I'm not sure whether polymer chemists would be between analytical and organic or between analytical and physical - probably the latter, but I don't know.
I was really surprised to find that organic was considered the most ultra-competitive extreme type-A personality area when I arrived in grad school. At my undergrad school, organic was relatively easy because the class was mostly bio majors and premeds with a handful of chemistry majors (and many of my classmates ended up washing out of bio or premed into easier majors after bombing O-chem). P-chem was a killer because there were no non-majors in the class to make the curve easier, and I had always thought of it as the hardest area of chemistry until I got to grad school and found that all of the over-the-top 80-hour-a-week groups were organic.
I though chemists made crude measurements on pure materials and physicists made precise measurements on crude materials. What physical chemists do is hotly debated.
Biochemists can do it all at any "purity". They are missing from this line-up if you truly understand the difference between a biologist, chemist, and biochemist.
looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20
I'm not sure whether polymer chemists would be between analytical and organic or between analytical and physical - probably the latter, but I don't know.
ReplyDeleteAnd nanomaterial chemists should be below biologists when they realize it's just y2k colloid chemistry...
DeleteI was really surprised to find that organic was considered the most ultra-competitive extreme type-A personality area when I arrived in grad school. At my undergrad school, organic was relatively easy because the class was mostly bio majors and premeds with a handful of chemistry majors (and many of my classmates ended up washing out of bio or premed into easier majors after bombing O-chem). P-chem was a killer because there were no non-majors in the class to make the curve easier, and I had always thought of it as the hardest area of chemistry until I got to grad school and found that all of the over-the-top 80-hour-a-week groups were organic.
ReplyDeleteand biochemists only appear when there's a Nobel prize being drawn.
ReplyDeleteI though chemists made crude measurements on pure materials and physicists made precise measurements on crude materials. What physical chemists do is hotly debated.
ReplyDeleteThey are mostly keyboard jockies.
DeleteBiochemists can do it all at any "purity". They are missing from this line-up if you truly understand the difference between a biologist, chemist, and biochemist.
ReplyDelete