Why Isn't Chemistry as Popular as Bio and Physics?
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- Chemistry always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to talking about hard sciences. There are way more TV shows, media and documentaries surrounding physics and biology and I think some of this lends to the chemistry major being a bit less popular as a hard science. In this video I want to discuss a couple of reasons I think that chemistry is slightly less popular as a hard science.
Most people I meet as a tutor tend to think of their skill set in a very static way. They think that there are certain skills that they are just naturally good at and things they are naturally bad at and could never do. They might say “oh I am good at writing but I could never do math” or “Oh I am great at math but my memory is just terrible”. I think this tendency to say “I’m a math person” or “I’m a writing person” or “I have excellent memory” etc.. ends up pushing people away from chemistry since in highschool, people tend to realize quickly that chemistry is not just one type of problem solving. And to be honest, I don’t think any of the sciences are just one type of problem solving, but people tend to think that way because they only get a surface level understanding in highschool. I think In addition to what you said, this is definitely a contributing factor.
I think this is a great write up of a lot of peoples mindsets and why they end up staying away from chemistry.
My experience is that people who like natural sciences and consider one of the three majors they are sometimes very turned off by the intensive lab work (understandable) compared to lab in the other subjects. We’ve had a lot of people change major or altogether quit chemistry in the first semester as soon as lab started 😅
Mabey one reason is that physic and math are considered the most fundamental so people are drawn to that while biology is the most applied of the hard sciences with leaves chemistry in this weird middle ground between them.
Now that I’ve taken intro to chem and general chemistry 1 and 2, I had literally 1 person whose major was chemistry.
From what I gathered from the students, if you like Biology, you did nursing or some other health related degree. If you like math and physics, you did some sort of engineering degree.
If you like Bio or physics, you have a clear career route to the health field and engineering field. Chemistry though… doing research or becoming a teacher?
The only thing I can think that directly relates chemistry to a path is material science/Engineering. However that’s just as much as a path for physicist and mechanical engineers or people who are pure materials science majors.
The chemical engineers don’t do as much chemistry as people think because they focus on moving stuff through pipes… and it’s a very niche field and probably the hardest engineering path.
In my lowly opinion, the pure science bachelors degree that’s worth it seems to be physics. A physics bachelors degree gets people to careers albeit it’s not going to be physics.
Pure Chemistry and biology have the problem that you need to go to graduate school to get a career and the bachelors level isn’t enough or flexible like the physics degree.
If someone can do a chemistry degree, i’m certain they can do an engineering degree or physics degree. I think people who genuinely like chemistry do it. The first year and a half looks just like a engineering degree, same amount of math classes and physics classes.
Sorry for the tangent, I just learned a lot the last year. Chemistry is cool!
everything you said is correct.
majoring in chemistry is my biggest regret. if i could go back in time, i would have just majored in mechanical engineering with a minor in chemistry.
i wanted to major in physics, but i'm not a smart person, so i settled for chemistry. physics is definitely the best hard science to major in, because you can definitely get good jobs with only a bachelor's, unlike the other hard sciences which need master's and doctorate level training for applying to the good jobs.
it was hard work, and i had to teach myself A LOT, but i switched to data science after my chemistry degree, and i'm so glad i did.
@@thispersonrighthere9024 The only thing I disagree with is not being smart enough for a particular subject. I think you are smart af I mean, you went through a chemistry degree! I've met 2 people who I think are naturally big brain. The majority of my people in like circuits or dynamics are all just as confused. But it is okay not to understand something introduced to you. Worth ethic and commitment says a lot more about a person than the amount of ripples in your brain.
That's cool to hear that it worked out for ya in the end! Data science too! That must have been a fun thing to get into.
@@thispersonrighthere9024 i completely disagree, if you are willing to do a masters degree, you can do material science and engineering or go into polymer science/chemistry, there are lots of jobs available especially in germany, netherlands, US, etc!
And even if you dont want to do a masters or phd you can look at jobs in analytical chemistry! sure they can be boring and repetitive eventually, but then you can go up to manager positions. It pays well. It doesnt involve too much chemistry sadly but so the jobs of 95% of physics majors (who did not go to grad school)
I think it is really hard to get interesting chemistry since it takes so long to get into the fundamentals and feel like you have a better understanding of what is going on. Like you said to it is harder to show interesting chemistry experiments especially when compared to physics or biology. Also, most of the chemistry exposure people get are gen chem and ochem which are ok courses but not the best chemistry has to offer. Plus a lot of the people taking Ochem are worried about getting into med school and kind of ruins the experience.
