Right now I'm doing my first year in undergraduate science and I'm loving it as much as one man can love science. But I'm completely stumped as to what I should major. Physics is out of the question, as well as mathematical and computer sciences.
Perhaps some scientists could share and discuss what they think about certain fields.
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Anonymous2009-04-26 0:39
Why is physics out of the question?
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Anonymous2009-04-26 5:59
Because I'm not doing any physics units this year.
>>3
Seems like a dumbass reason to me. Just take it next semester.
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Anonymous2009-04-26 13:38
>>3
you're not taking a physics course this semester, so you don't want to major in anything related to physics? lolwut.
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Anonymous2009-04-27 3:49
I didn't do a physics unit because physics doesn't interest me.
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Anonymous2009-04-27 4:23
>>7
Physics is the foundation of the analytic half of science. If you don't like physics, then I doubt real chemistry would be to your taste either. That leaves biology.
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Anonymous2009-04-27 6:34
>>8
Why cancel out chemistry all together for him/her? >>7
Heaps of chem you can do without physics, as long as you know the basics. For the first couple of years, its not the complicated math of physics you need to know, you just need to understand the kind of language and terminology. And if you say you like science as much as you do, I'm sure you know enough.
Of course, if you despise physics, then biology probably would be your kind of field.
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Anonymous2009-04-27 17:20
anything related to biology or medicine is left if you really don't want mathematics, physics, or computer science to be a significant part of your major yet you still like science.
any good chemist has a strong background in physics and mathematics, or at the very least has honed their capacity for the sort of thinking and mindset of a physicist or mathematician.
can you do chemistry with relatively minimal physics and math involved? yes, but you're probably no gonna excel at it.
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Anonymous2009-04-28 5:33
can you do chemistry with relatively minimal physics and math involved?
>>17
nuclear engineering is a subset of chemical engineering.
all real engineering fields, including chemical engineering, requires heaps of modern physics, math, theoretical physics, and computer science knowledge, relatively speaking.
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Anonymous2009-05-03 21:51
math is the language of science.
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Anonymous2009-05-03 22:12
BIX NOOD is the language of negras
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Anonymous2009-05-05 15:11
>>21
organic chemistry is also a language. >>20
engineers also have some of the largest salaries right out of university.
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Anonymous2009-05-05 15:26
>>23
well that's fine, i think engineering is great, i'm just saying maybe nuclear engineering isn't the best field to consider if you are certain you don't want a significant amount of hard physics or math or CS but you still wanna do something related to science.
I'm not trying to make engineering out to be a shitty major at all.
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Anonymous2009-05-07 6:49
What do people think the largest salary straight out of a science degree is?
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Anonymous2009-05-07 13:57
You should take a dance class. There is a great deal of science there.
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Anonymous2009-05-09 2:31
>>18
>Organic chemistry was my preferred part
>preferred
What? I hate Organic Chemistry; its all painstaking memorization. Fuck that, man.
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Anonymous2009-05-09 3:37
Differentfag here.
>>27
Yes, Organic Chemistry requires a lot of rote memorization, but I personally found it interesting learning how molecules react/exchange electrons to form biological compounds.
>>18
Regarding career choices for someone interested in O-Chem, other than the obvious option of working for a pharmaceutical, one could go into polymer science, which requires a good understanding of O-Chem if you get into the nitty-gritty of polymerization processes or self-assembly.
A good understanding of O-Chem can be very useful for research in these nanotech fields.
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Anonymous2009-05-09 19:53
Anyone who tries to memorize anything in o chem is an idiot. All you need to do is understand the logic behind what happens and doesn't happen, and you'll never have to memorize shit again (unless it's some name reaction where a specific solvent or catalyst works better for an undetermined reason). You fags probably sucked at o chem for that reason.
Also, >>28 is an idiot. Polymer chemistry is a joke "lets mix this shit then lets try changing the solvent a few times then we'll start seeing if heating it up works better lol i dont really understand how this shit works." Organic chemistry != polymer chemistry, separate (not not equal) fields.
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Anonymous2009-05-10 1:21
>>29
Disregard that, I suck cocks and know nothing of engineering research conducted as a reputable institution of higher learning.
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Anonymous2009-05-11 18:22
>Anyone who tries to memorize anything in o chem is an idiot.
oh lol.
i don't think you have ever taken organic chemistry.
>>31
Yeah, I took o chem 1 and 2 and synthetic organic chemistry at a school ranked top 5 in organic chemistry. If you call remembering that a nucleophile attacks a carbonyl group "memorization," then yeah, but that's like saying that climbing a tree requires a lot of memorization because you have to remember how to grasp things with your hands.
Reactions in organic chemistry are ruled by the physical properties of the reagents. The only places where you have to memorize are things whose mechanism isn't understood, like with a lot of catalysts and a good portion of name reactions.
Anyone who calls o chem "a lot of memorization" learned it the wrong way and probably didn't do very well in the class.
Then you should know what I am talking about. Oxygen is more electronegative so it pulls the double bond's electron density towards itself away from the carbonyl carbon. This leaves the carbon with a slightly more positive charge, enough so that a nucleophile will preferentially attack it. From there, it bonds to the antibonding molecular orbital which raises the energy of the pi bond enough that it breaks, and an intermediate state is formed where the oxygen holds the negative charge (a full lone pair of electrons) and the (former) carbonyl carbon has bonded to the nucleophile. And so on. It's been two years since I took this stuff; it isn't memorization, it's understanding.
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Anonymous2009-05-18 15:57
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