Your understanding of what the profession of science is about and what it means for you personally will evolve enormously: you should now be in the throes of deciding whether this is really the right career for you, of deciding what other options you have at this late date in your education, and reaffirming for the last time that you are doing exactly what you want to be doing in life. If you're not doing this, you may be in trouble. Life is about to get very hard for you as you discover what discipline and dedication are really about. School up to now should have been fairly easy for you: no more! This lab will force you to work harder than you ever have before, or force you to change majors. It's ok if you decide to do that! Just know that you are the one who must decide and follow through now.
Your abilities and skills and creativity will change enormously. By the time you finish this lab course, you will be able to do science: you will actually be able to concieve of some kind of original project in polymers, ask the key questions you need to answer, plan how to get those answers, get them, interpret the results, understand the results and change the plan to get the real right answer. Excellent! This is what science is all about and this is what should really turn you on.
What are we talking about here? Change again: your vision of who you are and what you can do. So what is this "vision" thing that politicians and other so-called leaders are always getting in trouble over? It's lots of things, such as:
How you see yourself and your profession
How you work and achieve your goals
What you can do and how you do it
What skills and knowledge you have and how you can use them for good.
"Whoa!" you say to whomever will listen. "I didn't sign up for lab to waste time on these kinds of subjects." Sure you did; you just didn't know it before; and here's some of what you will be doing:
Skill assessment: what you can do now in the lab (or think you can)
Attitude evaluation: remember this: attitude always determines outcome
Knowledge assessment: objective test of what you know about organic, physical and analytical chemistry; remember this, too: you only know it if you can use it
So get with the program and think about the following: we will be doing all of the above at some point in this class (along with the experiments themselves), starting with the first two for lab discussion meeting on Monday. Go for it! (and bring the print-outs of the first two linked excercises to class when you come.) Don't be late or you'll miss something important! [Such as the fact that we start class on time!]
Does it sound like I have some kind of attitude problem? Sure do! My attitude is simple: to teach and train you to be the best polymer scientists that you can be. This better be your attitude also. If it's not, leave now 'cause you will not enjoy this lab or get much out of it. Worse, you will probably get a "D" or "F" in this course. I do not grade on a curve; either you perform to my standards or you fail. So be forewarned: we got no room for slackers, cheats and the uneducated in this program.