It has been a little over two months since I began my out of the classroom experience in the Shustova Chemistry lab. With many extractions, separations, Schlenk line setups, and NMR spectroscopies, I am feeling much more confortable preforming higher-level chemistry techniques all while upholding national safety standards. This sense of comfortableness did not come quickly. This is where the most challenging aspect of the Capstone Project comes into play. The challenge that I face when I go into lab twice a week is to feel confident with the procedures I have done before, and the slight tweaks I am told to make to hopefully reach the desired project. Working with highly corrosive/flammable/dangerous to inhalate chemicals, it becomes hard to
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A perfect example actually happened today (refer to date above). I was in lab working with chloroform, brine (water with an extremely high salt concentration), and an unknown reactive product. I needed to separate the product by a simple separation process. After a long St. Patty’s day weekend and a late night of celebration after a Game Cock basketball victory, I was feeling light headed from all of the chemical fumes. I stopped, told my supervisor that I was feeling high, and sat down for a second. I recovered quickly and become more aware when I was mixing chemicals. I STILL (knock on wood), have not dropped and broken any glassware. I also have not done anything drastically stupid in terms of health and safety standards, and have actually became decently versed in chemical waste disposal and am always aware what I am putting down the sink, and into the corrosive and dangerous chemical disposal …show more content…
Coordinating with my supervisor Allison Rice has been extremely easy and she is usually impressed with my excitement and punctuality compared to some of her undergrad assistants in the past. In terms of public health concepts, sadly the only relation to public health is proper disposal of dangerous chemicals (which is very important the water supply is precious!). In terms of preparation for my hopeful career path there are some extremely important lessons. Dexterity is a top, if not the most important skill in dentistry. Working with glassware all day, and measuring precise amounts of chemicals coming from heavy 4-liter jugs, aids in my dexterity tremendously. Also having to clean the base bath requires me to put on huge water resistant rubber gloves, and handle and clean small glassware. This is great practice working with my hands because other than typing and texting I don’t have a ton of hobbies other then video games that requires too much manual
A perfect example actually happened today (refer to date above). I was in lab working with chloroform, brine (water with an extremely high salt concentration), and an unknown reactive product. I needed to separate the product by a simple separation process. After a long St. Patty’s day weekend and a late night of celebration after a Game Cock basketball victory, I was feeling light headed from all of the chemical fumes. I stopped, told my supervisor that I was feeling high, and sat down for a second. I recovered quickly and become more aware when I was mixing chemicals. I STILL (knock on wood), have not dropped and broken any glassware. I also have not done anything drastically stupid in terms of health and safety standards, and have actually became decently versed in chemical waste disposal and am always aware what I am putting down the sink, and into the corrosive and dangerous chemical disposal …show more content…
Coordinating with my supervisor Allison Rice has been extremely easy and she is usually impressed with my excitement and punctuality compared to some of her undergrad assistants in the past. In terms of public health concepts, sadly the only relation to public health is proper disposal of dangerous chemicals (which is very important the water supply is precious!). In terms of preparation for my hopeful career path there are some extremely important lessons. Dexterity is a top, if not the most important skill in dentistry. Working with glassware all day, and measuring precise amounts of chemicals coming from heavy 4-liter jugs, aids in my dexterity tremendously. Also having to clean the base bath requires me to put on huge water resistant rubber gloves, and handle and clean small glassware. This is great practice working with my hands because other than typing and texting I don’t have a ton of hobbies other then video games that requires too much manual