Perspective and How it Applies to Chemistry

When you think of a chemistry class, what is your reaction? Many shudder, others cringe, and there is a general distaste for the subject, or there is in my peer group (being an English major the sciences tend to scare a little). With that as my natural reaction, I was a little nervous when I walked into the large lecture room in the frigid basement of the Science Building on Tuesday afternoon for my 2:30 Chem 1110 class. I was thinking to myself, "well, I aced high school chemistry, but that was 4 years ago". Having picked the class because it fit into my desired time frame, and not for the sake of any professor who was teaching it (not that I would know before hand any of the science professors), I was nervous that I would end up with an unreasonable professor who would just drone on about the periodic table and wouldn't look up from his notes except to stare down his nose at us disapprovingly. This has not been my experience previously, of course.

On the contrary, my high school chemistry teacher was a round, engaging, and very clever man who knew what was going on in his classroom but let the delinquents think they were getting away with their foolishness until their tests came back with no score because he saw them copying/discussing the answers with a friend. ... but I digress...

At 2:30 on the nose, my professor walked into the room, he was a skinny man with white hair (where hair remained) surrounding a bald crown. I heard the girl next to me mutter with slight amazement that he was the DEAN of the Science Department (being an English major, I really wouldn't know what the dean of the science department looks like, so I took her at her word). Professor Eves introduced himself, and spoke about the class. It seemed that most of the students were in there because they were required to be there for the nursing program, nobody mentioned filling a General Ed requirement. My blood froze. I thought I was in the wrong class ( I later checked, and the course does fill the General Ed requirement which is my reason for taking it). I was delighted, as the eighty minute course progressed, to find that Dr. Eves is really a very pleasant fellow. Utah bred, and very knowledgeable about the material, he assured the class that he was going to prepare us for the standardized final exam quite well, and that we shouldn't be concerned about passing it because SUU's students have always been well above average in the past decade or so.

I titled this post "Perspective" and you're probably still not sure why. Well, I wanted to focus on my perspective walking into class on Tuesday, and my change of perspective walking out of class this afternoon. I decided that this class can be easy, or it can be hard, I just have to let myself think it's going to be fun to learn this, and it will be fun. Because that's the light I'll be shining on it. (feel free to check on me in a couple months and see if I'm still enjoying my CHEMISTRY class!)

That's all for now, until next time,

PenningJade