2nd Semester: Labs

Hello there, different from 1st semester, we have labs on our 2nd semester. A rather good thing knowing that we almost never had any lab experience during the course of first semester

We have 3 labs: Biology, Chemistry, Physics. The first half of the semester, we had Bio and Chem, and the latter Physics on the same time slot as Chemistry. I’ll be going through all the labs in this blog entry.

First: Chemistry. I somehow enjoyed Chemistry labs the most, we had to write actual reports, which is a really good thing to prepare us in writing actual scientific papers. It was also satisfying how the results came out as how it was supposed to. For every class, we had to write a one page summary report, and we also had to write a full report for Organic chem II and Physical chem II.

We had 3 main activities in total for Chemistry, which includes: -Inorganic Chem I and II -Organic Chem I and II -Physical Chemistry I and II

For Inorganic chem, we had analysis of cations for both sessions. For organic chem, we synthesized compounds such as methyl orange and also nylon. For physical chem, we did experiments to determine molar mass and pKa. I personally liked the physical chem the most as this class really showed who could actually get things done, we had to do calculations and data processing from the raw data. All in all, we only did basic chemistry with the simplest tools and methods. Results for the lab class are out, didn’t turn out as well as expected, but won’t be wise if I write my rant here! haha

Rayon                                                       Methyl orange

Then we have Biology experiments, they were not really structured, we were just required to submit lab reports we wrote in the lab (which was a pain in the ass tbh). We had 5 main activities: -Dandelion population spread -Microscopy -Plankton gathering and observation -Mice dissection -Tissue observation -Enzyme activity

Biology labs were the most time consuming and frustrating, I have worked in a lab so I am used to the more appropriate basic tools. For example, I’m used to working with micropipettes, however we were forced to use some cheap pipettes that were not accurate and difficult to deal with. Most of the apparatus given were cheap ones just because we are first years. Nevertheless we held on as well.. but in all honesty wtf handai.

The lake in Handai where we took our planktons from (pic from google)

Gonna be frank for the last and my least favorite: Physics lab. Firstly, the workbooks provided were not really written concisely. Second, the professor spends 1 hour out of total 4.5 hours of class for lecture, which is unnecessary as we are expected to read through the instructions before the class anyway. Nobody actually listened to the lecture tbh. Third, the syllabus has nothing to do with our program, physics that is never gonna have practical use in either Biology or Chemistry. So here are the activities: -Pendulum -Sound waves and interference -Magnets and coils -Cloud chamber and radiation

During the physics session, I ended up using the formulae given to come up with ideal numbers and change the numbers so it didn’t completely look too perfect, you could say data manipulation? Anyway we did not really enjoy this class, we also had to do a presentation on the last day of the class about any of the topics but 残念ながら it was cancelled due to storm so we just submitted our workbooks. I also touched the mantle with radiation by bare hands hahahahahaha……….cAnCeR.Also made a bomb using dry ice in a small bottle ayy we were just dicking around.

So there goes our first year labs. Certainly was a great experience, unfortunately each class only gives you 3 credits (not a lot considering the amount of time per class and the importance).