“It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Bilbo Baggins might have been talking about a grand adventure through Middle-earth, but the feeling he describes resonates just as powerfully with anyone staring at…
If you’re taking Organic Chemistry, you’ve probably heard the horror stories—brutal exams, endless reactions to memorize, and lectures that feel like they’re in another language. The truth? OChem is one of the most challenging college courses, but it’s not impossible. The key to success isn’t just working harder—it’s working smarter. And one of the smartest…
Various Large Language Models (LLM), such as ChatGPT and others, are all over the place nowadays. I’ve also noticed that students like using them as well for studying and, occasionally, for completing their homework and other assignments. Someone asked me recently: “Victor, aren’t you afraid that soon an AI tutor will just replace you?” Frankly,…
Dive into the realm of chemistry, and you’ll find yourself lost amidst a vast landscape of molecules, reactions, and bewildering nomenclature. Among the various disciplines within chemistry, one subfield has been known to both bewitch and bewilder students in equal measure — Organic Chemistry. It’s considered a rite of passage in the scientific community, a…
Organic chemistry is an extremely interconnected science. As you have already seen in the first semester of your organic chemistry sequence, one topic connects to another in such a way, that mastering consequent topics is very hard without mastering previous ones. Before we go further, let’s look at the typical first semester organic chemistry topics….
Imagine yourself doing your homework or reading the textbook and something doesn’t make sense. What would you probably do in such a case? Correct—ask your teacher. Next day you go to school, go to your teacher’s office hours or visit with them after the class, you ask your question and… you get an answer… not…