College students were failing organic chem. Who's to blame?

[minzy]

Oh, screw that guy.

[yaga]

I was a biochem major that was housed in the chemistry department, so we were taught less with memorization and more with learning principles. It made it easy for me because the only way I really knew how to study was doing practice questions. Orgo II was hard (I really liked my first semester of it and did well), but then I had to take 2 semesters of physical chemistry which made me want to change my major 3 years in. 😂 And all of our classes were curved like crazy. I got the highest grade on a Quantitave Chem test once, and it was a 65. I put it on my dorm mini fridge.

I would guess that a good amount of NYU students are like myself in that they never really needed to study in high school to get good grades. So by the time I got to college, I didn't know how. I'm in school again for nursing and I still struggle with studying effectively. Luckily I can learn a lot by doing practice questions, but it can still be hard - especially when the material doesn't lend itself to practice problems or questions. If you have a professor who is a little more old school in the way they teach, it's going to be hard pass if you can't figure out how to study for it. But at the same time, you do need to make the effort to learn the material - a lot of my classmates use youtube channels and apps that are not used by our school to study and learn the material if the professor's style isn't working for them.

[sparkythelawyer]

I went to an undergrad with a HUGE engineering program, and orgo seemed to be the place where people figured out either they could make it in an engineering/medical science, etc. program, or they could not. It did, unfortunately, point out gaps in education that if said gaps had been addressed earlier, people may have made it through. For example, we had a lot of students who were bright shiny stars in their tiny downstate towns who promptly got to undergrad and bombed out of engineering because their high schools did not prepare them to handle courses like orgo chem, higher level calculus, etc. I seem to remember hearing that classes like Orgo were still curved, however, so students who scored poorly on specific exams in a traditional sense were still passing, just not with the grades they wanted.

My sister is a med school dean and she sees students that are wonderful and bright and articulate and capable - and who should not be in med school. And the fact that they should not be in med school is not a negative about that student, it is not an insult, it just....is. But students spend their whole lives being told that "If only they work hard enough they will succeed!" so they cannot handle hearing, "I know you want this, but this should not be your path." So they stay, and they struggle, and they barely pass, or they don't pass at all, and they rack up debt, because they don't want to hear, "this is not for you." I get that vibe from some of the student comments in this article.

When I read this article, I kind of got an ESH vibe. The prof was likely a bit too gruff, and if you want to teach people, then you have to actually, you know, teach people, and you need to be available for students who are asking for help and legitimately doing the work. It sounds like he was not really willing or able to make himself available for students who legitimately were trying to do the work to pass his class.

Also, I would presume that NYU is auditing his exam questions and making sure they are related to the outline and syllabus presented to the course, that the questions are sufficiently valid, and that they are appropriate for the course and the exam. If the exams are being properly vetted, then the exams are legit, even if the students hate them.
OTOH, the students complaining that "this is just too hard" do need to do some introspection, and ask, "Is this current plan really for me, or should I contemplate another way." Some of the complaints just come across as "how dare you not pass me" or "this is too hard and it's the school's fault, it could not possibly be because this topic is just beyond me, or because I'm not willing to do the level of work needed to wrap my head around this, etc."
TL; DR, ESH 🙂

[sent]

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

My sister is a med school dean and she sees students that are wonderful and bright and articulate and capable - and who should not be in med school. And the fact that they should not be in med school is not a negative about that student, it is not an insult, it just....is. But students spend their whole lives being told that "If only they work hard enough they will succeed!" so they cannot handle hearing, "I know you want this, but this should not be your path." So they stay, and they struggle, and they barely pass, or they don't pass at all, and they rack up debt, because they don't want to hear, "this is not for you." I get that vibe from some of the student comments in this article.

