Spring 2027

Elementary Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Elementary Organic Chemistry Laboratory introduces organic lab techniques for synthesis, purification, and spectral interpretation.

offering recorded1 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Brian Esselman

Exams were described as hard but fair, offering a challenging yet manageable assessment style.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Use spectroscopic data to elucidate chemical structures and analyze samples of pure and impure mixtures.

  • Safely use basic organic chemistry apparatus, glassware, and techniques for the synthesis, isolation, and purification of organic molecules.

  • Obtain and use computational data to support their analysis of a molecular structure and/or reaction outcome.

  • Use the electronic and molecular structure of organic molecules to predict and rationalize chemical reactivity.

  • Construct and use a reaction energy profile to justify why a particular reaction system is likely to produce the product formed most quickly or which is most stable with an emphasis on the reactions of alcohols, alkyl halides, aromatic compounds, and carbonyl-containing compounds.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

CHEM 341 or concurrent enrollment. Not open to students with credit forCHEM 344

CHEM 342

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

BRIAN JOHN ESSELMAN is recorded teaching in Fall 2009. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LAB 001Classroom Instruction0 / 180
LAB 002Classroom Instruction0 / 180

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Brian Esselman

Brian Esselman provided abundant study resources and made class engaging with his nerdy personality, which students found worth attending.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.23 GPA, 45.0% A/AB (n=20 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.34 GPA, 48.3% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.23 GPA, 43.3% A/AB (n=30 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Brian Esselman

Exams were described as hard but fair, offering a challenging yet manageable assessment style.

Past student reviews · Brian Esselman

Students appreciated the significant amount of resources available for practice, which supported their preparation for difficult exams.

Topics

  • Organic synthesis, purification, and spectral interpretation.
  • Reactions of alcohols, alkyl halides, aromatic compounds, and carbonyl-containing compounds.

Skills

  • Elucidate chemical structures using spectroscopic data and analyze pure or impure mixtures.
  • Synthesize, isolate, and purify organic molecules using standard laboratory apparatus and techniques.
  • Obtain and apply computational data to analyze molecular structures or reaction outcomes.
  • Construct reaction energy profiles to predict product stability and kinetics for key functional groups.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
CHEM 342 · Spring 2027

Elementary Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:224:002766",
    "course_id": "CHEM 342",
    "course_uid": "course_7b873528188d902b83da8c1f",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "002766",
    "source_subject_id": "224",
    "title": "Elementary Organic Chemistry Laboratory",
    "credits_min": 1,
    "credits_max": 1,
    "typically_offered": "Fall"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "4455ec23d6933f8b1a0b867499ae7d991399ff9371c1fca8b97fcc2618a238f8",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}