CM3221 - ORGANIC SYSTHESIS: THE DISCONNECTION APPROACH
Academic Year 22/23 - Semester 1
Assessments:
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Midterms (Zhao Yu) 25%
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CA (Koh Ming Joo) 25%
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Finals 50%
Lecturer(s) and Tutor(s): A/P Zhao Yu & Asst Prof Koh Ming Joo
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Review 1
Module Overview: ​Organic chemistry evolving enolate chemistry and heterocycles
Overall Difficulty: Difficult
Difficulty of Assessment:
Midterm: Very Difficult
CA: Average
Finals: Difficult
Pace of Module: Just Nice
Enjoyability: 3/5
Usefulness: 5/5
Workload of Module (Average Number of hours spent per week):
To learn the content: 4 hours
To complete assignments: 1 hour
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How did you find the contents (how it was delivered) and the assessments of the module?
Lectures were given at a good pacing, and recap was always done. However, I felt that the CA at week 13, followed by finals was a little redundant as there were many other modules having tests and assignments due on Week 13, making it extremely packed to study for.
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How was your experience with the module?
It was a good, chill module that did not require much to do. Do your own practice! Helps with most kinds of disconnections and will be able to apply to future medicinal chemistry uses
Review 2
Module Overview: ​
Part I: 1,1 to 1,6 disconnection approaches, electrocyclic reactions, sigmatropic rearrangement. Part II: Boron chemistry, Silicon chemistry, 3 - 8 member rings formation, N-Heterocycles reactions and formations
Overall Difficulty: Difficult
Difficulty of Assessment:
Midterm: Very Difficult
CA: Average
Finals: Difficult
Pace of Module: Just Nice
Enjoyability: 5/5
Usefulness: 5/5
Workload of Module (Average Number of hours spent per week):
To learn the content: 4.5 hours
To complete assignments: 5 hour
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How did you find the contents (how it was delivered) and the assessments of the module?
Part I (Prof Zhao Yu): The topics that were covered by Prof Zhao Yu should be covered in lower-level organic chemistry modules. He goes much more in-depth on the possible retrosynthetic routes and forward reactions. The newer topics covered by him include electrocyclic reactions (Nazarov, Diels-alder etc) and sigmatropic rearrangements (Cope, Claisen rearrangement etc). Even though his part is much easier to study for, the CA for his portion was relatively difficult.
Part II (Prof Koh Ming Joo): He taught Silicon chemistry, Boron chemistry, Ring formation, and N-heterocycle chemistry. Prof Koh would drop hints during class on what he is going to test during the CA and exams. His CA portion was relatively simple as compared to Prof Zhao Yu's. Final Exams: For the final exam, the paper was set and moderated based on the two CAs' average. The final paper was tougher but doable.
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How was your experience with the module?
I enjoyed the module as I was able to learn new chemistry and my interest lies in total synthesis. The module is very useful if you are looking to work in the pharma field in the future.