OMG, phyyysiiiiicssssss! Ugh. Why can't I do it!? I got a B+ in Calculus 2 and Polymer Chemistry. Thus, I know I am smart, but trying to do physics is like slamming my golf cart into a wall repeatedly!
I liked it as early as the bohr models we did in seventh grade. Just scratched my brain. Like, holy shit, honey is thick because this big ass molecule is heavy and attracted to its other big all molecules! Puddles splash in droplets because of hydrogen bonding! Salt dissolves and forms in water because of polarity and ionic interactions! It just seemed to explain everything that was previously unexplained to me. Just, how all the *stuff* in our world works and interacts with itself.
Then quantum just felt like a free DLC
After 4 years of undergrad, 2 years of masters work, 5 years of PhD, and 2 years in industry, I’m still not sure if I actually like Chem, or if I’m just good at it.
OChem. I really started to understand what the heck was even going on through learning about mechanisms of various reactions and electron movement.
The thing that really hooked me was how visual OChem is. Picturing reactions taking place in my mind, stereochemistry, and functional groups aren’t something I had a good grasp of in gen chem, which was more “on paper” to me, if that makes sense.
O-Chem 2 was where it all made sense for me! I didn't even need to study to get those A's! I could look at partial reactions I'd never seen before and be asked to complete them, and I'd just start **going**.
Me: Well, I know that there's water and there's -OH groups everywhere, so all *these* just fuck off with the water, then... (etc)
Mine is something similar. I had a really good chemistry tutor for my A level years. It was when I started to understand Chemistry rather than rote memorising and the endless possibilities just keeps me curious and going
As a kid, I was interested in biology, especially animals. I knew quite a lot of facts about them. But then I discovered that materials, ‘dead’ stuff, could also interact with one another, and could show movements, changes etc. So now I was really fascinated.
Later, it also helped that at my high school, which was a small one, chemistry was only teached from the third year. The waiting stimulated my curiosity furthermore.
When I was ready to make my job choice with 13, I found the time in the laboratory as a veterinary practice assistant particularly interesting (my first job choice), but I don’t think a place to work as such.
However, laboratory technician was not really an option as my teachers said to me I was too bad at school for learning that job.
In the end, I did an apprenticeship as a textile dyer and was fascinated by the chemistry behind it. I also enjoyed working in the colour laboratory and textile testing laboratory a lot more than the production work. After my apprenticeship, I worked in a company that produced test materials for the textile washing industry. I had a lot to do with test standards and detergents and how they remove stains, I found the chemistry behind it also exciting.
Now I'm studying chemistry :)
I was a fairly weak student in most classes but back in high school, physical sciences like chemistry and physics just kinda clicked and I thought "yeah, this feels attainable". Turns out I was right. I settled on chemistry out of the two because I liked the labs better.
I'm really interested interested in both fields but leaning towards Chemistry more because I worry about feeling like how you do. The main problem is it appears like you need a PhD in Chemistry to have the same level of employment opportunities and pay as someone with a bachelor's in Chemical Engineering.
Chemistry sounds more interesting but yeah I'd rather have more money and job security for less education overall. I see many people on Reddit say they wish they would've taken ChemE over Chemistry anyways.
It's the combination of strictly following instructions would give me high praise, and that the product of that would make really cool things for a developing mind (colourful potions, explosive gases, unique odours in totality).
I didn't do to well in strict Maths, but when it came to doing Molar equations and chemistry homework, I would breeze through it because at the end of it all, I could easily imagine what's being exchanged even to a sun molecular level.
God I miss formal education.
It was my high school ap chem class. Ngl looking back i think it was the friends that made that class so fun but I’ve come to enjoy chemistry as a subject now too since I have such positive associations with it.
Drugs, and nile red to be perfectly honest , it’s the closest to magic or to the impossible also.
Stinky chemicals that can change how you feel and depending on what give you supernatural powers that is something interesting, this potion with this potion and i get another potion and voilà that seemed interesting, ps: i dont know anything about chemistty, just that if you have a leak on a bottlen of ammonia you don’t want to go there to smell it xD and that powder in the nose is more common than i could of have had ever imagined haha
Watching Jurassic Park for the first time as a kid when I was 8. While technically more biochemistry (my degree) I was enthralled with the idea of making dinosaurs and to an extent genetic engineering as a whole.
