I’m in the process of trying to register for organic chemistry as a non-matriculated student.  It’s a pain.  I’m still chasing one signature, and I’m honestly not sure it’s going to work out.   If and when I do get registered, I then have to figure out how much childcare I need.  One of the reasons I want to take the class now is that the professor is suspending attendance requirements due to Covid.  The lectures are online.  The baseline expectation is that students can and will attend, but I guess they normally actually take attendance.  I actually find this weird.  Georgia Tech never took attendance at large lectures.  In fact, I can’t recall a single class in all my years of college that took attendance.  There was probably one or two that I’ve forgotten.  However, I guess lectures weren’t available online back then, and I suppose that discourages attendance, having the option to just watch the lecture online.

Personally, I would strongly prefer to attend lectures in person.  However, the round trip to UW, including parking I figure is between 90 minutes and 2 hours.  I just can’t justify paying for 6 to 8 hours of childcare during the week for driving.  So, if I can avoid it, I’ll watch lectures remotely.  I’m thinking I might try to attend one of the four weekly lectures in person.  Obviously I’ll have to attend tests in person.  Anyway, it’s complicated.

To prepare, I’ve been watching the lectures from an online MIT Intro to Chemistry course, which as far as I can tell, is more or less a standard first-year Chem class.  The crazy thing is, though, I don’t remember learning any of this stuff.  I can’t figure out if I covered different stuff in my chemistry classes, or I’ve just forgotten it all.  Like, Lewis structures.  Did we learn about Lewis structures in freshman Chemistry?

While the Bio class I took over the summer was a ton of work, I really thoroughly enjoyed it.  I mean, it was fascinating.  The freshman chemistry class I’m watching?  Not so much.  I mean, it’s obviously somewhat interesting.  But so much less than biology.  I want to like Chemistry.  I had a fantastic teacher in high school, a godawful prof at GT (Mor.an) and a second prof at GT that didn’t make much of an impression.  And I just really have never liked it.