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Congrats on getting done with your finals! Not an easy task sometimes. But on the topic of today’s post, I was recently asked what I thought about students taking o-chem classes over the summer. This is not an easy “yes or no” question, and definitely depends on the student. Here are some of the considerations:
The Good:
1. It is only usually 5 weeks long.
2. If you are not working this summer, it is much better than just sitting around doing nothing.
3. If you are not majoring in chemistry and don’t want to go to med school, it is a great way to get it out of the way quickly.
The Bad:
1. If you ARE majoring in chem, it is very easy to forget everything that you learned in the class because you crammed it all into 5 weeks.
2. Classes are usually at least 3 hours per day, plus homework every night and an exam once a week. This can be overwhelming.
The Ugly:
1. If you get a bad prof, keep the hemlock close.
This will probably brand me as the uncontested, all-knowing, chemistry nerd overlord of the world, but here are a couple of jokes that I found humorous…enjoy.
Outside his buckyball home, one molecule overheard another molecule saying, “I’m positive that a free electron once stripped me of an electron after he lepton me. You gotta keep your ion them.”
A chemistry professor couldn’t resist interjecting a little philosophy into a class lecture. He interrupted his discussion on balancing chemical equations, saying, “Remember, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate!”
One day on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno showed a classified add that read: “Do you have mole problems? If so, call Avogadro at 602-1023.”
Q: Why do chemists call helium, curium and barium the medical elements?
A: Because if you can’t helium or curium, you barium!
