~ About The Course ~

    Organic chemistry traditionally has had the reputation of being a difficult course requiring lots of “memorization”.  Even now when I mention it to people that took the course long ago, they tend to roll their eyes and bemoan how much they despised organic chemistry.  There really is no good reason why a course in organic chemistry needs to be “boring”, exceptionally difficult, or seemingly irrelevant to your every-day life.  After all, organic chemistry is central to your every-day life.  Every time you fuel your automobile you are transferring organic chemicals, every time you take an Advil™ you are ingesting an organic chemical, every time you splash on perfume, after-shave, or sunscreen you are coating yourself in organic chemicals. 

    You might be thinking “What??  I thought all chemicals were bad for you!”  Indeed, this is hardly the case.  Your entire body is an organic chemical manufacturing plant.  Organic chemicals are required for you to live.  The tiniest building block of all living things, the cell, is nothing more than a collection of organic and inorganic chemicals.  Hormones, cholesterol, many vitamins.... all these things that we consider “natural” are simply organic chemicals. 

    Much of organic chemistry is learning about the atomic and structural make-up of organic compounds and learning how organic compounds interact and react with each other.  It is my intention to show during the course of the semester how these seemingly “irrelevant” ideas directly relate to our own every-day experiences.