Thinking log for CM5245
Sunday, August 20, 2006
CM5245 Bioanalytical Chemistry is one of the few chemistry modules that I have taken and has a percentage allocated to IVLE discussion. Most USP modules in the "Science" basket have IVLE forum discussions but, even so, not all are graded. Therefore, CM5245 is one truly unique module in chemistry dept.
In this module, the assessment is in a form of seven weekly thinking logs which a student uploads to the Assignment in the Student Workspace. This is quite unlike a "normal" discussion on the IVLE forum. Here is my first thinking log, which is not a very scientific discussion.
Thinking Log 01
Name: Wong Yu Kai William
Matric no.: U031969B
The first lecture on bioanalytical chemistry touched upon the topic of the importance of analytical chemistry and some basic protein science. If I’m going to talk about the latter, it is going to be quite boring in a thinking log like this. Therefore, I shall talk about the importance of analytical chemistry.
I think Dr. Toh is one of the few lecturers in NUS to tell me about analytical chemistry as a problem solver. I think it’s quite sad that most lecturers focus so much on theory, instrumentation… that we forget that the importance of chemistry, or science in general, is to solve real-world problems. Dr. Toh showed us the changing definition of a chemical analysis which was quite a nice piece of new information for me. I have always linked chemical analysis to determining the components of chemical in a sample. The paradigm has been shifted!
I also used to think that analytical chemistry is so routine that it’s not exciting. Well, I have changed my thoughts after this lecture. I still remember Dr. Toh saying that a result is up to an analytical chemist to interpret. How true it is! In a broader sense, isn’t the world like this? Everything we see is a fact but how true are they? I think how true things/ analytical results are is up to one to interpret. How we see things and interpret results all depends on the cumulative knowledge one has; and all of us are unique individuals and we see things differently. And talk about science being objective…
posted byWilliam at 4:45 PM