By Peri Prestwood
As far as the introductory life sciences courses rank in the minds of college students, organic chemistry has never held the best reputation. There can be a lot of apprehension going into it; it’s often seen as a weed-out course, or at least a difficult hoop to jump through for students with premedical or preprofessional aspirations. “You can’t do well without putting in the work,” said Alina Keshwani, a senior on the premedical track at the University of Michigan.
The chemistry department at the University of Michigan faces a challenge in maintaining the rigorous curriculum of a highly ranked department while adapting to an ever-growing student body. In fall 2025, the university hosted its largest-ever class size of introductory organic chemistry, CHEM 210, with around 1,500 students signed up. While organic chemistry demands hard work from students, responsibility also falls on faculty to provide the scaffolding that best supports students’ learning. Faculty have carefully developed these courses over time, considering not only how to portray intellectual content but also facilitate the essential peer-to-peer interactions that make the course tick.
The foundations of CHEM 210 and the subsequent course, CHEM 215, were built in the late 1980s when the university began offering organic chemistry to first-year students, rather than requiring a prerequisite semester of general chemistry. Dr. Brian Coppola had just begun his career as a professor. “Thirty years later, there’s no looking back,” he said.
Faculty have continued to evolve the courses to adjust to not just a changing student population, but a changing world. While the basics remain largely unchanged, the availability of resources has grown, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Nicole Tuttle, who joined the chemistry faculty as a lecturer in fall 2020, said, “When we returned to campus [after COVID quarantine], there was a strong realization that there was a lack of engagement by students.” After quarantine, the use of lecture recordings and online materials increased, minimizing person-to-person interactions.
The instructors at the time brainstormed how to restore that severed student-student connection. Tuttle, who took CHEM 210 herself as an undergraduate at Michigan, reflected on how her experience was shaped by the friends she made in class, some of which she still talks with to this day. “More than anything we want [students] to talk to each other about organic chemistry,” Tuttle said.
Those who have taken or taught organic chemistry agree that passively absorbing lecture material in such a problem-solving driven class does not culture success. Coppola said, “Teachers since the beginning of time have always said, ‘You should go work together.’ Tell them why.” The “why” was that explaining a concept to someone else requires a deeper understanding of the material compared to regurgitating memorized answers or patterns.
One student’s explanation might even be the key to another’s understanding. Keshwani recalled how confusing 3D orbital drawings were until she talked to another student. “Understanding it from a student, it’s a different perspective.” This inspired her to become an organic chemistry tutor herself. “I feel like I’m able to simplify a lot of stuff,” said Keshwani.
Understanding the power of communication, the faculty implemented resources and changes to course design, including groupwork-focused discussions, collaborative quizzes, practice exams, and more. Students, especially those taking CHEM 210 in their first college semester, can discover which resources best support their learning.
Cole Balintfy, now a senior undergraduate student, described his first-year experience. “As a pre-med student going into organic chemistry all I thought was, ‘This is going to be the class. This is college—things are going to get real,’” he said.
While the 400-person lecture hall could feel overwhelming, Balintfy connected with other students in a structured study group (SSG). Attending the two-hour session each week, he found a sense of community. “Not only were we learning together, but we were challenging ourselves and really pushing ourselves to think critically,” Balintfy said. Now a chemistry major, he considers joining the SSG to be integral to his college experience.
While Balintfy thrived in the SSG, according to past student surveys, there’s no correlation between utilizing a specific resource and getting good grades. Each successful student finds their own ideal combination of resources. “If you think of resources as a trip to the buffet restaurant, there are many ways to create a nutritious meal out of the ones that are available. You don’t have to force the vegetarian to be a meat eater, or vice versa,” said Coppola. Regardless of how it’s accomplished, Tuttle said, “Practicing the application and talking about [chemistry] with others are the two most critical things [students] can be doing for themselves.”
A unique feature of CHEM 210/215 is Structure and Reactivity: An Introduction to Organic Chemistry, a multi-part textbook written by Coppola. According to his website, he designed the book to “expand the pedagogical mission of a standard textbook” in that the reader is guided through structured explanations and open response questions. “I had this desire to create the workbook-type format so that students would run into the speed bump of empty space,” he said.
The book series is written to provide valuable scaffolding for students to collaborate. “It’s meant to be something that you fold over and can sit at a table and work back and forth with other people on,” Coppola said.
Keshwani contributes her success in the courses to this aspect of the book. “I definitely made a lot of friends in that class because we all did practice problems together,” she said. “I did every question in the book.”
While organic chemistry may never lose its reputation, there are many success stories that come out of it. Tuttle said, “It’s such a common thing in 210 and 215 for a student to see me the next year after they’ve taken it and say how much they miss it or how they ended up being surprised at how much they loved it.”
Balintfy says CHEM 210 prepared him for other college courses. “I still reiterate how fortunate I was for that to be my first course… It not only taught me chemistry, but it taught me how to learn,” he said.
Said Tuttle, “You are going to come out of this transformed. That is our goal.”
