CHEM 2562
Organic Chemistry II with Lab
A course covering certain areas of organic chemistry in more detail than the prerequisite course, with special emphasis on the mechanisms and the synthetic applications of organic reactions and on the organic chemistry of biological compounds. The laboratory will meet eight times and include organic synthesis and spectroscopic techniques. Required course for chemistry majors.
Instructors
Chenfeng Ke, John Heemstra, Kevin Moeller, Maria Cruz, Rong Chen, Timothy Wencewicz, Vladimir Birman, William Tolman
Reviews
She really wants people to do well. If you read over the procedures before her lectures they are much more useful
8/18/2026
Dr. Ke is funny but his class comes with quite a few caveats. Exams are graded extremely harshly, with little to no partial credit. Regrade requests often result in your entire exam being regraded. He commonly makes mistakes (ie. forgetting a carbon) so lectures can be confusing and unclear. Grade is extremely exam heavy. Can't drop final.
5/29/2026
Orgo lab is really not supposed to be a lecture class. It is graded sometimes harshly but Dr. de la Cruz really does want her students to be successful. She gives opportunities for extra credit and generally orgo lab is 100x better than gen chem lab like seriously very chill as long as you do the prep work.
4/30/2026
I had the worst Orgo 1 experience and Heemstra changed my life this semester. He is accessible in office hours and clearly cares about his students. Orgo is hard but Heemstra really explains and gives you time to think and discuss with others during lecture. You can tell how experienced he is and that he really is passionate about teaching.
4/30/2026
Nice and knowledgeable teacher, but the learning objectives were not clear. I guess I left with some understanding of orgo, but what I really learned was how to review problems for exams.
4/25/2026
The class was fine, but I found I ended up memorizing problems and the LA worksheets. If you do that, the exams are straight forward. I must say I am not sure how much I actually learned.
4/22/2026
He's the best professor you can get for organic chemistry. Obviously, it's a hard course but he's the man you want to learn it from. He's very charismatic and his lectures just make sense, especially compared to the professor I had for Orgo 1.
4/21/2026
I absolutely love Dr. Heemstra. He truly cares about his students and their well-being outside of his class. The class itself was also great. It is tough material but he teaches it so well, and it is so rewarding when you take a tough exam and get a good grade on it. His class was one of my favorites even though I don't particularly like orgo.
10/20/2025
Lucky to have him as my prof. Had 261/262 with Heemstra and am so grateful to have had him. Would be lucky to have another professor like Heemstra.
5/16/2025
Kind, smart and enthusiastic. Helps you understand why certain chemistry is favorable with orbitals, thermodynamics, rate, and sterics. Research questions on test can be daunting, but you will be good if you can identify the reacting portions of molecules. Such a nice qualitative continuation of gen chem; I have learned so much. 261/262
5/1/2025
Prof. Heemstra is one of the best professors I've ever had & he genuinely cares about students. Strikes a delicate balance between challenging you, while being understanding/reasonable. He draws everything on his slides, so it's easy to follow his lecturing. Nothing but good things to say!
12/7/2024
Absolutely amazing teacher! Explains concepts very well, make sure to go to office hours!
11/4/2024
8-10 hrs/week
Heemstra was great but if you didn’t get a good grasp of orgo on orgo 1, it‘a super hard
5/22/2024
4-6 hrs/week
Moeller is an awesome lecturer and very accessible during office hours and outside of class. highly recommend going to workshops, especially on weeks where you feel like you need more practice on some of the concepts from lecture. TAs were great during workshops. Requires a lot of reviewing and practice outside of class, so take advantage of all practice materials provided. Moeller's tests are pretty fair content-wise
5/18/2024
2 or less hrs/week
Heemstra made this class very doable. There are five exams including a non-cumulative final, and the lowest of these is dropped. The class did well on exams, and based on averages, most people should have ended with an A. Exams all follow the same format as each other and the practice exams and the practice questions are similar. The LA worksheets are optional but really help as the questions are more difficult than the exam questions. If you just take an hour or two each week to do the worksheet you will be fine. Heemstra is a good professor and most information can be learned directly from lecture.
5/18/2024
Orgo 2 isn't as hard as Orgo 1 but it's still hard; though, Dr. Moeller is an excellent professor. In class, he provides the notes before hand, and goes at a decent pace. He also provides a lot of practice exams for practice, which personally helped me on exams. Was helpful outside of class as well.
5/10/2024
Dr. Moeller is one of the best professors I have had at WashU. I started Chem 262 hating organic chemistry and by the end, I liked it enough to take his upper-level organic chem class (451). I recommend using his written notes instead of trying to keep up and then reviewing afterwards. Chem 262 and 451 were both very difficult but still doable!
12/17/2023
This class is so hard. He is very kind, but not too helpful in office hours (he goes too fast)
11/21/2023