{"id":2177,"date":"2007-08-13T10:10:44","date_gmt":"2007-08-13T10:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2007\/08\/materials-girl-an-introduction.html"},"modified":"2007-08-13T10:10:44","modified_gmt":"2007-08-13T10:10:44","slug":"materials_girl_an_introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2007\/08\/materials_girl_an_introduction.html","title":{"rendered":"Materials Girl: An introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s note: another guest blogger has joined our team…]<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Posted on behalf of Materials Girl:<\/em><\/p>\n

Writing here makes me feel like a freshman all over again. Only, this time, I\u2019m rather giddy with excitement. (My actual first-year experience involved enjoying the change in scenery, staying cool, and \u201cjust chillin\u201d \u2013 despite getting lost at 7 am in the maze of dusky hallways that constitute the math building, all on my first day of class). However, I digress – a frequent occurrence in my case. The downfall of an active mind is a proclivity for becoming distracted, notably with what I\u2019m not actually supposed to be doing… At the moment, the word \u201chomework\u201d seems to be flashing in the back of my mind in blinding red font.<\/p>\n

So, why am I writing on a chemistry-related blog? The title should explain enough… References to Madonna notwithstanding, \u201cMaterials Girl\u201d describes who I am in the academic community: a 3rd-year undergraduate female majoring in chemistry\/materials science, with an organic concentration.* Any ramblings here will chronicle my random thoughts in relation to chemistry, \u201chowever tenuous\u201d, in my passage through all things chemistry, the education system, and beyond.<\/p>\n

Where does the journey begin? More precisely, which parts matter? In high school\/community college, I learned to play with Bunsen burners, mix pretty-colored chemical solutions, and overall skate my way through chem with A\u2019s. \u201cReal university\u201d o-chem began the wakeup call (and the descent of my precious GPA<\/span>). However, I stayed afloat and gradually learned to balance a love\/hate relationship with the subject I\u2019d begun studying by default: chemistry! Second year, fall quarter, I unsuspectingly enrolled in an adjunct seminar to my inorganic chemistry course.* From that, I become entranced in \u201cIt\u2019s a Materials World\u201d, and discovered that learning about the practical application of materials intrigued me more than other branches of chemistry. On the basis of a particularly good lecture, I impulsively petitioned to shift majors from pure chemistry to chemistry\/materials science.<\/p>\n

I have yet to regret that choice (notably since I no longer am required to take ANY<\/span> biochem \u2013 some of the most dreaded courses ever taken by those outside the major*)… Granted, I haven\u2019t reached the heaviest classes of my new major yet, but any difficulties in material should be overruled by the joy of learning, right? We shall see how everything fares, especially with the upcoming fall quarter.*<\/p>\n

So many thoughts, so little space and time! It\u2019s long past midnight and my summer classes\u2019 homework calls.* Before stopping myself from babbling off again, I would like to thank the editors of the Sceptical Chymist for offering me what my older brother calls \u201ca once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially for a mere undergrad.\u201d (As if he isn\u2019t \u201cmerely\u201d an undergraduate at Caltech). It is with greatest anticipation and honor that I make my first post.<\/p>\n

*more on that in a later post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note: another guest blogger has joined our team\u2026]  … Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials-girl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}