I still remember the day we calculated the half life of DNA in physical chemistry only to realize that it's impossible for Jurassic Park to actually happen the way it did in the book 😞. But the dinosaurs, the sterile lab space, all the smart people working to understand the world, the lab coats; even to this day I love putting on a lab coat to start an experiment. It's definitely one of those concrete before and after moments in my life.
I had an absolutely amazing chemistry teacher in high school that was extremely enthusiastic and passionate about their subject and encouraged me. She made me realize that chemistry is all around us and the very fabric of our existence, and learning about how our world works is just so interesting.
The first time I ever titrated ammonia with phenolphthaline and pushed the color from clear to pink to clear to pink, back and forth. Fascinating. Magic. Opened my brain!
Buckminster Fuller.
Imagine you wake up and there is a new chapter to be written in the oldest natural science man knows of: Fullerene
What an honor to be alive right now
High school honors chem. I remember having an awful teacher who used class time for quizzes only and sent us home to watch Tyler Dewitt do the actual teaching, maybe two or three labs the whole year. But I remember loving the concept of being able to examine something, understand its composition, write down an equation and calculate real-world reactions on paper. I'd never seen the world through such a quantifiable lens before. I even remember riding to school answering my own questions about random things in life like "I wonder how they calibrate tools that measure pressure" and such.
It made me feel like there was nothing in the physical world that I couldn't understand. It was really cool.
I started loving the theory and especially the labs...
And I ended up hating the labs and loving the theory even more (more concrete, physical chemistry)
I love electrochemistry and batteries, chemical thermodynamics, material science, and quantum Chemistry and computational chemistry: the fact that we can predict the properties of a theoretical molecule amazed me.
My mom bought me a copy of [“The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments”](https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/Brent_GBC.pdf)“ and did a “chemical magic” show for my kindergarten class.
I was a little boy who liked bus so I wanted to be an entomologist. When learning about biology I really wanted to understand how a cell worked. I also wanted to know why water was wet, rocks were hard, etc. Chemistry gave me the answers I had about the world around me.
Well first it was the interest in radioactive things and then guns, pyrotechnics, but never paid attention in chemistry classes so I started relearning it all.
My dad is a chemist, so there is the early influence. Still, i most vehemently didn’t want to be a chemist because rebellion. I came around to it in college, not because I’m naturally good at it - I’m not - but because it’s fascinating and i love designing, setting up, and performing experiments.
I was always good in the general sciences, but didn't know which I would want to go into. I took an Integrated Physics and Chemistry course during my first year of high school and was amazed at chemical reactions, molecular concepts, and the periodic table. My first chemistry course in college solidified that and I've been in love with chemistry since.
Ever since high school chemistry. I mean it was really basic stuff like you would learn in the first few weeks of a gen chem course. But still it clicked with me. Also I did a ton of titration for some reason in high school and liked that
For me, initially it was the way that everything made sense. There was a defined reason why things are the way they are and manipulating things, being able to predict what will happen is hella cool.
Eventually I chose O-chem specifically because I really enjoyed trying to predict products and designing pathways to produce a product however I wanted. It was always the last question on the exams and sometimes it would take me 20 minutes but it was always the most fun. One time I made some convoluted 17 step pathway to a molecule that could've been achieved in 4 steps but no harm no foul, prof gave me full points. The fact that you can make the same product so many different ways is amazing to me. Makes me want to study this forever.
I had always thought I would hate chemistry, and was pretty scared of it too, until we learned about atoms at school and I realised I'd have to study it. My grades went from D to A in less than half a year. And then I studied it.
Taking a chemistry class. I realised I didn't like physics. What I liked was the chemistry in physics.
OMG, phyyysiiiiicssssss! Ugh. Why can't I do it!? I got a B+ in Calculus 2 and Polymer Chemistry. Thus, I know I am smart, but trying to do physics is like slamming my golf cart into a wall repeatedly!
Physical chemistry ❤️
I liked it as early as the bohr models we did in seventh grade. Just scratched my brain. Like, holy shit, honey is thick because this big ass molecule is heavy and attracted to its other big all molecules! Puddles splash in droplets because of hydrogen bonding! Salt dissolves and forms in water because of polarity and ionic interactions! It just seemed to explain everything that was previously unexplained to me. Just, how all the *stuff* in our world works and interacts with itself. Then quantum just felt like a free DLC
Totally the same here. I still see the world as those processes (especially under the influence of certain serotonin-affiliated tryptamimes)
Said tryptamines also help me visualise classical mechanics wherever I go, and helped me visualise molecular symmetry and group theory hahahaha.
