[zabzonk]

The trouble with organic chemistry is that it's a lot harder than inorganic chemistry precisely because of the near-infinite complexities of organic molecules. If you want to teach people the basics, such as how to identify a sample or how to perform analytic chemistry (for example, work out how much of a compound you have got in a volume of solvent), you really have to start with inorganic chemistry.

[funklute]

On the other hand, understanding molecular bonding is much easier in organic chemistry. Inorganic chemistry mostly requires molecule-by-molecule computational solutions, whereas organic can get you quite far purely with rules of thumb. I majored in chemistry, and it was widely accepted that inorganic chemistry was "harder" because of the above.

[zabzonk]

My experience is exactly the opposite. Inorganic chemistry is mostly governed by the valencies of the elements reacting (and thermodynamics, of course) which are easily learned. Whereas organic chemistry is enormously complicated by the sizes and shapes of the molecules.

[funklute]

But as it turns out, you can (mostly) rely on some very simple rules of thumb to describe all those different sizes and shapes. There are only so many functional groups from which the organic zoo is built, and the most common ones (e.g. a benzene ring) are very well understood by now. On top of that, organic chemistry usually involves the low energy shells, for which sp-hybridization schemes work pretty well in describing the bonding.

In contrast, inorganic chemistry regularly involves higher-energy shells, that have much more complicated geometries and energy levels. Relativistic effects also come into play, and the end result is that you often can't even make a guess at what the molecular orbitals look like. And if you don't know what the molecular orbitals look like, you also don't know how the molecule will react with other molecules, since you don't know what the charge distribution is.

EDIT: the general attitude in my uni, also among the professors, was that the inorganic folks had a much harder time theoretically than the organic folks. As in, the inorganic might make a fancy new compound, yet have no idea how the molecule "worked". On the other hand, the organic folks had a much harder time experimentally - they would usually only have a few mg of product, whereas in inorganic chemistry you can often end up with as much as you like.

[omar_a1]

Inorganic gets very complicated very quickly. You end up dealing with Group Theory and 3D symmetry operations before you know it. And this is ignoring bio-inorganic chemistry, which is also very important.