Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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Chemistry 303 Organic Chemistry Organic Chemistry is a course with a definite reputation. It is known as a • ' killer course, perhaps one of the most difficult on campus, and it is supposedly teeming with grade-hun- gry pre-meds, whose presence adds an atmosphere of pressure and com- petition to the lecture hall. While this image may contain a good deal of truth, it is but a small part of the entire picture which is Chemistry 303 304. Organic Chemistry is more than an impossible course; it is an interesting and challenging subject taught by a knowledgeable and en- thusiastic man, Professor Kurt Mislow. Mislow is a teacher placed in a difficult position; he is trying to trans- fer his enthusiasm for and knowledge of Organic Chemistry to a large body of students, many of whom do not take the course out of any interest in chemistry, but only because it is a medical school requirement. Placed in this situation, Mislow per- forms admirably in lectures. This soft- spoken man, with his combination of absent-minded scientific wit, vast knowledge, and genuine concern, manages to pack 60 minutes of infor- mation into a 50-minute lecture and still have most students enjoying and (at least partially) understanding the material presented. Admittedly, it is difficult to under- stand an entire lecture as it proceeds, since one barely even has enough time to copy down all the material presented. But Mislow ' s running com- mentary on his lectures (i.e. I like that comparison . . . this is a bad drawing ... let me use the eraser here, I ' m tired of using my hand ), and his half mumbled excursions into the more truthful details of a subject that he has just painfully over- simplified for the class, help slow down the hectic pace of the lectures and make them more enjoyable. This very same personality quirk that cannot allow Mislow to be con- 24

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Ernest Gordon Dean of the Chapel James W. Wickendon Director of Admissions; and Don M. Betterton Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid Louis A. Pyle, Jr. Director of University Health Services Robert J. Myslik Athletic Director Donald W. Koepp Librarian

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t „ . — «j SPEAK UWDH NOISY FANS ABOVE t tent with offering edited versions of the truth, also cannot allow him to write anything but highly challenging, well-integrated, and for many people, impossible, exams. In many ways tak- ing an exam prepared by Mislow is similar to sight-reading all the parts in a symphony; one must not only be proficient with every instrument but also capable of combining them in new and unforeseen ways. Mislow makes the course both more bearable and more unbearable; bear- able (and even interesting) for the quality of the lecture, unbearable for the quality (and often, extreme difficulty) of his exams. This course is rare in that one can faithfully attend the lectures, do the reading and the problem sets, learn a great deal about organic chemistry, and still fail. But even the prospect of failure should not scare off the prospective orgo student; the course should be taken if only so one can be taught by Profes- sor Mislow, a man who can, in one lecture, discuss the relative stability of a t-butyl group in axial and equatorial positions on a cyclohexane ring and say a kind Oh, hello there to a yellow balloon at rest on the ceiling of the lecture hall. 25