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After close to a 37 percent drop rate, 107 broken bones, and eight reconstructive surgeries, the Chemistry Department has announced that they are remodeling their Organic Chemistry teaching facilities. In response, one survivor of the class said, "it's about time."
It seems that CHEM0350 and CHEM0360: Organic Chemistry ("Orgo") has been taught in a medieval torture dungeon for the last decade or more.
In explaining this environment, Professor of Chemistry Matthew Zimmt stated, "Orgo is supposed to be grueling and testing of all of a student's faculties. We didn't think impossible tests were enough. We wanted our students in mental, emotional, and physical pain; and like King Arthur always said, nothing does that better than an impossible test, shackles, and a mace."
Students who have taken the two-semester course are all extremely shaken from these torture sessions. Evan Song '08 described his fear: "I would be trying to do a really hard synthesis problem, but all I could think about were the blades periodically swinging over my head and the screams of my lab partner getting lashed."
Another student, with fear gripping his mangled face, said that while working through the final exam he looked up to find a giant mace headed for his face. "All I remember is thinking, 'Methane, methane, methane. MACEEEE.'"
It seemed, however, that the Chemistry Department had no desire to stop this torturous onslaught. As Zimmt noted, "It was working. Only the strongest survived and they became damn good chemists. However, some people seemed to be slipping through the cracks, so we decided to step it up."
During the infamous Spring 1999 Organic Chemistry final exam, every student found themselves gagged, blindfolded, and shackled.
As Patricia Deal '01 recalled, "It was totally crazy. I literally couldn't take the test because I couldn't see or use my hands." With 20 minutes to go, the professor unbound the students, at which point the teaching assistants poured an enormous vat of boiling oil down the rows.
"We really thought that this would be enough, but an amazing three kids received As on the exam, which was totally unacceptable," said Zimmt.
By 2006, the professors' desperation reached its pinnacle. They used a full-scale catapult to throw flaming boulders at groups of students. However, with close to 35 wounded and one dead, the University acknowledged that a change in order.
"We couldn't approve of this sort of behavior. Students were getting severely injured at an alarming rate. So we told the Chemistry Department to clean up their act," explained Dean of Student Life Margaret Klawunn.
Soon after, luckily, Brown University received a charitable donation from a one-legged Orgo alumnus to create a new state-of-the-art Organic Chemistry facility. The alum's only comment was, "Organic Chemistry might have taken my leg, but it gave me so much more."