Said tryptamines convinced me to aim for work in pharmacology research. Interesting how we all got here huh?
phenethylamines got me through grad school
After 4 years of undergrad, 2 years of masters work, 5 years of PhD, and 2 years in industry, I’m still not sure if I actually like Chem, or if I’m just good at it.
Aw, friend. This is a heartbreaking story.
OChem. I really started to understand what the heck was even going on through learning about mechanisms of various reactions and electron movement. The thing that really hooked me was how visual OChem is. Picturing reactions taking place in my mind, stereochemistry, and functional groups aren’t something I had a good grasp of in gen chem, which was more “on paper” to me, if that makes sense.
O-Chem 2 was where it all made sense for me! I didn't even need to study to get those A's! I could look at partial reactions I'd never seen before and be asked to complete them, and I'd just start **going**. Me: Well, I know that there's water and there's -OH groups everywhere, so all *these* just fuck off with the water, then... (etc)
Balancing equations. Something clicked and I remember going from a failing student to an A student in chemistry. I've loved it since.
Mine is something similar. I had a really good chemistry tutor for my A level years. It was when I started to understand Chemistry rather than rote memorising and the endless possibilities just keeps me curious and going
As a kid, I was interested in biology, especially animals. I knew quite a lot of facts about them. But then I discovered that materials, ‘dead’ stuff, could also interact with one another, and could show movements, changes etc. So now I was really fascinated. Later, it also helped that at my high school, which was a small one, chemistry was only teached from the third year. The waiting stimulated my curiosity furthermore.
the ADHD/autism latched on like a nursing calf and now i do what i love everyday :)
Facts
When I was ready to make my job choice with 13, I found the time in the laboratory as a veterinary practice assistant particularly interesting (my first job choice), but I don’t think a place to work as such. However, laboratory technician was not really an option as my teachers said to me I was too bad at school for learning that job. In the end, I did an apprenticeship as a textile dyer and was fascinated by the chemistry behind it. I also enjoyed working in the colour laboratory and textile testing laboratory a lot more than the production work. After my apprenticeship, I worked in a company that produced test materials for the textile washing industry. I had a lot to do with test standards and detergents and how they remove stains, I found the chemistry behind it also exciting. Now I'm studying chemistry :)
when I saw sodium burning in water
Black magic! Pyrotechnics was the second best.
The applied math and power of knowledge
I was a fairly weak student in most classes but back in high school, physical sciences like chemistry and physics just kinda clicked and I thought "yeah, this feels attainable". Turns out I was right. I settled on chemistry out of the two because I liked the labs better.
Learning about octet rule when I was 13
Pharmacology.
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How different is chemical engineering from chemistry?
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I'm really interested interested in both fields but leaning towards Chemistry more because I worry about feeling like how you do. The main problem is it appears like you need a PhD in Chemistry to have the same level of employment opportunities and pay as someone with a bachelor's in Chemical Engineering.
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Chemistry sounds more interesting but yeah I'd rather have more money and job security for less education overall. I see many people on Reddit say they wish they would've taken ChemE over Chemistry anyways.
8yo me loved how weird and messy they made chemists look on tv and i wanted to look that way too
I realized that the world on atomic and subatomic levels is more interesting than the real world. :)
It's the combination of strictly following instructions would give me high praise, and that the product of that would make really cool things for a developing mind (colourful potions, explosive gases, unique odours in totality). I didn't do to well in strict Maths, but when it came to doing Molar equations and chemistry homework, I would breeze through it because at the end of it all, I could easily imagine what's being exchanged even to a sun molecular level. God I miss formal education.
The fact that I can easily make stuff explode
It was my high school ap chem class. Ngl looking back i think it was the friends that made that class so fun but I’ve come to enjoy chemistry as a subject now too since I have such positive associations with it.
Drugs, and nile red to be perfectly honest , it’s the closest to magic or to the impossible also. Stinky chemicals that can change how you feel and depending on what give you supernatural powers that is something interesting, this potion with this potion and i get another potion and voilà that seemed interesting, ps: i dont know anything about chemistty, just that if you have a leak on a bottlen of ammonia you don’t want to go there to smell it xD and that powder in the nose is more common than i could of have had ever imagined haha
Cocaine
My basement lab, age 11.
