Oct
01
Titrate!
Posted in Academics
Hey Hawkeyes!
It’s been another busy week filled with homecoming activities and homework. This past week also brought the excitement of the fall engineering career fair. For all the first year students this was the first opportunity for us to get our names out there. As a requirement for Engineering Problem Solving 1, we all wrote a resume and had it reviewed by the professional development staff. All the girls on my floor were making lists of the companies they wanted to talk to. Everyone was talking about what they were going to wear. These things are so hard for girls. Dress pants? Skirt? Dress? Heels? Flats? Hair up? Down? So many decisions to make. I was entertained by the excitement, and felt a little left out. Yes, I am an engineering major and yes, I was supposed to go to the career fair. Sadly, I could not. My chemistry lab was scheduled directly on top of the career fair. We were told that this lab would be the longest lab and it was doubtful we would finish early. This lab was the titration lab.
Coming from a small school, a lot of our chemistry equipment was under par, making it near impossible to allow every student to conduct multiple titrations in a lab. I had read through the lab in the lab manual before going to class, but I was very grateful that my lab partner had done titrations many times. We worked together and moved through the lab pretty quickly.
Titrating water samples to test the hardness of the water.
This lab was great bonding time with several people in my class. We went from working with partners, to working in a group of 4, to working in a group of 8 in that time span of about three hours. As much fun as lab is, I still don’t look forward to standing for all three hours though. I suppose by the end of the semester I’ll be accustomed to it, but as for now: wear comfortable shoes to lab.
See you later this week!
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