Senior Seminar · Chemistry
Perspectives of my peers through powerpoint 1, learned about the variety of options after graduation through speakers leading up to powerpoint 2, and had the opportunity to investigate a random topic of shared interest for powerpoint 3
Fair, although a bit much for a pass/fail class. Have to read two science articles for every class and write an evaluation. Final project of a 20 minute talk and 5 page paper. You'll pass as long as you do something; if you do a good job, you'll really laern a HELL of alot about chemistry and research in general.
I liked the way this course was structured and its goals. I learned a lot about what to expect in graduate school, how to read and digest academic articles in chemistry (and related topics), give 'chalk-talks' on related topics, proposal writing, and public speaking/collaboration.
My future goals, presentation skills, new chemistry topics.
Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I will say it again: awesome. Professor Valentini (Jim) is great. He's enthusiastic about the material he teaches, interested in hearing what you have to say, encourages us to critically evaluate the articles we read, and in general, leads a great discussion. The class is Friday afternoons, which I thought would be quite a pain, but the time really flew. All in all, a great class.
How to parse chemistry papers quickly and give a chalk talk. How to write grant proposal.
only for students who are chemistry majors. people who are not fully interested in chemistry will likely find no use of this class.
Presentational skills and proposal writing
I do think the class was a bit heavier workload than it should be. While having longer presentation skills is a good thing, it is a lot of time spent. I think shorter, more frequent presentations would be better. The last presentation being a longer one does seem adequate for what we're expected to. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: CHEMUN3920_001_2021_3-SENIORSEMINAR : CHEMUN3920_001_2021_3 - SENIOR SEMINAR Instructor: Karen Phillips
Scientific communication & proposal writing.