The Hardest Class You Ever Had

['Hamas' Jenkins]

I just finished up my coursework for the semester. While Organic I was a comparative breeze, Organic II was a bitch. Honestly, the tests were more of a monster than the actual course load.

Here were the grade breakdowns (all tests were MC):

80-100-A
62-79-B
46-61: C
40-46: D

While the baseline material itself wasn't exceptionally difficult, there were so many exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to exceptions, that the tests ended up as absolute minefields.

With that said, I've heard even worse things about Biochem, and I'm sure that those of you with or pursuing advanced Math/Science degrees have had nightmare courses as well.

What class was it that kicked your ass the hardest?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by O.city

I just wasn't good at it and had to work hard in it.

I have an close friend that's a mechanical engineer who's just a Calc wiz

Here was a question from my recent final. I got the answer right, but it just pissed me off:

Which one of the following compounds adds twice to this molecule:



A. MeMgBr (a Grignard)
B. Me2CuLi (an organocuprate)
C. DIBAL (a source of hydride)
D. LDA (A nitrogen atom with two lone pairs and two isopropyl groups)
E. All of them will.

I added the info in (). We were told throughout the course that irreversible nucleophiles add twice to carboxylic acid derivatives. Also, LDA isn't technically irreversible, but essentially functions as an irreversible nucleophile.

[AustinChief]

Tough call but probably a statics class I had. The material wasn't terribly difficult but it wasn't as intuitive as one would hope and it was taught by a guy who spoke ridiculously bad English. He was almost completely unintelligible so the entire course had to be self taught.

[MMXcalibur]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Here was a question from my recent final. I got the answer right, but it just pissed me off:

Which one of the following compounds adds twice to this molecule:



A. MeMgBr (a Grignard)
B. Me2CuLi (an organocuprate)
C. DIBAL (a source of hydride)
D. LDA (A nitrogen atom with two lone pairs and two isopropyl groups)
E. All of them will.

I added the info in (). We were told throughout the course that irreversible nucleophiles add twice to carboxylic acid derivatives. Also, LDA isn't technically irreversible, but essentially functions as an irreversible nucleophile.

[In58men]

**** you Spanish


Hablo.....habla....hablablahmos

[Rain Man]

I had no trouble at all doing the work in Differential Equations, but I stood in awe of the people who actually developed those methodologies.

Then I took a course beyond differential equations, and it was there that I threw up the only white flag of my academic career. It was some class that involved doing discontinuous Laplace Transforms. So if you're keeping the score ...

1. If it's a problem that regular calculus can't deal with, you go to differential equations.

2. Within differential equations, there was a particular methodology for certain problems that was called a Laplace Transform.

3. If Laplace Transforms didn't work because you were dealing with discontinuous equations, you entered the realm of this class.

I sat in it for perhaps three weeks and had literally no idea what was going on. Not only could I not understand the coursework, I couldn't even understand the problems that the coursework was trying to solve. It was the only time I ever dropped a course because I was terrified for my grade.


I took another course in structural dynamics that was a big game of Russian roulette, and it was terrifying for a while. The entire course was one big concept on how to set up equations to measure structural stresses in a complex structure (e.g., a one-piece car frame). It was kind of weird and mind-twisting, and you either got it or you didn't. The first month of that course was terrifying because it was a required course and I wasn't getting it, but finally the light blinked on right before the first test. A friend of mine had a very high gpa and actually went on academic probation because of that one class. The light never came on and he got a D, despite the fact that he was on track to graduate Magna cum Laude.

[TimBone]

I should add that all of mine have been undergrad courses as well. I'm going back to college after 13 years away from it. I haven't had much trouble aside from a Philosophy teacher that I believe graded toughr if you had an opposing view to him.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Here was a question from my recent final. I got the answer right, but it just pissed me off:

Which one of the following compounds adds twice to this molecule:



A. MeMgBr (a Grignard)
B. Me2CuLi (an organocuprate)
C. DIBAL (a source of hydride)
D. LDA (A nitrogen atom with two lone pairs and two isopropyl groups)
E. All of them will.

I added the info in (). We were told throughout the course that irreversible nucleophiles add twice to carboxylic acid derivatives. Also, LDA isn't technically irreversible, but essentially functions as an irreversible nucleophile.

