Why is organic chemistry required.......?

Almost all biologically active and nutritionally important molecules are organic molecules. Your organic chemistry will probably be more useful than your general chemistry. You will rarely, if ever, need to know the ideal gas law or be able to calculate redox potential as a dietician. You will, however, need to have a good understanding of the basic structure and fuction of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and hormones. Your organic chemistry class may not focus on the action of these compounds in the body—you would cover these topics in depth in biochemistry, physiology and cell biology classes—but you will get an in-depth coverage of their basic structure and chemical reactivity that will allow you to better understand their importance in nutrition. In June I finished up a year of organic chemistry and while I have already forgotten many of the small details, I definitely have a better understanding of how molecules interact. As a biology major, I've been reading about and looking at structures of organic molecules for years, and never felt like I was missing anything. Now, looking back, I realize the value of having a deeper understanding. After taking organic chemistry, chemical structure drawings and names will be more meaningful to you. Organic chemistry also stresses problem solving and logic, which are important to careers in health care. This is one reason why medical school admissions offices put such a heavy emphasis on organic chemsitry classes. As a dietitian you will be interviewing people and looking at lab results and other objective findings like height and weight to make a determination about what the likely causes of and solutions to their probelms are. You will need to take in a lot of information and follow a set of rules—about how the body works, for example—to come up with a course of action. This is how organic chemsitry works. The process may seem different but the type of thinking involved is actually quite similar.

Organic chem. is the language of carbon chemistry. Carbon chemistry forms the basis for carbohydrate chemistry, sugar chemistry, biochemistry, protein chemistry, and much of the chemistry of life on the planet. I look at nutrition science as sort of an accounting of the chemistry of life. You need to know about all of the kinds of accounts involved.

because organic chemistry involves things that we use every day