CHEM 140A: Organic Chemistry I
UC San Diego Academy 2015
Welcome to CHEM 140A Organic Chemistry I!
Instructor and mentors
Instructor: Justin Hammons
Teaching Assistant: Ember Tota
Mentors: Cintya Beltran, Kelsey Baron, Julianna Mustafa, John Lopp
Course description
CHEM 140A is the first term of a year-long sequence (CHEM 140A, 140B, 140C) intended to provide an in-depth overview of the properties, reactivity and transformations of carbon-based compounds. The focus of CHEM 140A is to provide an understanding of: bonding; orbital hybridization; sigma bonding and pi bonding for the formation of organic compounds such as alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, and alkyl halides; molecular structure as a crucial factor to determine physical properties of organic compounds; concepts surrounding the electronegativity and its impact on structure; different types of isometry based on molecular formula and structure (conformational, configurational, functional, etc.); products and reaction mechanisms of the different functional groups (addition, substitution, elimination, acid-base, redox), and the influence of energetics in the outcome of a mechanism; nucleophile and electrophile (as applied to nucleophilic substitution and electrophilic addition reactions); relative stability of reactive species such as free-radicals, carbocations, and carbanions.
Textbook and other course materials
Vollhardt, K. Peter C. and Neil E. Schore. Organic Chemistry: Structure and Function 6th. Ed. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2011.
All textbooks and course materials will be provided to the students free of charge on the opening day (August 2, 2015).
Course requirements and grading
Prerequisites: Chem 6C or equivalent course in general chemistry.
There will be 2 midterms (100pts each) and 1 final exam (200pts) totaling 400pts for the course.
Midterm 1: Thursday, August 13th, 2015, in class
Midterm 2: Thursday, August 27th, 2015, in class
Final Exam: Saturday, September 5th, 2015, 8:30-11:30am, 4309 Jacobs Hall (EBU-1)
Academic integrity
Integrity of scholarship is essential for an academic community. The University expects that both faculty and students will honor this principle and in so doing protect the validity of University intellectual work. For students, this means that all academic work will be done by the individual to whom it is assigned, without unauthorized aid of any kind. Instructors, for their part, will exercise care in planning and supervising academic work, so that honest effort will be upheld.
Schedule
Lecture: Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri: 9:00-10:20am
Discussion: Tue/Fri: 10:30-11:20am
All in 4309 Jacobs Hall (EBU-1)
Please see the attached syllabus for more information.