Sydney Life

AS we dance our merry way into that delightfully disturbing period described as the ‘End of Semester Examinations’, I’d like to devote this delicious diatribe to something, anything that doesn’t involved diastereomerism.

Try as I might, however, the method for turning ethanoic acids into acetic anhydride, the formation of polysaccharides, not to mention the redox reactions of some strangely obscure functional group, all seem to keep coming back to haunt me as I try to sleep at night. ‘OoOoOoO JOHN. We’re the friendly yet somehow threatening nylon (pentamethylene diamine and sebacic acid derivative) Sheep of the Great Chemistry Apocalypse…

Which leads me, as you undoubtedly expected, to the experience of studying Science at Sydney Uni.

My expectations of Physics and Chemistry were great when I first began earlier this year- older people I’d talked to had assured me that the ‘University Science’ was based on real, applicable skills- none of this wishy-washy ‘Let’s assess the environmental impact of…’ content that is so relied upon for the HSC. We’d be asked straight, direct mathematical/reasoning questions, and never again be faced with the fear of the ‘longer than a paragraph’ answer. All this sounded rather fantastic to me, being the Maths favouring person that I am.

I wasn’t disappointed, to say the least. Everything was exactly as had been foretold- though no-one thought to point out that it would actually turn out to be rather difficult.

Take HSC Physics, as an example. There’s no question that a fair amount of the course relies on the use of formulas to solve problems. However, I’ve now realised that at that point, we took for granted the whole concept of the formula. Back then, we’d be given a bunch of numbers, that could be rather simply plugged into an equation to return an answer. Not so anymore!

Now, the pattern seems to be that we have 30 or so equations thrown at us, and from there need to choose several that will best help solve the question. After that, you precariously mix them together, to make another (quite possibly wrong) hybrid equation that may solve your problem. It can basically be described as one great big adventure into discovery learning.

Chemistry has also changed a great deal. Compared to the HSC course, which focused probably 50% of its time on the societal and environmental applications of the topics (fuel, acids, batteries, plastics), the Life Sciences Chemistry course rarely connects the subject matter to the outside world- perhaps once every now and again to the associated medical applications of a molecule. Now, the main aim is to learn and understand the chemical reasoning behind why reactions occur, and be able to predict the shape and form the products will take.

Love it or hate it, Uni science does take an enormous step from that of high school. Personally, I enjoy the logical challenges that the courses present much more so than the rote learning I’ve been used to- for it is these skills that will in the end contribute to the ability and ingenuity of the scientist/engineer that completes the course.