Now that I am doing a fair amount of inorganic synthesis and preparation of metal coordination complexes, I look back to my undergraduate education and wish that it had been somewhat different.
In my undergrad time in the early 80’s, inorganic texts were heavy in theoretical concepts- molecular spectroscopy, ligand field theory, and group theory. It made for a tidy textbook package and coursework was constructed around it. I cannot speak for other institutions, but in my experience the inorganic curriculum is (was) somewhat leaner in course options than is organic or biochemistry. In particular, the inorganic lab experience was somewhat less endowed with resources than the more popular biochemistry lab.
In graduate school, our graduate level inorganic coursework was even more theoretical than was the undergrad coursework. Obviously, there is a good argument for this and I am not actually complaining about it. But I will say that, in my experience, descriptive inorganic chemistry in the lecture section was sacrificed by the professors apparent preference for the elegance and tidiness of theoretical inorganic chemistry.
To his credit, my undergrad inorganic professor did try to give us the best lab experience possible. We had a vacuum line and did have the chance to use it. We did a prepn of AlI3 a tube furnace. We prepared Cu2(OAc)4 and a few other complexes. He was also a glass blower and did his best to teach us a bit about glass.
But in the end, the department was much more highly invested in organic and biochemistry. I was enchanted by synthetic organic chemistry and continued down that track.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now see that the curriculum that I was channeled through was too lean with respect to the rest of the periodic table. Decriptive and preparative inorganic chemistry was wedged in only by virtue of the strength of the professors interests and personality. Theoretical inorganic chemistry does not require expensive laboratory facilities.
So, I have come out to speak in favor of more descriptive inorganic chemistry in the curriculum. More reaction chemistry. More preparation of materials in the lab. More characterization of or reaction products. More experience with setting up reactions and isolations. More experience with hazardous materials!!
The notion that laboratory experiences for chemistry majors must be constrained by the need for Green consideration is nonsense.
I believe that microscale equipment for chemistry majors should be banned. Students should minimally prepare a few grams of materials so that they can be handled for subsequent purification and characterization. Forcing inexperienced students to prepare a spatula tip of product is unfair and needlessly harsh.
The idea that constraining a junior or senior to preparing less than 100 mg of product in a reaction is somehow green and worthy of merit is absolutely ridiculous. This is chemistry lab, not church camp. The savings in environmental insult is minimal. There are much bigger fish to fry than this anyway.
I suspect that equipment expenses and waste costs for university chemistry departments are drivers in what is chosen for the lab experience. If indeed efforts are being thrown on better instrumental experiences rather than better preparatory experiences, then I would say that we are missing the point. Given the creeping featurism in computer controlled instrumentation, I would suggest that monies be spent on better synthetic experiences than on the latest hyphenated instrument.
Perhaps someone could comment on this.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Gaussling, you’ve touched on a subject near to my heart. I was a chemistry undergraduate a while after you, but our curriculum also had very little descriptive inorganic chemistry (and not too much descriptive organic chemistry either)
Luckily, my high school chemistry class (at a level that is similar to AP Chemistry in the USA) was taught by a very enthusiastic but very old-school guy who did a lot of descriptive basic chemistry. Coupled with the Chemistry Olympiad training, we got a pretty good workout — one of his favourite texts was an abridged version of Mellor’s Inorganic Chemistry, which comes from the era when everything was descriptive.
Having that book taught me to stay on the lookout for good advanced texts of a similar vintage. I subsequently got a two-volume organic chemistry text (it’s at home and the author’s name escapes me at the moment) from the 50s — the end of the descriptive era — that gives a whole lot of information on the elucidation of natural-product structures by degradation, from the era before NMR and MS. They just don’t teach that anymore but it can be incredibly useful in some cases.
The same thing goes for physical chemistry texts. I have a nice old one from the late 40s that touches on a lot of subjects that are “passé” by today’s standards.
Amen. I have to agree with you and say I have been doing the same thing.
“I suspect that equipment expenses and waste costs for university chemistry departments are drivers in what is chosen for the lab experience.”
The waste cost at my University was the bloated, unionesqe administration and of course the unproductive tenured Profs.
Psssss.
Come closer.
Let me tell you a secret. You don’t need to create a Chem department or even have labs at all to teach premeds Inorganic chemistry (which is what most chem majors are today). The Chemical field is dying a death of globalization and encroaching mechanization. The tax payer should not be in the business of funding such an unproductive arrangement. Most chem jobs are temporary contract work in today’s world.
It is no longer a career.
I agree with your anti-green sentiment. I also believe that we should slash as much fat from the chemical teaching world as possible.
Uncle Al’s first industrial assignment was to isolate kerogen from oil shale for characterization. The rock was 30% organics so 10 grams of it seemed like a nasty cheating glut. In the real world, the first step was finely grinding 50 lbs of oil shale and recovering the -40/+60 mesh fraction. The guy in charge was an engineer.
Kerogen cannot be isolated from oil shale. It’s crosslinked to Hell and back plus chemically bound to silicates. Spend a weekend in the library reading others’ tales of woe, then… UMPOLUNG! remove the rock from the kerogen. That’s easy, even on a 20 lb starting scale. Solvent extract bitumen then HCl for carbonates then NH4HF2 for silicates and everything else.
The result was a large evaporating dish of grey-brown fluff that spontaneously smoldered in air, plus a managerial write-down. The assignment was to remove kerogen from rock not rock from kerogen. It was very clear that the real world sucked – though it paid well. (A bare trace of very heavy dust remained at the bottom of the silicate dissolution. Mercury and aqua regia each dissolved it. It wasn’t kerogen or in the assignment so I didn’t report it.)
Great story! I like this approach to problem solving. Any idea what the dust was?? I’ll keep it a secret.
Try speculum.
One of the reasons I chose chemistry, and not biochemistry, as my major (at Canadian universities they are very separate departments) is that 90% of the biochemistry undergrads had med-school on the brain, whereas only one or two chemistry students I met actually wanted to go to med school.
Gold sequesters in ancient organic residues from swamp (South African deep mines) to lake varves (Colorado oil shale) if mountains washed down into it during deposition. A few mg/20lbs rock (finer fractions had depleted organics) is a gold mine at $(US)1000/troy oz, less Enviro-whinerism. Having been burned for succeeding the wrong way I did not volunteer a project-extraneous observation.
Some employers on I tired of an engineer cursing a hot-oil injection molder with labels in Dutch and no manual. Jet canopy rejects are stretched acrylic, hence European Patent EP438043. Count the number of “inventors” besides me. Helping corporate personnel is a terrible mistake.
So I guess it is placer gold. The reality of inventorship for corporate soldiers is that you get to have another line item in your resume and a pretty plaque from the USPTO, if you cough up the money. The patent office is very sensitive to the matter of inventorship. A fast way to halt a prosecution or invalidate a patent is to dispute the inventorship. Documentation is the silver bullet to kill that beast.
To reap the benefits of invention, you have to take a walk on the wild side and bring the thing to the market yourself.
Hi Jordan,
That was my experience as a student and as a prof as well. But, pre-meds are the bread and butter of chemistry departments everywhere. Without them, chemistry departments would shrink to one analytikker, one organikker, one p-chem guy, and an in-organikker. Chances are, the dean would force the department to double up to allow 3 faculty. So, it could be worse.
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