I interviewed Dr. E to find about his success in science and gain insight on how students can better pursue science in the future. Dr. E is a PhD organic chemist who has acquired multiple patents and now teaches chemistry and physics.
Q: What originally got you into science and why did you want to be an organic chemist?
A: I had a really dynamic and kind-of inspiring high school chemistry teacher, so that made me want to go into chemical engineering in college. I got there, and my path veered a little bit from engineering to life sciences – I actually thought I wanted to go to medical school – but then I came back to organic chemistry after a great internship with a professor at the end of my sophomore year. It was a NSF research grant, and I was paid a stipend. And I did research and that, really, that's where my interest really took off. I got interested in organic chemistry at that point.
Q: What was it like working in a lab?
A: I was among undergraduates with graduates looking after us, guys who are getting PhDs and stuff. So they inspired me. And there's a lot of good stories. There's a lot of kind of community built around the lab group. They really had a good, good tight bond with everybody. There were challenges, but I got to do some interesting reactions, and that really got my interest going.
Q: You mentioned stories earlier – do you have a favorite lab story or favorite chemical reaction?
A: The reduction reactions of lithium aluminum hydride are very exciting. It's also really dangerous to work with. It’s very reactive, and will catch fire in air and water for sure. One of the scariest moments I had in the lab was after a reduction with lithium aluminum hydride, So I'd set up a reaction the night before, I got home, back of my house, whatever. And the next morning, I came to the lab, and there were fire trucks there. And it was cordoned off with yellow tape. Okay. Every window of the third floor – which I had been working on – was blown out. Yeah, it exploded, there had been a big explosion in my lab. And so, for a while, I feared that it had been my reaction that I'd set up the night before, and I was gonna get blamed for this, but, long story short, it turned out it was one of the graduate students. He put a giant beaker full of a very volatile solvent and one of the refrigerators filled it up with vapor. And then the one the motors in the fans of the fridge triggered and set off a spark. So yeah, it blew it all up. It was explosive. The refrigerator looked like a giant marshmallow. It was round, and it blew all the windows out and it caught fire to the lead. So yeah, it was exciting. So I was relieved that it wasn't me.
Q: How was the process of transitioning from college to the corporate world? Also, once you were there, I heard you acquired a patent – how did that process go?
A: Working in a corporate lab was very different. Like I said, it moved very slowly. Through a lot of meetings, a lot of planning, a lot of meetings. That seemed less exciting than the kind of the collegial atmosphere that was in graduate school, like the group I worked with was more distant, a little more positive. So that wasn't quite as nice. And the chemistry wasn't that exciting? Well, it wasn't, you know, if you do chemistry, in graduate school, you're like, on the cutting edge, you have, like, you're doing stuff, it's never been done before. And industry, you're probably doing some derivative of, although I did, you know, do have original patents. Acquiring a patent was rewarding for a lot of aspects, because you're working on getting something developed to the point where it was commonly useful and could be used to benefit society. That was the good part of it. The bad part of it was that the process was very slow, very slow. It took years and years to make it happen. So I think in the end, I grew tired of the slow pace, and that’s what brought me out of corporate science, and the reason I chose teaching was because both my parents were teachers. I saw Middlesex as a parent because both my kids were here. So I saw Middlesex through their eyes, came over, and felt like I could fit in. And I've never had any regrets.
Q: How was the transition from the corporate world to teaching easy or difficult?
A: For a couple of years it was rough, I'm not gonna lie. It was hard to scale down because I've been working at a pretty high level as an organic chemist. So and then I had to scale that down to general fruit, you know, software, General Chemistry. That was hard. And, then I also had to teach physics, and I had to relearn physics because I had studied it for years. So yes, it was hard, but in the end it was rewarding.
Q: Favorite element of teaching?
A: My favorite moments are when I see, after kind of trying to get something across, I see kind of the light bulbs go off in people's eyes. I see them having an aha moment where it all makes sense. Yeah, that's very rewarding. It's awesome.
Q: That feeling sounds awesome. Do you have a least favorite element of teaching?
A: I don’t like grading lab reports. It takes about 20 minutes to 30 minutes per lab report, and if I have 20 of them, that's a lot of time. Knowing that it's often hard to start, because I know I have like six hours of grading ahead of me. And they get better over the course of the year, but the first ones are really bad. Yeah. They're really bad. So it's really like pulling out your hair. Mostly, it's mostly, they take a lot of time. But lab reports are important, because I think a good skill that everyone should have is being able to communicate in a clear manner.
Q: Tips for students to easily do better in science classes or things students easily miss?
A: Paying attention to units.
Q: Tips for students looking to do well in higher level science in the future?
A: Curiosity and engagement, I think, are the two key things. You’ve got to be curious, and you gotta be invested in learning. And it's hard to be invested in learning if you're not curious, if you're not asking questions all the time, and without that you’ll never have success in science.
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