So, my chemistry education is actually pretty sad. I haven’t finished a formal class since high school (and basically everything I’ve learned since them comes from my physics education), but the story of the intro chem course I started in undergrad seems relevant to this thread.
Around sophomore or junior year of undergrad, all of my pre-med friends started complaining about organic chemistry, and so I decided to take the chemistry track to see if it was as tough as they said. I had to start with the introductory chemistry class of 300 students. On the first day, the professor did a quiz; what’s the base SI unit for length, weight, time, temperature, and amount? Once you wrote down your answers, everyone raised their hand, and then put down their hand if they got a question wrong. Maybe 10% didn’t get the meter, maybe 20% of the class failed to get the kilogram (an understandable mistake, if they put ‘gram’ instead), maybe 10% failed to get the second, around 30% failed to get the Kelvin (another understandable mistake, if they put ‘celsius’), and then around 29% failed to get the mole.
I looked around, saw that two hands were still up besides mine, and decided to drop the class.
So, my chemistry education is actually pretty sad. I haven’t finished a formal class since high school (and basically everything I’ve learned since them comes from my physics education), but the story of the intro chem course I started in undergrad seems relevant to this thread.
Around sophomore or junior year of undergrad, all of my pre-med friends started complaining about organic chemistry, and so I decided to take the chemistry track to see if it was as tough as they said. I had to start with the introductory chemistry class of 300 students. On the first day, the professor did a quiz; what’s the base SI unit for length, weight, time, temperature, and amount? Once you wrote down your answers, everyone raised their hand, and then put down their hand if they got a question wrong. Maybe 10% didn’t get the meter, maybe 20% of the class failed to get the kilogram (an understandable mistake, if they put ‘gram’ instead), maybe 10% failed to get the second, around 30% failed to get the Kelvin (another understandable mistake, if they put ‘celsius’), and then around 29% failed to get the mole.
I looked around, saw that two hands were still up besides mine, and decided to drop the class.