True! Its a real hampering to chemistry popularity that you have to go through a lot of other stuff before seeing actual chemistry
One of the reasons why chem is not popular is because people view chemistry as boring science which is more of reaction and weird complex structures 😂😅and lack of proper info about chemistry
I totally agree! People also have bad experiences with terrible chemistry teachers a lot of the time that make it boring
In chemistry you have to remember a lot specifically in organic and inorganic chemistry
I'm a software design undergrad and am looking to create a game that will hopefully include accurate chemical reactions for creating in-game items. I want to understand chemistry more before I even attempt the full plunge, but a hypothetical: if a game/simulation is designed to procedurally transform objects based upon the laws of chemistry (I didn't want to list everything), would the hypothetical environment's rendering have any use as a possible teaching aid?
An Example possible experiment being a copper sulfate solution with a copper and zinc bar for anode/cathode, with explorable animations showing electron transfer and the formation of "debris" on the bars in the solution, along with easy to understand details.
This is what i think (buckle up! its going to be a large text):
1)
The media is an important contributing factor when it comes to choosing a major. I know a lot of people who study chemistry just because they watched Breaking Bad and thought it was fun, and I know it's crazy, but somehow they ended up loving chemistry! I cannot stop thinking about the infinite ways of showing chemistry through the media and actually creating some kind of love between the person and the subject. I can think of so many possibilities to portray chemistry as fun and interactive. Literally everything around us is made out of chemicals, and with enough time and effort, you can synthesize most things in our world or extract any substances/compounds you want. If there are still no methods available for that extraction or synthesis path, you can focus your research on that! in this point there are so many things we can talk about: Physics can be more interesting to the media because it tries to answer the most fundamental and philosophical questions in our world, time, space, cosmology, astronomy, many people loved astronomy as a child and astrophysics is a mix of astronomy physics and philosopical questions. I remember loving astronomy as a child, i mean, who wouldn't? space and stars is so awesome and out of our world, it's like magic. My point here is: physics can be very interesting because it tries to answer the most deeply and fundamental problems in the world. Then you have biology which is all about animals and cells, and genetics... its very close to medicine, veterinary, animal science, environmental sciences, etc, and those are very interesting subjects because if you love nature or the concept of life or medicine, you will love biology, so there is a lot of youtube videos about Biology and Physics. You dont need too much previous knowledge for biology and theoritical physics without equations (unless you go too deep) and those subjects can be fun. Chemistry requires more previews knowledge unless you only mix chemicals and thats all you do. It doesn't answer too many fundamental questions, unless not those philosophical questions that everyone ask themselve once or twice, and because of all this: there are more physics/biology videos and documentals.
2)
But not only that, as you had already said in your video: Chemistry is the central science; it's literally everywhere, in every science and discipline (though it's not present in about 70% of physics-30% could be things like nuclear physics, atomic physics, chemical physics, environmental physics, solid-state physics, etc.) and because of that, it requires different skill sets. If you really love science and asking "why" all the time, then you will eventually touch physics. Chemistry is in the center so it means you cannot go too deep with the tree of "why" questions because you will eventually touch physics. You can ask why the atoms must bond themselves, and then you ask the "why" of that answer and so on and so forth: eventually you'll reach physics. So it makes sense for most people just to go to the physics major path, as already said in point 1: physics answers the most fundamental questions so it makes no sense that people choose something that is between two worlds (the life science (biology) and the fundamental science(physics)).
You need to be good/decent at math (physics, math, physical chemistry, etc.), good/decent at memorizing (organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry), good/decent at spatial visualization/thinking (organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry), good/decent at the lab, etc. It's hard to find people who don't mind/really like a large variety of subjects from STEM with different skill sets. For this reason, I think chemistry is one of the HARDEST majors. It's one of the hardest not only because of the abstraction in it but also because it requires A LOT of different skill sets. It's not surprising chemistry majors have one of the lowest GPAs in science and engineering (GPAs between 2.78 - 3.1) (plus, lab work, lab reports, etc., take a lot of time).
