM 2421

If you want to do well in this class, you had better make it your full-time job. What you do during the lab hour matters very little. Your performance on the lab reports and postlab questions rank you within you 10-15 person lab section. Your lab section's collective grades on the final determine how many As, A-s, B+, etc. the lab section has earned. The final is one of the most notoriously hard finals in the college. You are required to memorize every mechanism for every experiment completed during the year so you can identify obscure resonance structures and intermediates. Do not take this class if you can help it.

Take this in the summer unless you've already taken other premed courses in the summer... this class will take up all your time and suck the life out of you... or you won't get a good grade... or BOTH!

Hunt is a terrible professor. I'm pretty confident that he bases the entire semester grade on the final exam (even though he says it's a mixture of rankings/your final exam score). To get an A on the final exam this past semester, you needed to get a 36/50. To get a B, you needed to get a 30/50. Sounds easy, right? No.
It's impossible to get an A if you don't go to Mike's recitations. Mike's a great teacher, but even he can't prepare you for the utterly stupid questions that appear on the final exam.

This class is tough, but not as bad as people say. Hit the ground running the first day, and don't half ass your work. You WILL get what you put in.

Hunt's lecture's were more entertaining this semester. Work out the mechanism before class and try to understand what each reagent does - not only does this make understanding the material easier, you'll have to do less studying/reviewing in the long run.

Mike's a life saver. Miss a lecture? Count on Mike. Couldn't work ahead and felt lost during lecture? Ask Mike. But don't waste people's time by asking mundane or stupid questions - try to think for yourself.

The final's tough. Good luck.

dope class. have fun kids

Yes, this is a hard class. What are you going to do about it? Let it affect your dream to become a doctor? Put 15-20 hours/week into this class and you can pull off an A. Haha I guess that's easier said than done. You can finish your reports by starting them on the day before they are due but are they going to be good? Are they going to help you study for Hunt's final? No. If you want to do well, you need to start early and spend a solid 10 hours/week on the reports. Go to Mike's reviews and record them even - to say this helps is an understatement. Go to TA office hours. Go to Hunt's office (he is quite friendly in person).

Class is a substantial amount of work, but you learn more than you will taking any other class at UVA. Dr. Hunt is awesome, and getting a good grade is very attainable. In all honesty, I thought I failed both finals, but somehow got an A on both. It is sad to see he won't be teaching next year; people are really missing out on not having Hunt

Still doing chromium (VI) oxidations...

That's all that needs to be said.

All the carebears that gave this class a good review are going to be the same ones to lead the department to a hefty EPA violation because they dumped their oxidation waste down the sink.
St8

Decent class. Pretty easy. Warning: there is a $1 fee for towel replacement. Would not have taken it if I had known about this hidden fee.

Orgo Lab 2 is no joke. We didn't have Prof. Hunt Fall 2014 and the Spring 2015 class average was the lowest in a while (46% I believe). Hunt may seem like some salty, unapproachable old man. However, he's very helpful and kind if you go to him. Go to lecture and take really good notes or record him. Don't screw around since he emphasizes things on the final. Make good note of these!!!!!!! Sit in the front row as he's quiet. Write your mechanisms as much as you can. Those are crucial for understanding the procedure, reagents, mole ratios, solvents, intermediates, transition states, and side products that will show up on the final. You literally have to know everything from memory for this final.

Get a good rank in your section if you don't want a bad grade (whatever that may be in your case). A good rank won't protect you from a bad grade, but it's still crucial; I will attempt to explain this phenomenon later. Do your lab reports early (I started the night after my lab) and attend TA office hours. Some TA's like a lot of theory, some only care about more efficient procedures from novel research, and some just don't care. It's up to you to find out what he/she wants. You're gonna get wrecked if you don't figure this out early. Do you post lab questions early too since they can get pretty rough. Hunt usually answers them in lecture, so there's more incentive to attend.

Grading is strange. Let's say there are two sections: a and b. a and b both have 5 students a; they were ranked by how good their lab reports, post lab questions, and evaluations by their TA at the end of labs for the semester. Then comes the final. Section a kids killed it and earned 2 A's and 3 B's; Section b kids dropped the ball and earned 3 C's, 1 D, and 1 F. After reshuffling rankings after the final (I have no idea how Hunt/TA's do this), The top two ranked people in section a got A's (because their collective section earned two A's) while the bottom three earned B's (see the pattern?). The top three kids in section b earned C's, the 4th earned a D, and the 5th kid got caught with his pants down and f-ing failed. Thus, it's the final plus how well your section did in relation to the others that determines your overall grade in the class.

I got an A+ (lol what a douche). Thus, I feel like my strategy for succeeding is effective . Per week I spent ≈15 hours writing each lab report (lots of editing and outside research got me the #1 spot in my section) and ≈ 5 hours on post lab questions/ writing mechanisms. To study for the final, I spent five days trying to understand and memorize each lab and the mechanisms behind them. The first two days were light since I had other exams, but the last three days had nonstop studying for orgo lab. I also met with other people from my group to go over things we might not have understood. In the end, I was able to write all the mechanisms out on the exam, but still made some dumb mistakes. Either you knew the mechanism, solvent, stoichiomety, reagent, etc. on the final or not. Very brutal and unforgiving. Do not take this class with more than 2 legit science classes (ie not analytical chem/ anatomy&phys level ones).

It is possible to get an A in this class, but you will have to put ≈ 20 hrs of work in. I wouldn't say I'm the smartest kid since I barely made B's in Leung's Gen Chem and earned a C in physics lab. Stay on top of your game and you'll survive. Going through a year of orgo lab is tough, but any chemistry major/ premed who wants to succeed will put in the work.

Best of luck. It's hard work, but it feels great to see it pay off. Plus, all the experiments were interesting and relevant to orgo lecture material. Taking the chemical century with richard sundberg also reinforced these orgo lab principles.

Tl;dr: Only take if you're a chem major. ≈ 20 hrs/week of work might get you an A. Grade is determined by your final grade, your ranking, and your section's performance. Prof. Hunt is awesome. Take good note of what he emphasizes in lecture. Start lab reports early and go to TA's office hours; ask them how they want you to write them. Good luck. Hard work pays off.