second year – semester two
Whoa, it’s been a crazy couple months, but I think (I make lots of these promises, but…) I am back for good again. To be honest, keeping a steady routine is always really hard, but I’m going to try my best here lol. Another semester has gone by, and it’s time for a review for what worked and what didn’t work!
I’m very pleased to announce that though the winter semester is much harder (seasonal depression says hi), I managed to pass all my classes and did well in most of them! There was a midterm where I stumbled badly, and a final that I should’ve studied for much harder, but oh well. I passed!
Intro Geology
I was very excited for this course because I loved the other geology course that I did last summer. It didn’t disappoint! I loved learning about rocks and different processes of the Earth. Structural geo was a bit harder, but it was still interesting.
Things I would do better next time: Get to class on time. I was chronically 10-15 mins late all the time.
Challenging Topics: Faults, maps, coordinates, that kind of stuff. The labs weren’t easy.
Organic Chem 2
Where can I begin? I hate this course. I hate it so, so much. How does anyone what these electrons and atoms are doing anyway? At least I passed this time. But now I have to get through Organic 3. When will it end?
Things I would do better next time: Pay attention in class, because surprise, this class is so boring that I can’t even do that. Also, start studying earlier. Cramming 60+ reactions the night before ruined me.
Challenging Topics: Aldol reactions. Condensations and stuff. Something like that. There’s a lot to know, a lot to understand, and a lot of it aren’t things you can just memorize.
Physical Chem 2
I expected this course to be really hard. As mentioned before, I’m not good at physics, and I was nervous that this course was going to go down that route. I was very pleasantly surprised that I did very well, and it was also taught really well. I guess Pchem is better for me?
Things I would do better next time: Study more for the quizzes. I did fine, but they would’ve been less stressful if I just bothered doing something.
Challenging Topics: Entropy is confusing. dS = dq/T… that was hard to remember at times.
Physical Chem Lab
After the inorganic chem lab, I was nervous for this one. It was so much better. The marking wasn’t too harsh, and the experiments weren’t crazy difficult. I feel like I actually learned something (all of which I’ve already forgotten).
Things I would do better next time: I handed in a bunch of lab reports very late. I’m lucky that I didn’t get any marks taken off, but that has to be fixed for next time.
Challenging Topics: There was one experiment that involved liquidus curves and eutectic points, and that one was pretty difficult to get.
Symmetry, Spectroscopy and Structure
This was my first upper-year chem course and it involved lots of group theory. That is my weak point. The content could get pretty confusing at times, and I ended up bombing the midterm. But when I bothered putting in some effort, I did alright.
Things I would do better next time: Study harder for the midterm? But it was weird because the final was much easier… or maybe I thought so because I studied harder.
Challenging Topics: Group theory, especially classifying molecules into their point groups. Hard as hell.
There were a few disappointments this semester (Ochem 2) but after the disaster that was last year’s winter, this year was a smashing success. More than anything, I think I learned more about how to study and what strategies work for me. I am taking two summer courses to finish off my history minor.
So… eventually, there will be a summer 2026 post coming. Stay tuned!
