How do I say this? Compared to biochemistry, organic chemistry almost looks like a rigorous*, no-memorizing-required branch of chemistry. How does that sound?
Ok, let's give this a little context.
In analytical, the class is discussing electrodes of diverse sorts. Nerst equation (and variants) rules my universe, essentially. But it's pretty interesting: application of standard reduction electrodes to *real* situations, weird electrode membranes, and all.
In inorganic, the professor is spending a great deal of time on atomic structure. Amazingly, there is practically no overlap with first-year stuff (e.g. explaining periodic trends without resorting to saying anything about extra stability with noble-gas configurations, octets, or special stabilities of half-filled shells, all of which are apparently figments of first-year imaginations). Rather exciting, actually. Except for the "little to no math" part, but I suppose that's understandable.
In thermodynamics, life still consists mainly of familiar territory (e.g. equations that deals with non-ideal gases) and we haven't even started on talking about P-V work yet, but progress is being made.
In organic, we are discussing NMR. Enormous electromagnets, amazing ability to distinguish between 1H's (and 13C's) in slightly different electronic environments...what's not to like? (I think I'll change my mind on this later, though.)
Guess what was taught in biochemistry today? The acid-base properties of water. Buffers. Calculating the pH of a weak acid solution. Filled with assumptions like "in comparison to a salt, dissocation of a weak acid/base in calculating ionic strength is negligible" (which I distrust as an all-purpose claim) and "one can disregard solubility issues in talking about a 0.01 M Ca(OH)2 solution". Another reminder to memorize all the freaking amino acids (no, I haven't started yet). Reminiscent of high school, no?
To be fair, I did learn a few new things in biochemistry class, like the fact that the ionic strength of a buffer matters in biological studies, the complications that arise when the pKa's of a polyprotic acid are very close to each other, and the ion product for water at 37 oC is 2.4*10-14 (which ended up being useful in analytical: the professor happened to want the ion product at that temperature to illustrate a point).
Tomorrow will be my first actual organic lab class. Maybe all the diethyl ether fumes will wash out the memories of biochemistry...until the next lecture, anyway.
(In other news: the math courses are going fairly well. For example, real analysis is starting to become a little odd, in various nifty and counterintuitive ways.)
*Rigorous, the way a math major would mean it. Which gives an indication of how bad biochemistry is.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Another Reason Why Biochemistry Classes Suck
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1 comment:
Organic is pretty fuzzy--it's just too complicated to apply numbers and equations reliably. If you get into the materials side of things, though, it changes a little. Lots and lots of math in band theory. I am reading through it now, and it's a little painful. (But only because I have been counting to four and drawing hexagons for so long.)
If your inorganic class is any good, you'll likely be doing lots of group theory soon, which may make you happy (or may be disappointing, whatever).
I highly recommend lots of rum to get you through thermo (helps with staying awake), and lots of ether sniffing in general. Especially since you have to endure biochem. Gag.
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