This is shocking to hear from someone in your sister's position. I wonder why these kinds of candidates aren't getting weeded out during the interview process. Otherwise they will rack up debt and be forced to stay in a career that they don't want just to pay it off. I see dental students trying to drop out of dental school come online and post periodically about this dilemma. They're usually advised to stay and graduate because there really isn't a career out there that allows you to comfortably pay off $300K in student loans with just a bachelor's degree in something like Biology and two years of dental school. 

[sparkythelawyer]

Oct 5, 2022 12:17:13 GMT -5 sent said:

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

My sister is a med school dean and she sees students that are wonderful and bright and articulate and capable - and who should not be in med school. And the fact that they should not be in med school is not a negative about that student, it is not an insult, it just....is. But students spend their whole lives being told that "If only they work hard enough they will succeed!" so they cannot handle hearing, "I know you want this, but this should not be your path." So they stay, and they struggle, and they barely pass, or they don't pass at all, and they rack up debt, because they don't want to hear, "this is not for you." I get that vibe from some of the student comments in this article.

This is shocking to hear from someone in your sister's position. I wonder why these kinds of candidates aren't getting weeded out during the interview process. Otherwise they will rack up debt and be forced to stay in a career that they don't want just to pay it off. I see dental students trying to drop out of dental school come online and post periodically about this dilemma. They're usually advised to stay and graduate because there really isn't a career out there that allows you to comfortably pay off $300K in student loans with just a bachelor's degree in something like Biology and two years of dental school. 

Because the interview will show their interest, their drive, their....whatever.

What it won't show is someone who was a good student in undergrad but is not ready to manage the demands of medical school from an academic level.  Some people slip through. Some people get in when they probably shouldn't because someone is advocating hard for them.  Some people look great on paper but don't work well in reality.  It happens. 

And sometimes

[eddy]

medical school interviews are extremely important when it comes to assessing if a future student is ready for the rigor. But they are not foolproof. You will always have a couple students who make it through. And then they struggle. So you pile on the support to help them through as they are racking up debt by the minute. But even that is sometimes not enough. And at that point it is so hard to admit to defeat. But you also can't advance a student who is not capable.

I used to work in med ed. The paragraph above represents maybe 1-2 students per class. It is really painful to watch it unfold, especially when the college and student are putting forth a ton of effort.

So on that front that is why it is good to have courses like organic chem. It sets a student off on a different, probably more reasonable path early on.

[goldengirlz]

The thing is, no matter what metrics we use to assess candidates for medical school, there will always be people who “shouldn’t be there.”

Success in organic chemistry is only ONE datapoint. (My H, FWIW, got an A in organic chem — he’s smart ha — but claims he uses it exactly 0% in his day to day work as a doctor.)

Many of us have probably had book smart doctors who were also terrible. They were terrible about connecting with patients, or they were arrogant/burned out/sloppy/not up to date on the latest research. People get so defensive about the “dumbing down” of education, but is it really dumbing down or is it acknowledging that people can bring different skills to the table and still be competent physicians?

[definitelyO]

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

I went to an undergrad with a HUGE engineering program, and orgo seemed to be the place where people figured out either they could make it in an engineering/medical science, etc. program, or they could not. It did, unfortunately, point out gaps in education that if said gaps had been addressed earlier, people may have made it through. For example, we had a lot of students who were bright shiny stars in their tiny downstate towns who promptly got to undergrad and bombed out of engineering because their high schools did not prepare them to handle courses like orgo chem, higher level calculus, etc. I seem to remember hearing that classes like Orgo were still curved, however, so students who scored poorly on specific exams in a traditional sense were still passing, just not with the grades they wanted.

um - this was me!  although I didn't fail but scraped by with a C and did graduate from the engineering school.  But easy small town HS where I never studied and was top of my class.

     Also - I was somehow placed in O-Chem 201 based on test scores as my very FIRST college class.  To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.  For me personally - my failure was not understanding how to study (small easy HS), not knowing how to ask for help or admit I needed help, and struggling to cope with a new huge college and living away from home, etc....     I think that my school had the resources with TAs, office hours, etc...  I just wasn't personally prepared..

