level of Chemistry interest

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Hey INTPs,

I'm just kind of curious how much chemistry experience we have on the forum. I keep forgetting who's had some and whatnot.... and since chemistry is the Best Subject Ever, we should all care.

So this poll is going to track the amount of chemistry people have taken, and then whether they like it or not.

 

[Yellow]

Does a minor in OChem count as Bachelor's Degree? I hope so...
Chemistry does rock. I only needed one semester of OChem after my first year survey but then I had spent like $200 on the text so I was determined to take the next two, then BioChem (which you'd think I'd like being a Biology major, but no dice), and a few others. My advisor informed me one day that I already had the minor requirements filled (along with Geology for the same reason). The only reason I didn't double major was my wanting to avoid physical chemistry at all costs. Inorganic Chem is a lot of work. OChem is more intuitive (I mean it just makes sense).

 

[Ermine]

I've taken high school chemistry. It had the potential to be interesting, but in my experience, it was almost nothing but following directions in labs and remembering various compund names and their abbreviations. I'm good at memorization, but I didn't like it. Another complaint is that, like in all my math classes, my teachers shied away from telling me why some things were the way they were. This is a crime in my mind when teaching a subject that explains the causes for various phenomena. But I guess that's just a teacher issue, not a subject issue.

 

[Cogwulf]

I've got a UK A-level in chemistry, whatever the US equivalent of that is. I'll soon be starting a university course in Materials science & technology/materials engineering which will probably involve a lot of chemistry

 

[Latro]

Gen chem, 1 semester of o chem so far. Working on a bachelor's in chem; will be working on an MS immediately afterward if all goes well.

I've got a UK A-level in chemistry, whatever the US equivalent of that is. I'll soon be starting a university course in Materials science & technology/materials engineering which will probably involve a lot of chemistry

I think A level is comparable to an AP class, which is in turn comparable to a year of college chemistry.

I've taken high school chemistry. It had the potential to be interesting, but in my experience, it was almost nothing but following directions in labs and remembering various compund names and their abbreviations. I'm good at memorization, but I didn't like it. Another complaint is that, like in all my math classes, my teachers shied away from telling me why some things were the way they were. This is a crime in my mind when teaching a subject that explains the causes for various phenomena. But I guess that's just a teacher issue, not a subject issue.

That is a "we have to teach you SOMETHING during this period that you're studying the material so that this class doesn't seem completely pointless" problem, IMO. To try to explain even why, say, the Octet Rule applies, would require multiple years of study of physics and chemistry (in particular, of quantum mechanics; I still haven't studied this material). Certain things can be explained fairly early on in one's study (e.g., why electronegativity trends work the way they do, given knowledge of valency) but a lot really can't. On top of that, a good chunk of modern chemistry really is like this; for example, the list of organic reactions grows constantly, far faster than mechanistic studies can explain how they work (it doesn't help that the money isn't in mechanistic studies for the most part). As a result, a lot of what organic chemists do is essentially "magic", unexplained but entirely usable in practical work.

Nonetheless, it DOES get better about this as you go.

...Crap, I forgot to check that I like chem.

 

[Decaf]

I have a MS in Chemistry (specifically semiconductor processing), but despite being happy with my education, I kinda wish I'd gone into psychology.

 

[Cogwulf]

I have a MS in Chemistry (specifically semiconductor processing), but despite being happy with my education, I kinda wish I'd gone into psychology.

I think I could have enjoyed being a psychologist, but earlier in my life I saw physical sciences as cool and interesting and biology and psychology as spongy and confusing. I did apply for a course in chemical engineering at university, but due to various crapnesses during my A levels I didn't get good enough grades for the course, but luckily the university offered me materials engineering as an alternative. Now I think I wouldn't have enjoyed chemical engineering much because it's more maths than anything else

 

[anemian]

I took chemistry for a sci credit in high school. then I took an AP chemistry class to learn some more math from it.

