Hey every1 - I finished with a D+ in chem 1AA3 and am guessing its prob not a good idea to take organic chem in 2nd year. I barely took anything away from AA3, i barely attended classes and guessed majority of the exam.

Should I retake this course or somehow try to teach AA3 material to myself?

I would just go over the material again yourself. I didn't finish 1aa3 (dropped it) and have to take chem 2e03 (engineering orgo) and the only relevant part it seems is the last section that is the orgo part which transitions to next year. Unless you are sure you can get a super high mark it isn't worth the time and money

You can still do really well in Orgo without knowledge from 1AA3 but you have to put in the time and the effort. If your study habits from 1AA3 continue through to 2AO3, you may not be able to pass the course. Orgo is doable but it requires a lot of work, diligent effort and not falling behind. It is completely possible to do well.

There are small things in 1A03 and 1AA3 that are very basic in chemistry and can be found in orgo. So at least be familiar with the very simple ideas in each of the topics that were covered. Some I can name off the top off my head are kinetics and thermodynamics (reaction rates, Gibb's Free Energy) as well as acids and bases (pKa). Although you could probably learn these rather quickly while taking orgo, but those would be the sorts of things the course expects you to have seen before.

You can still do well in orgo. The things that are review in orgo from first year chem are covered in the textbook very well and that is all you need to know. Orgo is pretty different from first year chem and I'm sure the simple review stuff will be easy for you to learn (formal charges, drawing molecules, etc)

As others have mentioned, you don't really need to re-do CHem 1AA3 to do well in orgo. Maybe just mentally go over what went wrong? What did you not understand or was it just an issue of time management? Also, there's a few chapters in the beginning of the orgo textbook that cover a few of the basic chem principles that you need as a basis for Orgo, so you definitely don't need to re-do 1AA3 to do well in orgo!