[Jalapeñomel]

Oct 5, 2022 15:52:32 GMT -5 definitelyO said:

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

I went to an undergrad with a HUGE engineering program, and orgo seemed to be the place where people figured out either they could make it in an engineering/medical science, etc. program, or they could not. It did, unfortunately, point out gaps in education that if said gaps had been addressed earlier, people may have made it through. For example, we had a lot of students who were bright shiny stars in their tiny downstate towns who promptly got to undergrad and bombed out of engineering because their high schools did not prepare them to handle courses like orgo chem, higher level calculus, etc. I seem to remember hearing that classes like Orgo were still curved, however, so students who scored poorly on specific exams in a traditional sense were still passing, just not with the grades they wanted.

um - this was me!  although I didn't fail but scraped by with a C and did graduate from the engineering school.  But easy small town HS where I never studied and was top of my class.

     Also - I was somehow placed in O-Chem 201 based on test scores as my very FIRST college class.  To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.  For me personally - my failure was not understanding how to study (small easy HS), not knowing how to ask for help or admit I needed help, and struggling to cope with a new huge college and living away from home, etc....     I think that my school had the resources with TAs, office hours, etc...  I just wasn't personally prepared..

I’ve never heard of anyone testing into organic. Even students who got 5s on AP chem had to take second semester gen chem.

[sent]

Oct 5, 2022 18:40:02 GMT -5 @kar said:

Oct 5, 2022 17:58:03 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’ve never heard of anyone testing into organic. Even students who got 5s on AP chem had to take second semester gen chem.

Probably very college specific. I went straight to organic with less than a 5, but did have to take the second semester general chem lab.

Same at my college. A 5 on AP Chem/Bio/Physicis allowed you to skip the 101 and 102 courses. So in the case of chemistry, you could go straight to Organic. Lucky for me (not), I got a 3 on AP Chem so I didn't get to skip ahead. I got a 4 in Physics so I had to take 102, and a 5 in Bio so I started in 201 as a freshman Bio major (I was the only one). But you didn't get to skip the labs so I had to take the 101/102 Bio Labs and the 101 Physics lab. The following year, I was hired to TA the Physics 101/102 labs at $6/hour. 

I studied and had to work very hard to compete in high school which made college very easy for me. I also went to college with a bunch of students who were valedictorians at their little high schools and suddenly found they had to work hard to stay afloat as science majors. 

[notreal]

I remember taking prob stat when I was a freshman. The week before spring break, we took an exam and the professor came in the next day and dramatically threw them in the trash in front of us. He said they were some of the worst scores he had ever had. He said it was obvious he had not taught us in a way we could understand and he was sorry he failed us. He then told us we wouldn't have anymore classes until after spring break. When we got back, he'd be starting over from the beginning and we'd all have to work extra hard the rest of the semester but he'd make sure we knew what we were doing and that anyone who didn't want to could drop the class without penalty. When we got back, there were only 6 of us left in the class and I got an A. I remember him as one of my favorite professors.

[wanderingback]

Oct 5, 2022 14:39:01 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

The thing is, no matter what metrics we use to assess candidates for medical school, there will always be people who “shouldn’t be there.”

Success in organic chemistry is only ONE datapoint. (My H, FWIW, got an A in organic chem — he’s smart ha — but claims he uses it exactly 0% in his day to day work as a doctor.)

Many of us have probably had book smart doctors who were also terrible. They were terrible about connecting with patients, or they were arrogant/burned out/sloppy/not up to date on the latest research. People get so defensive about the “dumbing down” of education, but is it really dumbing down or is it acknowledging that people can bring different skills to the table and still be competent physicians?

Yeah this.
Classism and privilege plays a big part.
I def struggled in med school a bit, no one in my family is a doctor so I had no clue what to expect. Meanwhile there are many people who have many family members who are doctors and have been preparing to be a doctor for half their lives.