Chemistry, physics, and programming is why I can run math circles around the normal person :rawr:. I stuck with programming though.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

I remember liking it but never followed up on learning more beyond a semester in college. Other priorities back then and I've forgotten a lot of it in the 20+ years since.

 

[Jaico]

Ah, chemistry. I enjoyed chemistry in high school, because the courses I took had a lot more emphasis on theory and understanding than the chemistry courses I didn't take - there was a heavy focus on organic chemistry, and calculations were sparse. So far in university, I've taken the pre-requisite first year (basic) chemistry courses, and second level organic chemistry and physical chemistry.

First year chemistry was...easy, but drop-dead boring. The only thing that made the class interesting was my professor, who was snarky, awesome, and most likely INTJ.

My first semester of organic chemistry wasn't so fun, because it was just a bunch of rote memorization of the different classes of compounds...it was quite boring. The next semester was a lot better, though, because there was more of an emphasis on 'puzzle-solving'; a lot of the time, questions were "how do you synthesize compound B from compound A?", and there were multiple ways of accomplishing it. I really enjoyed how a lot of the times, the compounds would appear to be totally different from, say, an example in the book/class, but still be the same in principle.

Physical chemistry was also pretty great. I really enjoyed taking the tests, because every problem presented always had a solution that you had to find through formula manipulation/algebra...I saw it as putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Professor was kind of dry, though .

The thing that really gets me about chemistry is the labs/lab write-ups. Sadly, I am terrible at working in chemistry labs, and am always disorganized/slow/unsure of my measurements. Definitely not my strong suit...

 

[Xel]

I do not like Chemistry and I took it in high school. Too much math with very little personal relevance for me. I got so sick and tired of seeing Avogadro's constant over and over and over again. Then again... I had never really taken a course like that before. I find it odd that I liked Physics the next year but I hated Chemistry. And there is just as much math involved in physics. I think the formulas we had to use were less annoying for some reason... Chemistry seemed very repetitive while I thought I could see the concepts developing in Physics.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

The thing that really gets me about chemistry is the labs/lab write-ups. Sadly, I am terrible at working in chemistry labs, and am always disorganized/slow/unsure of my measurements. Definitely not my strong suit...

You know, I had the same problem. In AP Chemistry my test/homework grades were "A"s while my labs were "C"s. It really took me until my junior year in college before I was comfortable and quick in a lab. So don't be discouraged, if the difficulty with labs is holding you back from pursuing it more.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

I like chemistry compared to physics or biology although biology tends to have better looking females I haven't taken anything advanced yet though. Just basic college level. I would like to get into the more advanced realms of physics but I find basic physics so boring. Probably doesn't help that I never had a good teacher for physics though. I still like chem above all the rest. There are just so many interactions that I would like to learn so I can possibly think of new ones. Right now I am majoring in Science since there is no chemistry major and I like the idea of being flexible/multi-disciplined in the sciences. I'm considering the 2 year molecular biotechnology degree at least for the short term. I don't know how long I'd be able to work a tech or assistant level job though. Maybe I could work my way up or make enough money to continue my education. Who knows? I still have another 3-4 semesters left at the medium pace I am going at.

 

[Death]

I like chemistry more than anything else,I found it quite interesting because it's easier to understand and I intuit with it more,maths and physics on the other hand,I found quite fastidious.Although I'm interested in learning the concept behind maths and everyday physics,I found the thing they asked to calculate in exam is quite irrelevant.

 

[fullerene]

chemistry is "meh". I actually don't like it because there's not enough math in it, and due to lousy teachers throughout high school. I said "some college chemistry"--but really i just took AP chem and got a 5. That got me out of 8 credits of chemistry classes in college, though, so I guess it sorta counts as college. I won't have to take any more, at any rate, and that's quite fine with me.

