"My name is Bill. I'm just starting my early semi-retirement after working 34+ years as an industrial organic chemist. I have earned my B.Sc. in Chemistry and my Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with a specialty in synthesis and mechanisms of reactions. Within the 34+ years of experience in the industry, In my role as a Senior Principal Research Scientist, I've taught professional chemists and chemical engineers on theoretical concepts. I've also taught part-time for 15 years at the university level (Elmhurst and Benedictine Universities) in Organic Chemistry 1 and 2 and two years in HS General Chemistry. From the time I was a graduate student through today, I've also had the privilege to tutor students in the subject of Organic Chemistry. My approach to tutoring is very straight forward: I ask my students to share their homework, quizzes, exams, or practice problems so that file can be shared during the session. I use a sketchpad which allows me to teach effectively using a whiteboard. I cover fundamentals and then work with my students through the problems in a manner they can use to teach themselves the chemistry.

It is my personal philosophy that learning Organic Chemistry is truly surmountable. I've seen where students have struggled and default to the belief that they have to "memorize" everything, including reaction mechanisms. But it is in those cases that students have not learned to properly analyze the reaction where they can derive the mechanism. Once a mechanism can be derived, it is intuitive they will be able to predict reaction products. Over these years, I've taught students on derivation of the mechanism and I've seen great successes in their achievements. The successes arrive from equipping students with methods to analyze and solve their problems." less...