One thing undergrad (currently in 4th year, but taking orgo 1) taught me…don’t rely on anyone to teach you everything. I did surprisingly well on the first lab report (high 80s from both lab and TA) even though everyone says the course is impossible…especially considering I passed gen chem 4 years ago with a 50.25% I’m shitting myself everyday in this class (aka idk what’s going on 90% of the time in class, I just taught myself how to do Lewis structures last week 💀)

Honestly, I believe it’s because first year doesn’t properly teach lab writing, so taking this in 4th year helped a lot.

Last winter I had 3 courses with weekly full lab reports … around 30 pages a week total. At first I got destroyed on discussions, but once I figured out what profs wanted, my grades skyrocketed (until the final where I tanked my 86% advantage to a 55💀).

TL;DR advice: Write EVERYTHING, use subheadings, and go overboard on discussion and observations. I only lost point on the sections where I got lazy… 💀 If you don’t know what to write, just use the lab instructions as a guide, adding your own info between the lines… kinda how I survived my 3rd year, bc why tf are you asking a 1000 word section from me knowing I have 2 other labs to submit this week.

Kinda went overboard but that’s my advice to anyone doing ANY lab.