What can I do to improve my skills in organic chemistry?

[MonkeySage]

I'm a math-chemistry person. Organic chemistry has almost no math. Stereochem is kicking my hide, and I have a test on Halloween. Don't understand it, I can't visualize the positions, and I have no idea how to represent these things with my model kit.

I don't understand the S and R thing, our teacher just taught us a hand trick that's mostly useless to me.

It's often hard for me to tell cis from trans, and whether something should be cis or trans.

[Chen]

There's no magic trick. Organic chem is quite difficult and is definitely a step up from almost all other chem you will have done before. Study and practice, I don't think there's really much other way to get better at it.

[Knaight]

I'm a math-chemistry person. Organic chemistry has almost no math. Stereochem is kicking my hide, and I have a test on Halloween. Don't understand it, I can't visualize the positions, and I have no idea how to represent these things with my model kit.

I don't understand the S and R thing, our teacher just taught us a hand trick that's mostly useless to me.

It's often hard for me to tell cis from trans, and whether something should be cis or trans.
You did learn the bit about dashed lines and wedges representing things going into and out of the page, right? So with the model kit you have your central carbon, and position it so you have one piece going up in the plane of the page, one going down and sideways (mostly sideways) in the plane of the page, and then two going down and sideways opposite it while also not in the plane of the page. R and S refer to the two different ways that four different groups can be attached to a tetrahedral sp3 atom, and you can demonstrate that there are four by making two 5 atom systems around a central carbon with 4 different colored groups, rotating them until they either match or don't match, and if they match switching two groups on one of them. I'd ignore the hand trick - rotating the lowest priority group to the back and then checking if the groups in descending priority go clockwise or counter clockwise is easier.

As for identifying cis and trans - look along the plane of the double bond. If both of the attached groups of interest are on one side of the bond it's cis. If one is on each side it's trans. Generally if you have things more complicated than two groups of interest and two hydrogens you use E and Z instead, which is effectively the same where Z is cis, you just look at the highest priority group on each side. Cis and trans on ring structures is a bit more complicated, but fairly easy to explain with pictures. In just text it's not happening.

[The Great Wyrm]

Since you're math-focused, it might help to compare the concept of chirality to the concept of the vector cross product.

Also, this might be of use to you: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry/stereochemistry-topic

[Dodom]

Our teacher encouraged those with weaker spatial memory to build a little molecule model* with play-doh and toothpicks and either number or colour code the ends, as a visualising tool. She allowed using it at the exam.
You could ask your teacher permission to have a tool like this.

*: Like this, but physically built. (https://sciencetonnante.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/miroir-chiralitecc81.png)

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Yeah organic chemistry will kick your ass hard if you can't visualise, rotate and transform complex 3d objects in your head. But like any skill, it gets easier with practice! You mentioned having a kit, which is a fantastic tool for this. Build models with your kit, turn them this way and that and examine how the projection of the molecule onto the 2D plane (i.e: paper) looks. A trick you can use is stick the model to a wall and take a few steps back. By considering the wall as the plane on which you project the molecule, you may find it easier to see how the 3D->2D transformation plays out.

Another big thing is learning the priority rules. It's one of the few areas of chemistry where rote learning is needed. Just sit down (or walk in circles talking to yourself like I do) with that list until you know it like you know your multiplication tables.

As it happens, I recently returned to my chemistry studies after a 6-year hiatus and have been using this youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o_zxa4K1BW9NxZjS9ybwT0MVHVYcjvd) to brush up on my organic chemistry knowledge. Videos 5 and 6 may be useful if you haven't found your professor's lectures all that illuminating.

[tantric]

my motivation was drugs, specifically, MDMA. can't really recommend that path, but if rings your bell and you keep it purely hypothetical, i recommend Total Synthesis II by Strike (https://www.scribd.com/doc/106468931/Total-Synthesis-II-How-to-Make-Ecstacy-By-Strike). the anarchists' cookbook and uncle fester's books are trash and dangerous besides.