Why Does Organic Chemistry Cause More Anxiety Than Other Pre-Med Courses? (How Summer Orgo Prep Can Help)

There are typically four pre-med courses required for medical school—one year each of:

• General Chemistry
• Organic Chemistry
• Biology
• Physics

Of these courses, Organic Chemistry tends to cause the most anxiety within students, even in the weeks or months BEFORE the class actually begins! But why? You’ve probably heard that Organic Chemistry is “hard,” or that medical schools look really closely at the grade you get in Organic Chemistry. But I have news for you: Medical Schools look darn closely at the grades you get in General Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, too! And oh, by the way, students also say that those other science courses are “hard”! So that doesn’t quite explain it.

What is it, then, that sets Organic Chemistry apart from those other three courses when it comes to student anxiety? It comes down to FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s first consider General Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. When you first set foot into one of these classes in college, you’ll already have a pretty good sense of what the subject matter is, and what’s expected of you. Why? Because you’ve already had some version of each of those courses in high school! So, when you take one of those courses in college, a lot of what you’ll be doing—perhaps even MOST of what you’ll be doing—will already be familiar to you.

• For General Chemistry, you’ll already have had experience working with stoichiometry, orbitals, and equilibrium constants.
• For Physics, you’ll already have had experience working with forces, acceleration, and angular momentum.
• For Biology, you’ll already have had experience working with cell structure and function, and evolution.

Therefore, if someone tells you that one of those courses is “hard”, or that med schools care a lot about the grades you get in those courses, you already know the kinds of things you need to do to succeed. It’s because of that familiarity you already have with General Chemistry, Physics, and Biology that your anxiety probably won’t skyrocket.

But now consider Organic Chemistry. That’s a course that almost no students have had in high school! So, when classes begin, students really don’t know what kinds of things they’ll actually be learning, or what’s expected of them. If asked what Organic Chemistry is, the best students can do is to perhaps say that Organic Chemistry is the chemistry involving carbon. But even knowing that doesn’t help you one bit about having a sense of what you’ll actually be learning, or what specific things will be expected of you in the course. Most students, then, are left completely in the dark by the time classes begin. And it’s that unknown factor that can be a huge source of anxiety when a student starts to hear that Organic Chemistry is “hard”, or that med schools care deeply about the Organic Chemistry grade.

So how does Summer Orgo Prep help? Very simply, Summer Orgo Prep can go a long way toward removing the fear of the unknown. In Summer Orgo Prep, we’ll go through strategies for how to approach Organic Chemistry the right way. I’ll teach you several of the key concepts that are fundamental to Organic Chemistry, and I’ll show you how to use those concepts when it comes to solving problems. As you make your way through Summer Orgo Prep, you’ll gain a much better feel for what Organic Chemistry is, and what will be expected of you in your actual Orgo course. The unknown factor will start to disappear. And when the unknown factor disappears, so will anxiety that comes from fear of the unknown!