Just had the first session in the new renovated lab on campus, and very disappointed in regards to the experience working with the other students. Not
sure if this is because the lab and amount of students is increased by 4 times, or if the new generation of students (I'm now at a shockingly liberal
campus on the west coast with very different norms than I am used to) is inherently awful.
Before the lab, there was an online module and a quick session about appropriate speech and jokes in the lab environment (genders, sexualized
violence, etc) which turned out to be pretty redundant as the 100 students in the lab generally ignore each other. The only time people really talked
was "THATS MINE", "Yes sweetie I'm still using this", or "Who stole my 'x'?!?".
Also, given that there was still limited equipment (1 scale for every 4 or 5 students, etc) I expected everyone to sort of work together to share what
we had available. Instead, people would move or mark the equipment as 'private', fight or it, and generally be unable to queue for the remaining
scale.
Finally, I think there was a bit of a know-it-all atmosphere (yeah I see the irony of that statement and this post) that sort of sabotaged a lot of
the work. Maybe it was just a female thing, or a millennial thing, but it was crazy too. For example, I noticed that a social science and biochem
major duo wasn't adding any indicator to their flasks, but even when it was pointed out, they kept doing it because they knew they were right.
So does it get better? Maybe I just want someone to share a relateable experience because a chemistry (actually chem eng) degree will be one pain in
the ass if things continue like this. I know that we were all nervous and getting used to the new lab, and STEM kids aren't always the most socially
savvy, but the mass shooter assembly line I witnessed today seems to me to be just ridiculous.
Melgar - 28-9-2017 at 17:19
Freshman year, you'll have to deal with this sort of crap, but unless your school has a shitty chem program, these sorts of willfully-ignorant idiots
will be gradually weeded out their second year, as they switch to psychology or something, one by one. Even if your school's chem program is
mediocre, I can't imagine people of that caliber passing organic chemistry. Expect the dumbest half to disappear after org. chem. 1, and the caliber
of who's left will improve significantly. Of course, the flip side of this is that your coursework will become much more difficult, but then, that's
life for you.
The kids you're dealing with now aren't real STEM kids, they're STEM kid wannabes. By junior year, you'll see who the real STEM kids are.
[Edited on 9/29/17 by Melgar]Metacelsus - 28-9-2017 at 17:26
Yes, it gets better. Intro lab classes (1000- and 2000-level) are notoriously annoying but the upper-division ones are very cool (although they are a
lot of work).
As soon as you can, try to get involved in actual research by joining the lab of a professor whose work interests you. Most universities have programs
to help undergrads do research either for academic credit or pay. This is a good way to find out what chemistry is actually like.DraconicAcid - 28-9-2017 at 22:26
100 people in the lab at once? Is there no TA to supervise them and explain that they have to share balances like grown ups?amaming - 29-9-2017 at 13:54
100 people in the lab at once? Is there no TA to supervise them and explain that they have to share balances like grown ups?
There's 4 TAs. Our TA is a foreign guy, who really does his best, but doesn't have the english or the speaking volume to to manage all the crap.DraconicAcid - 29-9-2017 at 14:09
That's awful. I can't imagine trying to run a lab with 100 students in it- 20 is big enough! It also depends on how well the students understand
what is going on- I've had classes where there was one bottle of, say, saturated sodium chloride for the lab to share, and when it came time to wash
their extractions with sodium chloride solution, there would be a line up for twenty minutes because each student insisted on carefully measuring out
*exactly* 15 mL of this solution. It didn't matter how many times I told them that washing did not require careful measurements- they didn't take me
seriously as an adult back then.
Then there's the people who decide that they must gather everything they need for the entire experiment before they begin, so that when people need
the equipment for part 5 of the lab, they can't find it, because it's being carefully hoarded by people who are still on parts 3 and 4.