3)
General chemistry is bad, boring, not a good intro to chemistry. It's just a bag of lies, and everything is so caca. Take a look at physics 101, for example; it's WAY more cohesive: it focuses on mechanics and dynamics mostly. Physics 102? Electrodynamics/electrostatics and magnetism. What does GenChem focus on? Nothing; it's just a bunch of different chemistry topics. You don't go too deep into any of them, and the worst part is, you have to memorize a lot, and the math part is just basic algebra with little room for problem-solving. Labs are... between ok and boring. I actually switched majors because I hated GChem SO MUCH. Then I switched back again to chemistry because I just missed talking so much about science, chemicals, reactions, and explosions... you cannot have those things in computer science or engineering.
Now, I'd say point 2 is mostly a reason to drop chemistry in college. Points 1 and 3 are strong reasons not to go into chemistry. The only reason I love chemistry and switched majors back again is that I love the changes of matter, I love how crazy chemistry is, the implications, the final products, the explosions, the fact that sometimes I feel like if I were some kind of wizard. GenChem 2 + its labs almost made me drop completely. I came back again to finish this major, hoping it gets fun later on.
There are probably more reasons of why people don't choose chemistry as their major, but i think these ones are the main reasons.
Long story short: chemistry is not the hardest major: Physics is! All the way! In chemistry, half the time it's memorizing and half the time it's concepts, while physics is all abstract concepts.
@@yanguangzhang7258 if that would be the case, philosophy, logic and math would be way more harder than physics since there is no physical objects involve and it's all pure abstraction. What's the excuse then? well, Physicists say its because it requires additional skills: being good at practical problems. Ok you can have tons of math courses, but they will always require 1 skill mostly: math skills.
Physics requires to apply math to real life problems and that's when it becomes difficult, its an additional skill.
Now, if we follow that definition of "hard" majors, then, chemistry must be the hardest of all since it requires multiple cognitive abilities. You can be really good at math and physics but that's just 50% of the major. That won't get you that far, you also need to be good at spatial thinking, lab, attention to details, and memorization. I'm 100° sure 3D visualization is a skill harder to master than mathematical skills and you really need that because organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry (especially organic) is all about 3D visualization and spatial thinking, again, it's quite hard to master this skill and you are mostly born with it, you either have the gift or not, you cannot improve 3D visualization that's something you are born with, and it's a extremely powerful tool.
Tell me something is not abstract in chemistry? sure you can... "see" the experiments but that's just qualitative data, nothing more. Electrical engineering is the most abstract engineering, but... you can see the electricity right? well that's not how it works... Analytical, organic, inorganic, physical chemistry, biochemistry, are all abstracts.
If you want some data about my POV you can search lowest gpa majors, you will find chemistry in top 1.
TL;DR: Chemists need to be good at math physics chemistry and biology, at labs, with spatial thinking, attention to details, etc. It is perceived that Physics is harder than Math because it requires more skills than just being good at Math, therefore Chemistry must be harder than Physics and Math, and biology the easiest. It also depends on out definition of smart. For me, someone is smart when they have most of the cognitive abilities that makes you understand and retain any kind of information and do something clever with it. In this definition, chemists in theory have more cognitive abilities, therefore they are pretty good at understanding most kind of knowledge in the world. Physicists can be good at math but it doesn't mean they can understand a long text book about X concept in geology or biology and then make a whole assumption about it, they must memorize a lot, but maybe they are better at math and not memorization, that's a problem, that means you have difficulties gaining X knowledge from biology or geology.
@@yanguangzhang7258 Try computational chemistry, physical chemistry, or quantum chemistry. Chemistry in college is memorisation. At university it can easily become a math nightmare as much as physics. It becomes extremely difficult I can assure you.
I really think that chemistry is for geniuses who are skilled in interpretation I find that physics is at the same level as chemistry, and they are complementary to each other, as the two have a relationship with our world and the universe in which we live
I'm dropping out of chemistry to go into engineering physics.......
Good for you, hope you'll be happy 😎
Rekt
Real
Biologists and physicists are just way too cowardly to mess with the kind of dangers chemists deal with.
Exactly
Biochemist and microbiologist :i am a joke to you
Based
tell that to a virologist and a nuclear physicist
with a small understanding of chemistry and watching chemists on podcasts, I thought it was an interesting subject. After taking principles of chemistry 1 it just makes it annoying. Learning all the conversions just seems dumb in this age , we can just use technology, teach us the fun stuff!
When you said "the rigor that comes out of it", do you mean that chemistry is the hardest of the 3? From what I found, physics undergrad is harder, in fact, probably the hardest science degree. I had a double degree in physics and chemistry, and physics was 3 times more challenging than chemistry.
