CHEM 202 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
Instructor: Dr.
J. Thomas Ippoliti
Office: OWS
462
Phone: 962-5582
E-mail: jtippoliti@stthomas.edu
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3-4 pm and by appointment
Lecture: 10:55-12:00 am MWF, OWS 251
Website: Chemistry
Department: http://chem.stthomas.edu
This Class: http://chem.stthomas.edu/pages/ochem2.html
Check Blackboard Frequently!
Required
Materials
Lecture Text: Organic Chemistry,
8th Ed., Solomons and
Fryhle
Supplementary Materials: (1) Study
guide and solution manual for Organic Chemistry
(2) Molecular model kit
Lab Materials: (1) Organic Lab Techniques, 3rd
Ed., by Fessenden and Fessenden
(2) Student laboratory notebook (produced by Hayden-McNeil)
(3)
CHEM 202 Lab Manual--(in-house
duplicated-purchase from stockroom)
Policies
Attendance: Students are expected to attend all
lectures. Material covered in the
lecture is not always covered in your text, and even where the same topics are
covered, the emphasis in lecture may differ from that in the text. Because you will be responsible for
this material on exams, regular attendance is obviously important. Excessive absences will be noted and
subsequently will be reported to Academic Counseling. If you are ill for more than a day, you should use official
channels (call Counseling) to see that all of your instructors are
informed. If you miss a lecture,
it is your
responsibility to obtain copies of material such as missed lecture notes and
handouts. Students must notify the instructor in advance if they cannot be present for an
exam. Failure to do so could
result in a score of zero for the exam.
Grading: 750 pts total for the course:
455
(5 unit exams, 100 pts each, total scaled to 460) + 150 pts: Final + 140 pts:
Lab
All exams will
begin at 10:55 am. A help session
will be given preceding each exam.
Each test will emphasize material covered since the previous test, but
chemistry is cumulative and reference to previous material must be expected.
Exam
dates: (1) Friday February
15 Unit
1
(2)
Friday March
7 Unit
2
(3)
Wednesday April
2 Unit
3
(4)
Monday April
21 Unit
4
(5)
Friday May
9 Unit
5
Final Exam: Tuesday, May 13th 10:30 am - 12:30 pm (cumulative over semester)
Qualified students with
documented disabilities who may need classroom accommodations should make an
appointment with the Enhancement Program – Disability Services office
during the first two weeks of the term. Telephone appointments are available to
students as needed. Appointments can be made by calling 651-962-6315 or
800-328-6819, extension 6315.You may also make an appointment in person in
OÕShaughnessy Educational Center, room 119. For further information, you can
locate the Enhancement Program on the web at http://www.stthomas.edu/enhancementprog/.
1.
Attend all
classes. Read, retain and review
all handouts.
2.
Become
organized early and stay with the flow of the course. Don't fall behind.
3.
Study in
small increments on a daily--not weekly--basis. An all-night session of cramming the night before an hour
exam might get you through
that exam, but the chances that you will retain that material in enough detail
through the semester to get you through the final exam (which is cumulative
over the semester) are extremely slim.
Constant reviewing of the material is the best way to realize as much
benefit as possible from this course.
4.
Always
read the assigned part of the text before the material is discussed in lecture.
You must be
familiar with terms and general content.
5.
Look over
your lecture notes before the next class; if there is anything you do not
understand, ask about it right away.
It can be very helpful to rewrite your notes shortly after lecture and
add supplementary comments by consulting the text. Learn to mesh both sources of information. Lecture material is an important source
(perhaps the most
important source) of exam material.
6.
Do not
assume you have learned the material just because you understand what you read
in the text or hear in lecture. You
must work the problems!
7.
Don't
consult the solutions manual for the answer to a problem too soon. Once you have seen the answer, you have lost the chance to
work the problem. If you can't
solve the problem, reexamine both the text and lecture notes on the pertinent
topic. Give your deductive
reasoning powers a chance to work; the thought process itself is really more
important than arriving at the correct answer.
8.
Try to
identify any new information contained in a problem and add it to the chemistry
you already know. Correlate new
material with old, striving to see how new topics can be explained in terms of
combinations of old principles.
This process allows maximum benefit to be derived from the naturally
built-in review.
9.
Realize that
a portion of the organic course involves learning a certain amount of "vocabulary"
(names, structures,
etc.). To some extent this is memory work; however, it
is indispensable if
you are to get into the real learning portion of the course. Organic chemistry is comparable to a
language; in order to write sentences, compose paragraphs, and someday write
novels, you first must learn the vocabulary. To help you, your instructor will take a mechanistic
approach, concentrating on the mechanisms of organic reactions so that you
understand why and how a reaction occurs between two molecules. As you begin to understand the
guiding principles that underlie organic chemistry, your memory work will
become more meaningful and thus easier to remember and apply to chemical
problems.
An important
skill you can obtain from this course is the ability to apply facts and
concepts you already know to problems and situations that are totally new and
unfamiliar to you. This skill will
serve you well throughout your career, whether that career is research (in
which you will apply your scientific knowledge to a variety of new research
problems), medicine (in which every patient you treat will represent a new
situation requiring your medical skills), or practically any other
endeavor. Organic chemistry is a
challenging course of study, but it is a very rewarding one as well.