Chemistry - The Forbidden Fruit

I love music. And history and language arts. I hate math, although I have always been quite good at it.  My nemesis, by far, is the sciences. I absolutely loathe them. For some unknown reason, I was compelled to take Chem 151 this fall - a course designed for science majors. What compelled me to do this, you may ask. It was appealing for one reason, and one reason only - it fulfilled both my lab and quantitative requirements.  Bad idea? I would most likely say yes.

The first day of class went as to be expected - blowing up some things, and lighting others on fire.  As much as I was dreading this class, I found that it wasn't as painful as I first thought. With a memory like a steel trap, many of the topics at the beginning of the year I had covered before, therefore it was a nice review. When it came to the new, and usually difficult topics, I prepared for the worst.

Something strange was starting to happen. I wasn't dreading this class as much anymore. Was I actually looking forward to chemistry? It couldn't be. When I took a look at why this was, it was really the teaching style of the professor.  The class was entirely lecture based, which was surprisingly effective.  Besides writing main points on the board as the lecture progressed, technology was always efficiently incorporated, whether through visuals of molecules or videos of specific reactions.  The professor always checked to make sure the class was following everything, asking if he needed to go over something again or give another example or two. One lucky days, we would even get to go outside and watch a pumpkin or pop bottle explode. This wasn't just an exciting add on, but then the rest of the lecture would be based off of the experiment. All examples of calculations and equations were then referenced back to the previous experience. In all, the practiced skill of efficient lecturing can be impacting in many ways, like making a certain someone not hate chemistry so much.