🧵 Chemistry lab interpersonal skillz
Anonymous at Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:01:22 UTC No. 16144149
Hello, /sci/. I'm strongly in the belief that we learn best through doing things ourselves but I'm afraid that I'm entering a lab course this fall where it's very likely I will be assigned to a group with 1-2 partners. Should I just tell my partner that I'll do all the work myself? I'm kind of a perfectionist and if my partner screws that up, I'll probably drop out of school yet again.
Anonymous at Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:30:14 UTC No. 16144181
>>16144149
Just tell the teacher that you work alone and you don't need no poofy backup
Anonymous at Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:49:50 UTC No. 16144221
>>16144149
>perfectionist
for undergrad labs it doesn't matter at all, this isn't 1970 where they actually tried to teach you efficient chemical synthesis and you need good yields. inevitably, half the class will completely fail to get any usable data or product and the lab assistant/TA will just go "haha yeah that happens every year, dunno what goes wrong" and they handfeed you a dataset to use for your lab report.
Anonymous at Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:51:01 UTC No. 16144222
>>16144149
Group work sucks ass. I always end up doing everything myself because my lab mates are retarded.
>t. Microbial ecology
Anonymous at Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:28:58 UTC No. 16145186
>>16144149
No, you shouldn't do all the work yourself, shut up, you don't have to be a perfectionist either. Just go through the synthesis/procedure, get your labmates to do productive things, remember to write down important numbers/what they measure. if it's a slop course where you titrate or boil water, stop caring. If you're doing advanced inorganic synthesis then just take it easy and work together.
Put simply: stop whining and just do the syntheses, 3 hours of awkward lab work each day is worth passing.
Anonymous at Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:44:42 UTC No. 16145196
>>16145186
>If you're doing advanced inorganic synthesis
That's really the thing we need to know from you because organic chemistry is going to have higher standards in my experience (not that that would mean a lot), but you should get everything done. Perfectionism in itself is not a problem here (ocd maybe is) but beneficial because you would make better syntheses.
Anonymous at Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:00:16 UTC No. 16145206
>>16145196
Yes, I'm going into Ochem so I care a lot about nailing the fundamentals. I don't like relying upon others for my success