I have lots of thoughts about what people consider a "good education" because being book smart isn’t the only thing to consider. But I’ll save that tangent for another day.

Based on my grades I could never be in a competitive speciality that is considered smart like a neurosurgeon but I still think I’m good at my job because I’ve focused not just on getting the highest grades, but on other traits that are important in this field.

[lac]

Oct 4, 2022 17:21:18 GMT -5 smock said:

See, this added context seems like a good reason to not renew the professor's contract. This is from a former student (who's currently a psych professor):

"Every semester, I tell my students the story of how NYU’s organic chemistry professor had a habit of publicly announcing the lowest exam grade and making snide comments at that person’s expense.

In Fall 2009, that person was me."

Later in the thread she says this: "The reason I tell my students that story is to let them know that:

1. I know what it feels like to try incredibly hard, still struggle, and then be made to feel AWFUL for having a hard time.

2. I’ll never treat them that way. Ever."

I’ve been thinking about this for days, as a solidly younger millennial (turn 30 on Halloween). Forgive me if I’ve missed it, but I don’t think we’ve yet discussed the impact of No Child Left Behind and its derivatives of standardized testing, and the impacts on pedagogy.

I completely understand and agree that students at a collegiate level should know how to engage at a collegiate level. But this smacks of gate keeping and that’s bullshit. Owning my biases, anyone who says “I’ve changed the way orgo is taught to make it less rote” to a generation of students who’ve been taught that standardized test scores are paramount is.. asinine.

I agree and was taught with traditional expectations of college students. College study skills are learned skills, Which makes the assumption that people there inherently understand the premise is gate keeping behavior and frankly, elitist.

[aspentosh]

I mean. O-chem is hard. It was the only class I got a C in and my mom reamed me. It wasn't until my brother (a doctor) told her it was the weeder class and to chill out. But still, it was damn hard. Didn't help that our professor sucked and had favorites. I know this because my BFF and I were in the same class and she was a teacher's pet. We wrote *the exact same thing* on our papers and made the *exact same mistake* and he took off 2 points for her and 10 for me. SO yeah. I'm still bitter, lol.

All that can be true but there is still an issue with kids and how they learn and approach schooling. Hell, DD's in 5th grade and I already see kids not turning in homework by choice vs forgetting. And I don't think it's because of a lack of parental support or access in this case, which isn't always true.

Like someone before, I did have a professor that said if everyone did poorly on a test that it was their fault and not ours. Then they usually curved it or recreated the test.

[aurora]

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

...
Also, I would presume that NYU is auditing his exam questions and making sure they are related to the outline and syllabus presented to the course, that the questions are sufficiently valid, and that they are appropriate for the course and the exam. If the exams are being properly vetted, then the exams are legit, even if the students hate them.
...

I have never heard of a real case of exams being vetted. The idea, sure, but not the practice. Doors this actually happen in a formal way at some universities?

[glw]

Oct 6, 2022 8:39:52 GMT -5 aurora said:

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

...
Also, I would presume that NYU is auditing his exam questions and making sure they are related to the outline and syllabus presented to the course, that the questions are sufficiently valid, and that they are appropriate for the course and the exam. If the exams are being properly vetted, then the exams are legit, even if the students hate them.
...

I have never heard of a real case of exams being vetted. The idea, sure, but not the practice. Doors this actually happen in a formal way at some universities?

We (grad school) have a whole office of instructional designers who do this type of thing full-time. They are helping faculty to design their lessons, making sure that the course learning objectives are being taught in each section, and making sure that assignments are accurately measuring those learning objectives. I'm sure there are assignments/sections that slip through the cracks, but it's a major push here to make sure that actual learning is taking place, and not just grading.

