Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I am so fucking tired. My god. I don't know how I managed to get this sleep deprived.

The semester goes ok. Physical chemistry is giving me some demons because I suck at math. That last stat therm test was pretty brutal. I hear Dan's tests are always brutal though. Anyway, it's just going to be something to get through.

I don't have much structured course-time as I am only taking one lab class but a lot of homework all the time. I'm also working on something in one of my profs labs so in between classes I'm usually running reactions and working things up and taking NMRs and so on. Squeezing in time in the lab on top of a full load of classes is a completely different matter than having seven or eight hours during the day to just do chemistry like it has been doing summer research. It's making me really excited for thesis next year, though.

I love being in the lab doing projects. What I don't like are class labs. It honestly just feels like a huge waste of time to spend eight hours taking data that no one gives a fuck about and has been done thousands of times before and will yield crappy results and then spend another ten hours writing some bitchy-ass stupid lab report where you have to anal-retentively propigate all the error and so on. It's just biochem methods and analytical that I have to get through still and then I am relieved from stupid lab classes. I guess I see why they are useful and necessary, but by junior year you just sort of feel done with it. I want to be in lab the doing research and not doing annoying pedigogical exercises. The exposure to lab techniques is good, I guess, but I almost feel like I'm at a point where I can pick up most lab techniques as necessary.

I've also been thinking more and more about applying to grad school next fall. Basically, I just want to be in a situation where I am discussing and learning about science at a high level and being in the lab. I've always thought I would take a break between grad school and undergrad but I'm starting to think that I'm ready to move on to that phase of my life.

1 comment:

Jenn said...

Yeah, Dan's tests basically make most tests in the painful grad school classes not feel nearly so bad. I'm glad I adjusted my expectations in undergrad.