• Question: Which is the hardest part of science to learn, and why?

    Asked by anon-256600 on 8 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Emma Daniels

      Emma Daniels answered on 8 Jun 2020:

      I think this is different for each person! For me, I find organic chemistry difficult! This is study of carbon-containing compounds, where you learn how to look at the structure and properties of a compound to predict how it’s going to react. I always found it hard to remember all the rules, especially as there are always exceptions to those rules too! Whereas, I find anything with maths and equations in it much easier to understand, but I know a lot of my friends at university had the complete opposite opinion! It’s funny that I found this the hardest at university, because I now work in a lab where I do a lot of organic synthesis!

      On a practical level, on of the hardest things I’ve learnt (and am still learning about) is failure. In science, it’s very common for experiments to go wrong, and to not give the result you’re expecting. It’s hard to remember that this is okay, and is actually a BIG part of scientific research! You just have to figure out why it’s ‘gone wrong’ and how you can correct it next time!

    • Photo: Alex Holmes

      Alex Holmes answered on 8 Jun 2020:

      Hi!
      I found that I could study and understand most of the facts and topics okay, but what I found quite difficult to study was the ethics around science, because you don’t just learn some facts and rules and move on but you have to keep reapplying them to everything you do from then on!
      Plus sometimes you can get stuck on a one-track path in your mind and forget the bigger picture eg in the lab I genetically modify bacteria quite often and it’s not a “big deal”, but outside of the lab genetic modification is a widely debated topic, so what may seem simple actually isn’t at all.

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