Archive for the 'College' Category

The Chemmy Award for the Most Outstanding Chemistry Department of 2006 goes to:

Princeton University

In the comments thread announcing the Chemmy Awards, Excimer noted that “although all these awards are subjective as hell, the Outstanding Academic Department is really out there. How can one honestly be 100% objective about such things?”

He’s absolutely right; there’s no way to definitively peg what department had the best year. This award was made to mimic how various sports leagues recognize a general manager or team executive of the year. We’re just asking, “which department made the best personnel moves or exceeded expectations for the past year?” Of course, this is going to make it harder for the “top flight” departments to win this Chemmy. The bar is higher for them, as we’ve come to expect schools like Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford to do amazing things.

So, why Princeton? They’ve made a number of big strides forward in the recent past. Coming on the heels of Sorensen’s arrival from Scripps in 2003, Princeton was able to attract superstar David MacMillan this year. Princeton also gained a resident chemistry blogger in 2006, Carmen Drahl, who’s noted that the school has vastly improved its instrumentation this year. A new chemistry building is also in the works, with completion scheduled for 2010.

In terms of losses, the sophomore organic class at Princeton might suffer with the impending departure of Maitland Jones. He is closing down research operations in preparation for a move to Greenwich Village to teach orgo at NYU. For those interested, The Chem Blog had a post this summer chronicling the movement of some other professors. Yale had a particularly rough year, which included the loss of Hartwig to Illinois.

So, when I think of up-and-coming schools, Princeton is the first that comes to mind. I’ll stand by it as deserving of the award for 2006, but feel free to post your thoughts on other departments that will soon be surging up the rankings.

Part of the fun of being a teaching assistant is getting to mess with undergrads’ heads. It’s more fun when the undergrads are pre-meds, and even more fun when they’re in the middle of their hardest course, organic chemistry. I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across three of my favorite trick questions, shown below. For best results, use them on exams rather than practice tests or problem sets.

Posted in Education, College, Problem Sets | 21 Comments »