Chemistry for Non-Dummies

Last year, I nonchalantly signed up to take second-semester organic chemistry, a k a Orgo. My friends thought I was a maso-​chist. The class is reputed to be the hardest at Brown, and rumor has it that its sole purpose is to weed out pre-meds. Nobody else takes it except chemistry majors. I had come to the conclusion that I was not going to apply to medical school, and it was unnecessary for me to take the course for any other reason. Still, I figured I could always change my mind about the med school thing. And how bad could it be?

EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS
According to statistics posted by the Orgo professors, averages on the midterm exams ranged from 47 to 65 points out of 100; by semester’s end, half of the class got C’s or failed (there are no D’s at Brown). This does not take into account the large percentage who ended up dropping the class. I know many students who failed the first time and had to take it a second or even a third time. Others retook it over the summer at pushover schools like Stanford and waltzed out with an A+.

SUBJECTS

Orgo students in pre-med carry the textbook with them wherever they go, and they always seem on the verge of panic. The chemistry majors always have smiles on their faces, either because they relish the pre-meds’ pain or because they truly get a kick out of doing organic chemistry.

One of my friends is a chemistry major, and sometimes he would help me study. When I would ask him how to do a problem, he would just tell me the correct answer. He could never explain how he had found the solution, only that my answer was wrong and his was correct. This led me to conclude that chemistry students are born with an innate and nontransferable ability to understand Orgo.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ORGO

I sometimes found it interesting to study my own reactions as I sat in class or tried to do homework problems. I found that Orgo activated my sympathetic autonomic nervous system, more commonly referred to as the “fight-or-flight response.” The response is frequently activated when a creature is placed in a situation in which it needs to attack or run away. Unfortunately, it was difficult to “attack” Orgo, and running away did not seem like a useful alternative, either.

Dear College freshmen,

As you begin your college experience, and I prepare for my 10-year college reunion, I thought I'd leave you with the things that, in retrospect, I think are important as you navigate the next four years. I hope that some of them are helpful.
Here goes...

1. Your friends will change a lot over the next four years. Let them.
2. Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes.
3. In college more than ever before, songs will attach themselves to memories. Every month or two, make a mix cd, mp3 folder, whatever - just make sure you keep copies of these songs. Ten years out, they'll be as effective as a journal in taking you back to your favorite moments.
4. Take naps in the middle of the afternoon with reckless abandon.
5. Adjust your schedule around when you are most productive and creative. If you're nocturnal and do your best work late at night, embrace that. It may be the only time in your life when you can.
6. If you write your best papers the night before they are due, don't let people tell you that you "should be more organized" or that you "should plan better." Different things work for different people. Personally, I worked best under pressure - so I always procrastinated... and always kicked ass (which annoyed my friends to no end). Use the freedom that comes with not having grades first semester to experiment and see what works best for you.
7. At least a few times in your college career, do something fun and irresponsible when you should be studying. The night before my freshman year psych final, my roommate somehow scored front row seats to the Indigo Girls at a venue 2 hours away. I didn't do so well on the final, but I haven't thought about psych since 1993. I've thought about the experience of going to that show (with the guy who is now my son's godfather) at least once a month ever since.
8. Become friends with your favorite professors. Recognize that they can learn from you too - in fact, that's part of the reason they chose to be professors.
9. Carve out an hour every single day to be alone. (Sleeping doesn't count.)
10. Go on dates. Don't feel like every date has to turn into a relationship.

The best college essay ever

In order for the admissions staff of our college to get to know you, the applicant, better, we ask that you answer the following question.

Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?

Response:


I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

PS - This satirical essay was written in 1990 by high school student Hugh Gallagher, who entered it in the humor category of the Scholastic Writing Awards and won first prize. The text was then published in Literary Calvalcade, a magazine of contemporary student writing, and reprinted in Harper's and The Guardian before taking off as one of the most forwarded "viral" emails of the 1990s.

Though it was not Gallagher's actual college application essay, he did submit it as a sample of his work to college writing programs and was accepted, with scholarship, to New York University, from which he graduated in 1994. Since then he has worked as a freelance writer. His first novel, Teeth, was published by Pocket Books in March 1998. And this particular essay of his has become an urban legend.

A leap of death

I saw, I tried, I waited; it never came to me. Later I saw that times had changed. It was hard, but I had to change too. I had to let go.

The world is a better place if you know the tricks to mathematics and science. If you know that 2,4 Dinitrophenylhydrazine can separate carbonyl compounds from the rest. If you know that a projectile fired at 45 degrees to ground reaches the farthest. You can differentiate rates of change and integrate to calculate the continuous sum of functions.

You freak people out by making TNTs in the backyard. That is from a 98 percent concentration of fuming nitric acid, added to three times that amount of sulphuric acid and (in an ice bath) adding glycerine—drop-by-drop—with an eye dropper to get nitro-glycerine (which works better) than pounds of TNT. This is all to say that logic and knowledge are respected everywhere. If you master them, you can tame the world.

While at the edge, I opened my eyes and embraced the cool wind that had been calling me since an hour. I didn’t know if it was a great height, but it would surely qualify as a life-taking bungee. I would not have waited before taking the leap of death. The delay was due to a mirror in the grey skies. I swear I saw it, and I saw my reflection too. It was so clear, so vivid.

How It Started

Maths, physics and chemistry were my speciality. I had grown in a world of four dimensions—geometrically, logically, intellectually and ‘actually’. Differential equations and linear algebra were my allies. I could solve daily life problems in specs of a second.