Although this is technically a lab class, you should honestly treat this class as a lecture class that has 8 hours of lab every week. The lectures are fast and go through all of Chem 30 with around twice as much content in each unit, and you'll need to study a lot to understand and memorize the reactions Dr. Merlic covers. He also assigns problem sets and pop quizzes during lectures. The content is pretty interesting esp. if you enjoy synthesis, but the sheer amount of information can get overwhelming. Every week or so, you basically learn a new set of organic reactions (oxidations, organometallics, aldol) and each set has its own set of stereochemistry rules.

The lab component is not too bad (s/o to Tony and Roberto!) but the procedures are sometimes long and difficult. Labs are independent and self-paced, so your ability to get good NMRs will depend mostly on your own synthetic and purification skills. There will be times when your yield is incredibly low, requiring you to redo 2-3 entire lab periods of work. Hardest part of the lab reports is analyzing your NMRs, so really try to purify your products to make your life a lot easier.

This was definitely one of the hardest classes I've ever taken, but I ultimately appreciate the things I learned from this class. There are pop quizzes, but if you quickly review the materials beforehand, it shouldn't be too much of a big deal (mainly because "fails"). My best advice for the midterm and the final is to attend the optional review sessions held a few days before the exam. Some questions were copied and pasted from those sessions. 1/3 of the midterms were the exact questions that we've already encountered throughout the quarter, so do study the PS and quizzes for some easy points (although actually understanding the material is better).