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01:160:308

Organic Chemistry

CHEMISTRY

School 01 — New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences
credits
4
Core
None listed
Typical seasons
Fall, Spring, Summer
Fall 2026 sections
6
Open snapshot
0 open in snapshot

Course guide

AI-generated overview

Course fingerprint 10 AI-generated signals

Difficulty

5/5
Why

Rutgers positions 308 as the cumulative second half of organic chemistry, and student discussion repeatedly warns that weak 307 fundamentals become painful fast.

Workload

4/5
Why

Rutgers syllabi assign frequent textbook practice, recitation work, and multiple quizzes or exams, and students describe steady practice as necessary rather than optional.

Pacing

4/5
Why

The course moves from spectroscopy into organometallics, aromatic chemistry, carbonyls, enolates, and biomolecules within one term.

Projects

1/5
Why

Official Rutgers materials emphasize lectures, recitations, homework, quizzes, and exams rather than build-style projects or labs inside this lecture course.

Exams

5/5
Why

Rutgers syllabi describe multiple midterms, a final, and quiz-style recitation assessments, and student advice is strongly exam-preparation oriented.

Math

2/5
Why

The class is analytically demanding, but the core challenge is mechanism and structure reasoning rather than formal math-heavy computation.

Memorization

4/5
Why

Students consistently talk about organizing large families of reactions and keeping prior mechanisms active, even though pure memorization is not enough by itself.

Abstraction

4/5
Why

Success depends on translating patterns in spectra, resonance, and mechanism families into unfamiliar synthesis and structure problems.

Prerequisites

5/5
Why

Rutgers requires a C or better in 307, and both Rutgers materials and student threads treat first-semester organic chemistry as live prerequisite knowledge.

Reading

2/5
Why

The official emphasis is on problem solving with the textbook and solutions manual, not on unusually heavy text-based reading outside that practice.

What students tend to say

Public Rutgers discussion tends to describe 308 as the semester where reaction organization and carryover from 307 become non-negotiable. Students frame it as doable, but only if they actively review old mechanisms, work recommended textbook problems, and use office hours or recitation before the course snowballs.

307 knowledge is treated as active prerequisite knowledge

Students warn that 308 assumes the first semester's reaction language is still available, especially when synthesis problems and carbonyl mechanisms start stacking together.

Textbook and recommended problems are a recurring survival strategy

Advice threads specifically call out doing recommended textbook work and coming to recitation ready to ask targeted questions rather than waiting until a poor exam score forces a reset.

Instructor fit can change the experience, but not the need for practice

Professor discussions matter to students, yet even positive threads still emphasize that the course remains work-heavy and cannot be outsourced to lecture charisma alone.

Big-picture reaction grouping helps with the volume

Students often suggest organizing by functional-group transformation or mechanism family because the second semester throws too many named reactions at you to retain comfortably as isolated facts.

Topic breakdown

A practical chapter-by-chapter view from foundations to applications.

5 modules

Module 1

Spectroscopy and structure determination

Organic Chemistry II opens by teaching students how to infer structures from evidence rather than only predict products from reagents. Rutgers materials place proton and carbon NMR first, then push into multi-clue structure determination so spectral interpretation becomes part of everyday problem solving.

1H NMR13C NMRchemical shiftsplitting patternsintegrationstructure determination

Basic concept overview

Spectra are mechanistic evidence in disguise

NMR and structure-determination problems reward students who connect signal patterns back to the same structural and electronic ideas learned in 307.

Carbonyls are a central organizing theme

Much of 308 becomes easier when you see aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic-acid derivatives, and enolates as a connected family shaped by resonance and electrophilicity.

Synthesis is constraint-solving

Choosing a reaction is not enough; you also have to ask whether the rest of the molecule survives those conditions and whether another route is shorter or cleaner.

Second-semester orgo is cumulative on purpose

The course uses first-semester substitution, elimination, and addition ideas as background tools while asking you to solve bigger structure-and-strategy problems.

Things to watch for

Treating spectroscopy as a side chapter instead of a core skill

Practice small NMR interpretation sets regularly so structure determination becomes a habit rather than a last-minute exam topic.

Forgetting 307 reactions once 308 starts

Keep a cumulative reaction notebook because synthesis and mechanism questions often assume the first-semester toolbox is still available.

Memorizing named reactions without carbonyl logic

Track who is the nucleophile, who is the electrophile, what the leaving group is, and how resonance changes acidity or reactivity.

Starting help-seeking only after a bad midterm

Use recitation, office hours, and recommended homework early, especially when spectroscopy or carbonyl chapters first feel manageable.

Fall 2026 sections

0 open · College Avenue

SectionStatusInstructorMeetingCampus
0111030ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 12:25 PM-1:20 PM at MU 210SC 123MU 210College Avenue
0211031ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Tuesday 8:45 AM-9:40 AM at MU 210SC 123MU 210College Avenue
0311032ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Tuesday 12:25 PM-1:20 PM at MU 211SC 123MU 211College Avenue
0411033ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 8:45 AM-9:40 AM at MU 210SC 123MU 210College Avenue
0511034ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Tuesday 4:05 PM-5:00 PM at MU 210SC 123MU 210College Avenue
0611035ClosedSethi, KiranjotTuesday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at SC 123; Friday 2:15 PM-3:10 PM at MU 208SC 123MU 208College Avenue
cachedSource: Checked-in Rutgers Schedule of Classes snapshotsUpdated when term datasets are refreshedMay be stale

SIRS teaching signals

Historical student surveys

Teaching

3.84

Course quality

3.14

Response rate

28.7%

Coverage

187 offerings · 2014–2025

InstructorOfferingsTeachingQuality
Cullerton Denise194.493.99
Sethi, Kiranjot173.992.99
Le, Kim-Phuong153.942.68
Lee, Jeehiun134.243.69
Roth, Heinz122.032.05
Hove, Emmanuel93.612.73

Course stats

Catalog and planning context

Credits

4

Current campuses

College Avenue

Current availability

0 open of 6

Catalog terms

Fall, Spring, Summer

Core codes

None listed

Loaded terms

5

Prerequisites

(01:160:307)<em> OR </em>(01:160:315)

Degree requirement lists

No direct degree-list membership appears in the checked-in requirement index.

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