So was the answer D? Not my field at all but A should be wrong so that eliminates E.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by O.city

I hated calculus. just hated it

I loved calculus. Loved it. It was like creating art.

Unfortunately 30 years without doing has made my skills a bit rusty. As in, it's like I've never had it and have no idea how to do even the simplest problem now.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Tough call but probably a statics class I had. The material wasn't terribly difficult but it wasn't as intuitive as one would hope and it was taught by a guy who spoke ridiculously bad English. He was almost completely unintelligible so the entire course had to be self taught.

That's awful. I've been really lucky to avoid instructors with ESL issues for the most part, although my Calculus prof knew of my background and was constantly asking me for spell checks when he wrote stuff on the board.

[TimBone]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Here was a question from my recent final. I got the answer right, but it just pissed me off:

Which one of the following compounds adds twice to this molecule:



A. MeMgBr (a Grignard)
B. Me2CuLi (an organocuprate)
C. DIBAL (a source of hydride)
D. LDA (A nitrogen atom with two lone pairs and two isopropyl groups)
E. All of them will.

I added the info in (). We were told throughout the course that irreversible nucleophiles add twice to carboxylic acid derivatives. Also, LDA isn't technically irreversible, but essentially functions as an irreversible nucleophile.

Well. I may as well quit college.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

That's awful. I've been really lucky to avoid instructors with ESL issues for the most part, although my Calculus prof knew of my background and was constantly asking me for spell checks when he wrote stuff on the board.

At the risk of being crass, we knew in my undergrad program that you avoided the Chinese profs and instructors at all costs. You could kind of halfway understand the Indian ones, but with the Chinese you were at risk of literally not understanding a word. It surprised me that some of the students never figured that out.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

So was the answer D? Not my field at all but A should be wrong so that eliminates E.

It's actually A.

A Grignard functions as a source of anionic carbon, so it is irreversible.

Here's where it gets hairy, though:

A cuprate is also an irreversible organometallic, but it follows different rules than the others (adds 1,4 rather than 1,2, and adds only once).

DIBAL is a hydride source. It's almost impossible to kick a hydride ion off a molecule, so it should add twice...but when added to a ketone it actually makes an aldehyde (which, because of the existing double bond to oxygen and the carbon bond, can't add twice because it would give carbon five bonds).

LDA, despite having a ridiculously high pKa still isn't irreversible, even though we treated it as such throughout the whole term.

So, despite the fact that all four were irreversible and the rule we were told is that irreversible nucleophiles add twice, only one of the aforementioned really added twice.

I was ready to spit fire after reading that question.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

At the risk of being crass, we knew in my undergrad program that you avoided the Chinese profs and instructors at all costs. You could kind of halfway understand the Indian ones, but with the Chinese you were at risk of literally not understanding a word. It surprised me that some of the students never figured that out.

Yeah, I wish someone had told me! It was my 1st semester at U-M so I was clueless at that point. I managed to avoid Chinese instructors from there on out.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

It's actually A.

A Grignard functions as a source of anionic carbon, so it is irreversible.

Here's where it gets hairy, though:

A cuprate is also an irreversible organometallic, but it follows different rules than the others (adds 1,4 rather than 1,2, and adds only once).

DIBAL is a hydride source. It's almost impossible to kick a hydride ion off a molecule, so it should add twice...but when added to a ketone it actually makes an aldehyde (which, because of the existing double bond to oxygen and the carbon bond, can't add twice because it would give carbon five bonds).

LDA, despite having a ridiculously high pKa still isn't irreversible, even though we treated it as such throughout the whole term.

So, despite the fact that all four were irreversible and the rule we were told is that irreversible nucleophiles add twice, only one of the aforementioned really added twice.

I was ready to spit fire after reading that question.

HA Of course I got it EXACTLY wrong! I should have looked at what you wrote. I assumed carboxylic acid not a derivative. Good thing I stayed clear of organic!

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Inmem58

**** you Spanish


Hablo.....habla....hablablahmos

Spanish has many similarities to English, I could learn that 10 times faster than when I tried French in high school... bahahaaa.

I totally gave up within two weeks.