 

[Cavallier]

I have a love hate relationship with chemistry. I love the theory. I hate math. My brain is broken when it comes to numbers. I know guys, I know. I swear I'm still an INTP. Like I said, my brain is broken. Anyway, some friends helped me hobble through the first and third term and during the second term (all theory and no numbers) and suddenly they were failing exams. I had to help them pass. I loved O-Chem because it did not involve numbers at all. Just a bunch of theory. I dance merry jigs around theory and crawl defeated under math's heel.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

I forgot to add that while I find physics is boring the lab experiments tend to be more fun. The math afterward and the lab reports suck though. I am adequate at math but I much prefer theory to math. Math is important to me though, without it I am incapable of higher learning/understanding.
Math=Magic=laws of God/The Universe

 

[Zero]

I'm not interested in chemistry. I was under the impression it required a lot of math and was rather detail oriented. I've never taken chemistry.

I took geology and biology and I'm fairly interested in neurology and genetics.

Note that most mathematics are detail oriented. If you don't like math that means you're all the more intuitive, seeing as sensors supposedly have more of a mind for details.

I do like using numbers, in case you haven't seen me around, I like to make percentages. I'm not particularly good at Algebra for instance, because I don't have a mind for "book-keeping" as my professor called it.

 

[Latro]

If you don't like math that means you're all the more intuitive, seeing as sensors supposedly have more of a mind for details.

I don't buy this. Beyond basic arithmetic, a lot of mathematics is abstraction, which Sensors would tend to have more difficulty with than iNtuitives. Since this is what most people tend to have difficulty with anyway (most people do not struggle too much with arithmetic, unless they have dyscalculia) I disagree with this idea.

Then again a huge pack of Ns on the internet are gonna tend to put down Ss, so I guess it's a bit of a toss up here.

 

[Cogwulf]

I would be very good at abstract maths if I had good teachers, but my teachers taught by making us memorise calculations and the specific circumstances in which you use them. But even if I could remember the calculations, I always struggled to work out how to use them when given a question I hadn't seen before.
If instead I had been taught how the calculations are derived and why they work, I would have then been able to use them easily

 

[saffyangelis]

I put that I didn't like chemistry, but I do think that a large amount of why I don't like it is to do with the way it's taught at my school and what the curriculum says that we have to be taught. What I've ended up with is a teacher who hates me (Trust me on this one, she honestly does hate me) and what seems to me to be an incredibly simplified boring version that involves things such as "how different types of paint dry" and other such gripping subjects explained as simply as possible, which just doesn't interest me as it doesn't require any concious effort to see what it's about (and yet people I know still don't understand it *headdesk)

I think I'd probably find it a lot more interesting if I actually found it vaguely challenging though..

 

[Zero]

I don't buy this. Beyond basic arithmetic, a lot of mathematics is abstraction, which Sensors would tend to have more difficulty with than iNtuitives. Since this is what most people tend to have difficulty with anyway (most people do not struggle too much with arithmetic, unless they have dyscalculia) I disagree with this idea.

Then again a huge pack of Ns on the internet are gonna tend to put down Ss, so I guess it's a bit of a toss up here.

Algebra, in particular, was difficult for me. Your issues appears to be with my definition of math itself, not what I'm saying about sensors, but you mixed it all up.

Mathematics that include precise calculations and making sure to follow through on the details are likely to be easier for Sensors.

Sensors are the detail, reality, practical people. Intiutives are the creative, curious, "inventing" people.

If algorithms are highly involved in math the likely candidate for being keen at this is INTJs. Why? Because of the J, it's structure oriented and I've seen some NTJ types figure out some pretty crazy shit. INTJs are probably better at games like chess, which require a set of strategies. Whether or not these are in whatever math you're refering to, I don't know. I never did well in math.

But I'm a defective case. I never got use to symbols representing quantities and I didn't pick up on symbols representing sounds when I was a child.

Therefore, I suppose my thoughts on this could be moot.

As far as putting sensors down... There's nothing to put them down about, the world needs more sensors. But they can be frustrating.