Samantha's site

Last semester I learned a lot in organic chemistry. The most valuable thing I believe we did in class was the poster and presentation for the lab final.

We worked in teams of six for the experiment, and our final product was a poster that everyone understood and could explain in detail. We had a class presenation where all six of us spoke on a certain part of the lab, and then a final presentation in which we recorded ourselves speaking and turned it in for individual assessment.

Below is a link to the video explaining our project of the Steric Effects of the Electrophile in the SN2 Reaction of Saccharin Alkylation. It goes into detail about the project, and highlights each section on the poster.
https://une.zoom.us/rec/share/DKaWyxZ1jDtA1bysz-TZQRsok29mS7lcmBFD0QNxYmA0dI7Yz07M59Oef-JUXTMF.z0t7LUA4_pFtDIP4

This was by far my hardest class this semester. It was extremely difficult because it is not all like any class I have taken before.

It’s not about memorizing specific things, but overall trends so that we can answer any question by problem solving with what we know. I struggled with this not only because of the change from different classes, but also because I have never had to work this hard for a class before.

See, I learned a lot of content, as well as life skills in this class. Being someone who gets frustrated when I don’t get things on the first try was not helping me. Neither was being someone who gave up. This class, like experiments, are all trial and error.

Chemists don’t give up when their experiements go wrong – it is a happy failure. This is more than just a way to look at chemistry. It’s a way to look at life as a whole. When things don’t go the way I plan in life, I find a new way around it. This is something that I’ve learned I need to push myself to do within my school work, which has been mainly started and progressed within this class.