[formerlyak]

Oct 6, 2022 8:39:52 GMT -5 aurora said:

Oct 5, 2022 11:18:40 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

...
Also, I would presume that NYU is auditing his exam questions and making sure they are related to the outline and syllabus presented to the course, that the questions are sufficiently valid, and that they are appropriate for the course and the exam. If the exams are being properly vetted, then the exams are legit, even if the students hate them.
...

I have never heard of a real case of exams being vetted. The idea, sure, but not the practice. Doors this actually happen in a formal way at some universities?

The two universities I have taught at have an office of instructional design that does this. I don't know how it works for tenure-track faculty, as I am adjunct and have no desire to do more than just teach my select classes as a side hustle, but I've always worked with instructional design when designing a new course. I have designed about 6 courses in my discipline from scratch and all were vetted by instructional design and some that were part of a new curriculum had to also have the syllabus, with unit descriptions, approved by academic senate. 

[rupertpenny]

Oct 6, 2022 11:05:42 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

Oct 6, 2022 8:39:52 GMT -5 aurora said:

I have never heard of a real case of exams being vetted. The idea, sure, but not the practice. Doors this actually happen in a formal way at some universities?

The two universities I have taught at have an office of instructional design that does this. I don't know how it works for tenure-track faculty, as I am adjunct and have no desire to do more than just teach my select classes as a side hustle, but I've always worked with instructional design when designing a new course. I have designed about 6 courses in my discipline from scratch and all were vetted by instructional design and some that were part of a new curriculum had to also have the syllabus, with unit descriptions, approved by academic senate. 

I'm not sure how or when or if exams are audited at NYU, but this guy wasn't creating a new class. It sounds like he's been teaching the same o-chem class for forever. Would instructional design periodically check in if you kept teaching the same course year after year? 

Also, he was adjunct faculty, not tenured or tenure-track. The adjunct faculty union is going to vote on a strike any minute now It's not because of this situation at all, but this firing definitely isn't helping.

ETA: I was wrong, he was not an adjunct as he was full-time. He is also not tenured/tenure-track, but he is undisputedly full-time faculty and has a right to grieve the reappointment decisions. He is also being denied grievance which is a HUGE deal and an even worse look for NYU.

I think I’m only one here who cares about this angle but this is something of a niche interest of mine, lol.

[aurora]

Oct 6, 2022 9:36:47 GMT -5 glw said:

Oct 6, 2022 8:39:52 GMT -5 aurora said:

I have never heard of a real case of exams being vetted. The idea, sure, but not the practice. Doors this actually happen in a formal way at some universities?

We (grad school) have a whole office of instructional designers who do this type of thing full-time. They are helping faculty to design their lessons, making sure that the course learning objectives are being taught in each section, and making sure that assignments are accurately measuring those learning objectives. I'm sure there are assignments/sections that slip through the cracks, but it's a major push here to make sure that actual learning is taking place, and not just grading.

When you (and formerlyak) phrase it that way -- in terms of (usually) optional support for course development --then I definitely agree that this happens. I may have misread the earlier comment, but I interpreted it as something of a mandatory review of (most? all?) exams every time a course was offered.

[formerlyak]

Oct 6, 2022 15:02:41 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Oct 6, 2022 11:05:42 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

The two universities I have taught at have an office of instructional design that does this. I don't know how it works for tenure-track faculty, as I am adjunct and have no desire to do more than just teach my select classes as a side hustle, but I've always worked with instructional design when designing a new course. I have designed about 6 courses in my discipline from scratch and all were vetted by instructional design and some that were part of a new curriculum had to also have the syllabus, with unit descriptions, approved by academic senate. 

I'm not sure how or when or if exams are audited at NYU, but this guy wasn't creating a new class. It sounds like he's been teaching the same o-chem class for forever. Would instructional design periodically check in if you kept teaching the same course year after year? 

Also, he was adjunct faculty, not tenured or tenure-track. The adjunct faculty union is going to vote on a strike any minute now It's not because of this situation at all, but this firing definitely isn't helping.

