How To Survive Freshman Chemistry

I am a chemistry major for some reason.

Truth of the matter is, chemistry might have nothing to do with my future career. I’m here at college without any clue as to where I will be after college, and “CHEMISTRY” was the subject that I ended up penciling (spur of the moment) onto my college application last November.

This has not been an easy class.

In fact, this has been an extremely difficult class.

In fact, this has been the hardest class that I have ever taken in my entire life.

After the first few weeks of class, I had very few notes, I had very little hope that I could learn from my professor, and I had the sinking realization that I would have to teach myself most of the semester. Somehow, I survived. I’m averaging a B. I have faith that my final will not pull my grade down.

I attended several SI sessions this year, one just last week, and that has improved my comprehension tremendously. ETSU’s new SI program is offered for both chemistry students and biology students. It is basically an organized study group, led by a student who’s already taken several chemistry courses (or biology courses, in the case of the biology SI sessions). My biology teacher offered extra credit to the people who attended biology SI sessions, but my chemistry teacher did not. Nevertheless, I went to the chemistry SI sessions frequently. Each time, we covered the important aspects of the subjects we’d gone over in the lecture, and I was able to take the concepts home and work with them more easily.

A week ago, while looking over the list of things I had to blog about, I realized happily that I’d accidentally checked off a requirement with these ventures: the “attend one workshop, forum, or academic club meeting, etc” requirement. Here, then, is the obligatory blog post. I am glad to have gotten the chance to write about my chemistry adventure.

If any of you readers are fellow students, take this advice: find a study group. Attend study sessions that your university organizes, or create one yourself. Do not be afraid to look for help, especially if the class is hard. It is thanks to SI sessions and my chemistry classmates that I will pass this semester’s class—and come back next semester, still (for some reason) an excited chemistry major.