Working With Organic Chemistry When You're Already Behind
The problem with organic chemistry isn't that the concepts are impossible. It's that they pile up so fast that by the time you realize you don't understand mechanisms, you've missed three weeks of foundations. I've watched students spend dozens of hours rewatching lectures that don't actually click, then panic during exams. That's where Julio Gonzalez Organic Chemistry Tutor comes in for most people. The YouTube channel and associated materials are structured differently from a typical classroom lecture. Each topic gets broken into short, digestible segments that focus on one mechanism or concept at a time. The pacing is deliberate, almost slow by design. For students who missed the introductory material, this slowness is actually the point.
Julio Gonzalez Organic Chemistry Tutor
The core approach is visual. Mechanisms are drawn out step by step with clear electron pushing. There's not a lot of hand-waving about why reactions work. He tends to show the full curved arrow notation and explain where the electrons are going, which is the part most textbooks gloss over too quickly. I used this resource myself when helping a friend who was struggling through O-Chem II. She had spent two weeks trying to understand nucleophilic acyl substitution. She'd watched the lecture once, highlighted everything, and still couldn't predict products on a quiz. The fix wasn't another lecture. It was going back to the mechanism with a clean walkthrough. What worked for her was watching the Julio Gonzalez Organic Chemistry Tutor video on carbonyl reactions, then pausing after each step and redrawing the mechanism herself on a whiteboard. Not copying. Actually redrawing. Then she did the same problem set he assigns in the video, timing herself. This routine took about forty minutes per concept instead of the four-hour marathons she was doing before.
The videos are free on YouTube. Search for the channel name and the specific topic you need. There's no paywall for the main content. Some people sell compiled playlists or PDFs of practice problems separately, but the raw videos are available without payment. The channel also has supplementary videos for MCAT prep and general chemistry, which covers a broader range if you're taking multiple courses. One thing most people get wrong about using these resources: they treat the videos like a substitute for doing problems. Watching a thirty-minute mechanism video does not train your hands to draw mechanisms under time pressure. I learned this the hard way. A student of mine would watch every video twice, sometimes three times, and feel confident. Then the exam hit. His hands wouldn't move fast enough. He knew the concepts passively but couldn't execute them actively. The workaround is simple and nobody seems to emphasize this enough. Watch the video once at normal speed to understand the flow. Then watch it again and pause after each intermediate. Draw the next step yourself before he draws it. If you get it wrong, rewind and try again. This adds maybe ten minutes per video but builds actual recall instead of false confidence.
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Another practical detail: the videos don't cover every exception or edge case you might encounter on an exam. NBS bromination at the allylic position, for instance, gets mentioned but not explored deeply. If your professor loves trick questions involving radical stability or solvent effects on SN1 versus SN2, you'll need to supplement with your textbook or another resource. The channel is strong on fundamentals and standard mechanisms. It's not a comprehensive reference for advanced coursework or competitive exams that go beyond the standard curriculum. There are also structural gaps. The content isn't organized by course sequence. You might find yourself jumping between videos on stereochemistry, then NMR, then reaction mechanisms without a clear learning path. I made my own playlist order based on typical semester progression: start with bonding and hybridization, move to nomenclature, then functional groups, then reaction mechanisms by type. This takes an afternoon of setup but saves confusion later. The audio quality is fine for most people. Not studio-grade, but understandable. Some videos have background noise that can be distracting in a quiet room. Using headphones helps. The screen capture style is straightforward and doesn't waste time with flashy transitions or animations that don't add information.
If you're looking to download any of the content, be aware that the channel doesn't officially offer downloads. What you'll find on third-party sites claiming to have downloadable lectures are usually scraped versions with ads or malware. The safe route is to use browser extensions that cache videos for offline viewing if your situation requires it, or simply take notes while watching. The act of note-taking is itself a learning step. The biggest limitation is that this is a passive resource if you don't actively engage with it. Two hours of video-watching without practice problems is worse than nothing because it creates an illusion of competence. Pair every video session with actual problem-solving. End each topic by doing at least five to ten practice problems from your textbook or past exams without looking at solutions. That's where the real learning happens. I also found that the channel's coverage of spectroscopy, particularly NMR interpretation, is one of its stronger areas. The step-by-step breakdown of how to parse a spectrum from molecular formula to final structure is genuinely useful. Many students struggle with this section of the course and don't get enough guided practice. The videos here provide that guided practice in a way most lecture recordings don't.
For organic chemistry students who are behind, this resource can cut recovery time significantly. The alternative is floating through lectures half-understanding, then spending weeks cramming before exams. The structured mini-lessons give you a clear entry point no matter where you are in the semester. Just don't expect it to do the work for you. You still have to draw the arrows yourself.