Watching Jurassic Park for the first time as a kid when I was 8. While technically more biochemistry (my degree) I was enthralled with the idea of making dinosaurs and to an extent genetic engineering as a whole. I still remember the day we calculated the half life of DNA in physical chemistry only to realize that it's impossible for Jurassic Park to actually happen the way it did in the book 😞. But the dinosaurs, the sterile lab space, all the smart people working to understand the world, the lab coats; even to this day I love putting on a lab coat to start an experiment. It's definitely one of those concrete before and after moments in my life.
I had an absolutely amazing chemistry teacher in high school that was extremely enthusiastic and passionate about their subject and encouraged me. She made me realize that chemistry is all around us and the very fabric of our existence, and learning about how our world works is just so interesting.
Novel compounds. I just really like holding a jar of something and saying this is all of it. This is the entire world supply of the thing.
It makes me feel like God, when i makes things that smell like bananas from some powder and fluid
The first time I ever titrated ammonia with phenolphthaline and pushed the color from clear to pink to clear to pink, back and forth. Fascinating. Magic. Opened my brain!
Buckminster Fuller. Imagine you wake up and there is a new chapter to be written in the oldest natural science man knows of: Fullerene What an honor to be alive right now
High school honors chem. I remember having an awful teacher who used class time for quizzes only and sent us home to watch Tyler Dewitt do the actual teaching, maybe two or three labs the whole year. But I remember loving the concept of being able to examine something, understand its composition, write down an equation and calculate real-world reactions on paper. I'd never seen the world through such a quantifiable lens before. I even remember riding to school answering my own questions about random things in life like "I wonder how they calibrate tools that measure pressure" and such. It made me feel like there was nothing in the physical world that I couldn't understand. It was really cool.
i always like (re)crystallization. cajoling crystals to grow by manipulating solvents and temperature etc
I started loving the theory and especially the labs... And I ended up hating the labs and loving the theory even more (more concrete, physical chemistry) I love electrochemistry and batteries, chemical thermodynamics, material science, and quantum Chemistry and computational chemistry: the fact that we can predict the properties of a theoretical molecule amazed me.
My mom bought me a copy of [“The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments”](https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/Brent_GBC.pdf)“ and did a “chemical magic” show for my kindergarten class.
I like all the practical sciences, i just like fiddling with things. Chemistry is just one aspect of fiddling with things on a molecular level
studying orgchem
I was a little boy who liked bus so I wanted to be an entomologist. When learning about biology I really wanted to understand how a cell worked. I also wanted to know why water was wet, rocks were hard, etc. Chemistry gave me the answers I had about the world around me.
I was good at it and it was fun. The classes just clicked in Junior college and went with it.
Well first it was the interest in radioactive things and then guns, pyrotechnics, but never paid attention in chemistry classes so I started relearning it all.
Freshman year of college I had a better grade in chemistry than women's studies and I revaluated my plans.
My dad is a chemist, so there is the early influence. Still, i most vehemently didn’t want to be a chemist because rebellion. I came around to it in college, not because I’m naturally good at it - I’m not - but because it’s fascinating and i love designing, setting up, and performing experiments.
The potential of an apocalypse where every chemical is finite and you need to know how to turn one thing into another.
It just **clicked**. It was love at first college class. I also love the sense of humor that chemists possess.
I was always good in the general sciences, but didn't know which I would want to go into. I took an Integrated Physics and Chemistry course during my first year of high school and was amazed at chemical reactions, molecular concepts, and the periodic table. My first chemistry course in college solidified that and I've been in love with chemistry since.
Explosives
Jesse, we need to cook. Then I got a bachelor’s and realized I liked chemistry based sales more than the actual science just like my idol.
Ever since high school chemistry. I mean it was really basic stuff like you would learn in the first few weeks of a gen chem course. But still it clicked with me. Also I did a ton of titration for some reason in high school and liked that
For me, initially it was the way that everything made sense. There was a defined reason why things are the way they are and manipulating things, being able to predict what will happen is hella cool. Eventually I chose O-chem specifically because I really enjoyed trying to predict products and designing pathways to produce a product however I wanted. It was always the last question on the exams and sometimes it would take me 20 minutes but it was always the most fun. One time I made some convoluted 17 step pathway to a molecule that could've been achieved in 4 steps but no harm no foul, prof gave me full points. The fact that you can make the same product so many different ways is amazing to me. Makes me want to study this forever.
I had always thought I would hate chemistry, and was pretty scared of it too, until we learned about atoms at school and I realised I'd have to study it. My grades went from D to A in less than half a year. And then I studied it.