ETA: I was wrong, he was not an adjunct as he was full-time. He is also not tenured/tenure-track, but he is undisputedly full-time faculty and has a right to grieve the reappointment decisions. He is also being denied grievance which is a HUGE deal and an even worse look for NYU.

I think I’m only one here who cares about this angle but this is something of a niche interest of mine, lol.

I did have people from instructional design audit my class from time to time to ensure it stayed true to the schedule. My course reviews were some of the best in the department, so it had nothing to do with complaints. They just wanted to be sure what they posted the class was about remained true.

[definitelyO]

Jalapeñomel, @kar, sent,

I will say that I was in college in 1989 and my parents didn't go - and I had a crap HS with not a lot of counselor assistance - so honestly NO idea how I was put in O-chem 201 my freshman year. or WHY anyone let me stay. I didn't know enough then to question....

[rubytue]

Nevermind… stupid comment

[Jalapeñomel]

Oct 6, 2022 20:22:20 GMT -5 definitelyO said:

Jalapeñomel, @kar, sent,

I will say that I was in college in 1989 and my parents didn't go - and I had a crap HS with not a lot of counselor assistance - so honestly NO idea how I was put in O-chem 201 my freshman year. or WHY anyone let me stay. I didn't know enough then to question....

Fair enough!

[Deleted]

This is a really interesting take on the issue, from an O-Chem professor at Texan A&M:

A Course in Organic Chemistry Doesn’t Need to Be a Living Hell slate.com/human-interest/2022/10/does-organic-chemistry-need-to-be-hard.html

Talks about a lot of the issues we talked about here…but one interesting addition was the discussion that O-Chem builds very little on previous courses, but builds on itself very quickly, so students who get behind early in the semester can’t just cram for a final and do well. This professor believes that this somewhat levels the playing field in that someone doesn’t have to come from a “good school” to do well, and many kids who have never learned how to study really struggle. But he acknowledges that many students who take full course loads, have a job to defray college costs, or who are supporting families simply DON’T have the time to go to office hours or work problem sets with TAs, so there’s still a privilege divide in who does well.

[notsopicky]

I'm watching Smerconish on CNN this morning, and his poll question of the day is, "Would your choice of physician be impacted if you knew said physician struggled with organic chem?" I didn't see the beginning of the show, so I don't know what his take on the professor in this situation is, or if he had any guests on to discuss.

[notsopicky]

I was not good at science and math when I was in school, so I don't have any experience with these higher level science classes.

I did want to quote goldengirlz "People get so defensive about the “dumbing down” of education, but is it really dumbing down or is it acknowledging that people can bring different skills to the table..."

Thank you for encapsulating how I feel about education in general. People are screaming their heads off about "the dumbing down of schools"...but it's really what you said in your post--that people bring different skills to the table and we (educators) are trying desperately to honor that, to celebrate that, to embrace all kinds of skills and learner profiles/approaches to learning.

[erbear]

Oct 8, 2022 8:50:39 GMT -5 notsopicky said:

I was not good at science and math when I was in school, so I don't have any experience with these higher level science classes.

I did want to quote goldengirlz "People get so defensive about the “dumbing down” of education, but is it really dumbing down or is it acknowledging that people can bring different skills to the table..."

Thank you for encapsulating how I feel about education in general. People are screaming their heads off about "the dumbing down of schools"...but it's really what you said in your post--that people bring different skills to the table and we (educators) are trying desperately to honor that, to celebrate that, to embrace all kinds of skills and learner profiles/approaches to learning.

And are turning out students who are going to change the world. The students I taught 20 years ago are not the students I’m teaching today. My class is so different that it might as well be a different job. My students think better than they did 20 years ago. They want to know why something is the way it is. It can be annoying but it can also be amazing.

And yes to the last bit. I couldn’t teach the way I did in 2000 — no one would learn anything and I’m amazed anyone did in my early classes.