I think it's because people generally see chemistry as a more difficult to comprehend and exotic science. Biology and physics are closer to home and i believe perceived as easier to comprehend. Im cool with it though. Chemists are always interesting people who are incredibly smart
I agree and disagree: biology is easier than chemistry, but physics is not easier than chemistry. Physics is the hardest!
If I’m rich and have free time, I’ll make a chemistry documentary
However if you search “chemistry documentary” on RUclips, you can a few good hour long videos for enjoyment, but it’s nothing I could see Netflix having for promoting. And if so it’s 1 to the other 20 bio and physics docs
It's obvious, physics is the study of the world, biology is the study of the human body, and every medical student must study biology, whereas chemistry is only the study of matter and people don't find that important
Cute.
Chemistry = ( Physics + Biology ) / 2
Frankly, pure chemistry just doesn't have that many big unanswered questions remaining and less exciting developments associated with it.
Physics asks the really fundamental questions about time, space, the nature of action, information and observation. What is dark matter, what is dark energy, what fundamental forces and/or particles are we missing? How does the quantum world really work? Etc. Big things in physics are happening: The new IR telescope giving us new kinds of data, the observation of gravitational waves, the milestones in nuclear fusion technology and working quantum computers come to mind.
Biology is less about open fundamental questions, but the developments and prospects are staggering: Curing/treating previously incurable/untreatable diseases, growing organs from stem cells, understanding the brain and cognition itself. There's intricacies of ecosystems, mechanisms in cells and fancy lifeforms still being discovered.
Chemistry does have the question of the origin of life, protein folding, enzyme design, superconductivity, battery breakthroughs and new materials like graphene. The problem is that these tend to be associated with biology and physics to a significant degree. The most interesting parts of chemistry overlap with biology, physics, dynamic system theory and informatics.
There would be no chemistry without physics ;] just kidding just poking fun haha I love chem and I would like P chem but I like physics a lil more as an electrical engineering major haha
There would be no physics without chemistry as well... Beautiful world we live in right?
@@triple_gem_shininghaha no one really remembers the poor chemists but they remember the physicists even though both are working on the same project 😅 like Oppenheimer I’m sure there was chemists there but the physics was the main attraction.
@@triple_gem_shining that doesn't really make sense since chemistry is just abstracted physics basically applied to a special case where the scale where electrons transfer makes the most difference, which physics can explain, although sometimes that level of detail isn't necessary for all purposes
@@luckygamer9197 dude... chemistry is part of Physical Sciences, of course it's based on physics, but people always think chemistry came though physics when in reality it was the protoscience Alchemy that setteled all the base for chemistry, then thanks to quantum physics, chemistry could be explained. Without physics is like physics without math, you can still do physics without math and you can still do chemistry without physics, both can rely upon physical/chemical experimentation and observation to explain most things, it just that they woudnt be a science field per se.
The word "Science" mean mostly "divided fields" humans needed to do that because it is imposible to study the nature of our world through one subject.
If you know a lot of physics you can understand some level of chemistry, especially quantum chemistry and some parts of physical chemistry, but this science is SO SO big that its imposible you could know chemistry with huge physics knowledge. Before quantum physics, chemistry and physics were different and it was not possible for phycisists to know chemistry since the bridge that connects physics with chemistry was quantum physics.
My point is: even tho chemistry is hugly based on physics, chemistry can do well without physics you dont need the fundamentals and the "why's" of everything you do in chemistry, sometimes if it works, it works, and the experimental results help to find conclusions. That's how it was before quantum physics. And luckly for us, most of that knowledge through experimentation still remains. Another example could be biology, yes its mostly based on chemistry, but we have 0% knowledge of ecology, conservation, biodiversity, botany, etc. Yes, if you start asking the "WHYs" you will eventually touch chemistry and consequently: physics. But thats why sciences are divided.
Math can be considered a science, a formal science, and if we are talking about science only then the "WHYs" of physics rely mostly on math. That's why most math majors study a minor (or double major) in physics.
I mean there is no point of talking about the tree of sciences and their purity. Science are divided for a reason, and the fact that one science is more purer than another does not mean you will know or predict everything
@@Abstractor21 well I guess if you had unlimited info about a system you could make precise prediction using mathematical and physics formalisms, however it could be much more technically complicated, however abstractions in biology leave unanswered questions as a consequence of not understanding why, though it may be satisfactory for say everyday purposes mostly