Chemistry is a Dementor

Annie’s Log, 09/07/2015: Chemistry is a Dementor

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how exactly I ended up here in Syracuse. It’s a really massive turn from what I thought I would be doing post-grad when I started school at UNC four years ago. I was dead set on majoring in Exercise and Sport Science, becoming a physical therapist, and specializing in pediatrics. It was a solid plan, and should have been foolproof:

·        Step one: get good grades

·        Step two: everything will be awesome.

Boom. Done. Moving on.

So what made everything change? The short answer is this:

Chemistry.

Chemistry became the bane of my existence in college. I did fine in chemistry in high school. I got A’s and foolishly assumed that I was good at it, or at least decent. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

Chemistry is “the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances.”

But it’s not, really.

Chemistry is, in fact, the science of lies and sadness.

I once heard someone describe chemistry as a dementor: it sucks all of the cheeriness and warmth from your body and leaves you feeling like you’ll never be happy again. That’s certainly what my experience with chemistry was.

Chemistry is “technically” a science class, but it’s not like biology. I love biology, particularly human anatomy. But chemistry is not either of those. No, chemistry is math cleverly, probably maliciously disguised as science. You go into it thinking that you’ll be doing cool experiments with glowing liquids and smoking beakers and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Instead you have to calculate molarity and titrate things and there’s Avogadro’s number and just a metric CRAPTON of math and anger.

I had no problem memorizing the elements or drawing out Lewis dot diagrams. I understood electron shells and balancing equations. But the math. Oh, the math. I didn't really help myself by taking an ACTUAL math class at the same time, but hey, no one is perfect (especially not the adviser who totally told me to do that and said "yeah, you'll be fine, no worries, lots of people do it." But I'm not bitter or anything.). 

So I had to take chemistry. It was actually the first class that I went to at UNC, 8:00am on Tuesday. In case you couldn’t guess where this was going, my Chemistry career did not go well. (Neither did Chem Lab. If Chemistry was a dementor, Chem Lab was Azkaban).

So I opted out of taking any class that was even remotely similar to chemistry ever again and switched away from science all together. I switched over to an English major because English was always my best subject and I figured I might as well do something that I was actually good at for a change.

Taking English classes on classical literature turned into taking classes on modern literature, which turned into taking classes on digital literacy and the digital humanities. I found the CRaDL minor (which stands for Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Literacy) and really got interested in it. From there, I looked into Information and Library science and applied to some schools. Spring Break led to a tour of Syracuse University’s iSchool and I was sold. And now I’m here, thinking about the path I traveled to get here.

It was a path strewn with strife and tears, with acids and bases, with late nights and atomic numbers, with periodic tables and covalent bonds, with crumpled up papers covered in conversions and an out-of-date Chemistry book that I can't get rid of because no one will buy an expired edition of that stupid textbook. To anyone who took higher levels of Chemistry, particularly those who enjoyed it, I salute you. Now excuse me while I go throw up or chop onions or run sprints or do something equally more enjoyable than chemistry homework.

End Log.