WHAT SHOULD YOU BE ABLE TO DO BY THE END OF CHEM 351 ?

First, let's review our expectations of what a student should be able to do at the start of the course based on the prerequisites (Chem 201/203). 

A student is expected to have a good, working understanding of (this means the ability to use and apply) general chemical principles including (but not limited to):

• aspects of structure and bonding, especially Lewis structures, formal charges, hybridisation.
  
• general principles of acids and bases including definitions, pKa, structure - reactivity trends.
  
• general principles of resonance.
• general principles of oxidation and reduction including balancing redox equations.
  
• simple thermodynamics and kinetics : free energy, enthalpy, entropy, activation energy, equilibria and rates of reaction.
  
• anything to do with organic chemistry (e.g. nomenclature),

Now what about by the end of the CHEM 351 ?
Note that the amount of work required to meet these expectations is different for each student, and it is upto each individual to determine just what it will take for them to reach our expectations.

1. Given the structural formula or name of any of a large assortment of organic compounds, account for
(a) the complete detailed three dimensional structure of the molecule
(b) the relationship between starting materials, reagents and products arising from with a variety of reactions
(c) the way in which bonds are made and broken to bring about product formation in these reactions (that is, the reaction mechanism)
(d) the effect of structural variations on reactivity (rate or position of equilibrium) in these reactions.

2. Understand the language and diagrammatic notation of organic chemistry and be able to communicate and apply this knowledge.

3. Deduce the structural formula of an unknown organic compound from spectroscopic or chemical data.

4. Predict very roughly the physical properties of an organic compound given its structural formula.

5. Demonstrate some knowledge of the sources of and uses for organic compounds in the practical world.

6. Design reactions paths by which a great variety of moderately complex organic compounds could be prepared from simple, readily available compounds.

7. Be able to account for how reactions occur at the molecular level.

Laboratory Skills

The laboratory course is designed to offer you a variety of experiences - some are practice in techniques, others are more illustrative of concepts we will discuss in lectures, while others offer you the opportunity to work with some of the new instrumental techniques. The lab portion will be challenging because your experience in labs up to this point has not been so extensive. Many of you are planning a career as a practising lab scientist, and so I challenge you to seize this opportunity to develop manual manipulative skills. Some students find it difficult to complete experiments in the allowed time. The reasons for this are lack of confidence (which we will try to improve) and poor preparation (make sure you read the laboratory manual before each experiment).

Team / Cooperative Skills

In the market place more and more emphasis is being placed on the skills appropriate to the successful completion of team-based projects. This has not always been the main modus operandi in universities, where individual achievement is often recognised and rewarded. You will still be required to complete many of the exercises in this course by yourself. However certain course components have been designed that require a team effort for their successful completion.