The faculty behind one of the most daunting courses at Washington University has changed the course’s layout to better help serve students.

Starting in fall of the next academic year, Organic Chemistry Laboratory will be a two-semester course.

“This is going to be great for the students. The primary drive behind this is discussion amongst the faculty that this is the best way to teach the subject. This is going to be the best for the students and show how laboratory contributes to an understanding of the material,” Undergraduate Organic Laboratory Supervisor Steven Kinsley said.

Currently, the organic chemistry lab is taught as a one-semester, two-credit course, generally taken in the spring semester of a student’s sophomore year.

“To teach the course in one semester we cover the equivalent amount of information that is covered in a two semester course,” Kinsley said. “Wash. U. frequently has to furnish a letter to medical schools that says that our one semester course is actually equivalent to two semesters.”

The University’s shift is in accord with the structure of most universities, which teach the laboratory portion of the course over two semesters in conjunction with the organic chemistry lecture.

Washington University students enrolled in organic chemistry currently take three credits of organic chemistry lecture in the fall semester and three credits of lecture in the spring, with two additional laboratory credits.

Next year, students will take four credits of a combined lecture-laboratory each of the two semesters.

This switch to the two-semester laboratory course does not mean that students will be spending more time in the lab. According to Kinsley, students should be spending a few less hours in class.

With the current setup, students have 12 organic laboratory periods once a week from 1 to 6 p.m. during spring semester. Next year students will have 14 laboratory periods every other week from 1 to 5 p.m. over the course of two semesters. Students will be taking 56 hours of lab compared to the 60 hours taken now.

“It’s a good thing that it is every other week, because the once a week for five hours is very difficult. It’s very long and tiring,” said sophomore Lily Kuo, who is currently enrolled in the lab portion of the course.

According to Kinsley, the change to this class will be beneficial to students since the laboratory portion of the class will now be taught in tandem with the material covered in the lecture portion of the course throughout the year.

“One of the best things about it is that with doing the full-year course, the lab serves as a complement with the lecture. When a topic is covered in the lecture it is covered simultaneously in the laboratory,” Kinsley said. “It will really reinforce the lecture and they will mutually support each other better than they do now. It’s more challenging to do it the way we do it now.”

Sophomore Michael Post is currently enrolled in the lab and lecture and said that in lab he is currently going over material that was covered in lecture in October.

“I think the fact that lab is correlated with the lecture will be really beneficial to learning the material,” Post said. “It will really solidify what you’ve learned.”

Additionally, Kinsley said that the changes to the course allow for more flexibility and creativity in the experiments conducted in laboratory. Next year there will be 14 experiments—four more than the 10 in which students participated in this year. 
Included in the 14 experiments are two that Kinsley personally designed and will only be performed at Washington University.

Because of moving to the two-semester sequence, you do get a chance to have more variety in the chemistry. Basically, about 40 percent of the course is different stuff than we are currently doing,” Kinsley said.

According to Kuo, one of the drawbacks of this switch is that it will be more difficult for students to take organic chemistry over the summer at other colleges.

Kuo took both semesters of the lecture at another university over the summer, and is now enrolled in just the lab this semester. Next year—since the lab and lecture will be combined as one course—this option will not be available.

“For students who decide they want to take it over the summer, it will encourage them to take it here since you cannot take the lab later,” Kuo said.

Kinsley said that the organic laboratory and lecture will still be offered as separate courses during the summer at the University.

“There will be a little bit of a transition period, but we don’t anticipate it will involve many students,” Kinsley said.

Instead of receiving a separate grade for the laboratory portion of the class, students next year will receive one grade each semester for the combined four credits of organic lab and lecture. To account for the fact that most students tend to perform slightly better in lab than lecture, Kinsley said that the curve would be a little higher next year to keep the grades consistent with previous years.

So far, Kinsley has heard a favorable response to the revamped course structure. 
“This is done with the intent that it will work better and I think that having a lab every other week will be much more comfortable for the students,” Kinsley said. “The shorter lab period will also be much more comfortable for the students, and they will learn more.”

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Tags: classes, lily kuo, organic chemistry, orgo, steven kinsley

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