This course is based on 3 exams (75%) and the lab component (25%) which can make the course a little stressful.

Overall, the content was pretty straight forward and interesting. You don't actually need orgo to succeed, you only need to know the functional groups which you should already know from previous classes in freshman chem sequence and they were reviewed in depth at the beginning of the course. Even if you've never learned them before, just make some flashcards and you'll be fine.

The professor is very laid back and kind of unstructured.

If you pay attention during the lectures, take notes, and make flashcards, the course will be very easy for you. The exams are all closed note, so the questions are very easy and only based on your ability to memorize facts. I heard his exams used to be difficult, so maybe he overcorrected this past year.

Course in theory doesn't have terrible material, but they way the class is (read: it isn't) organized makes things unnecessarily stressful. Your grade will be heavily bolstered by labs, which make up the majority of the grade.

Content wasn't that hard in a vacuum, but the way it's presented makes things unnecessarly difficult. The class claims you don't need orgo to succeed...and honestly that's kind of a lie since learning all the functional groups is necessary during this class.

There felt like there was very little structure and I had no idea what the expectations were until the average on the first exam was a 58. He also appears to be rude to some students (not necessarily me, but I have heard reports from other students). I then thought I was going to fail miserably and he gave me an A seemingly arbitrarily.

Not sure if it's different now, but unless you need this class...don't. It won't really help you.