In this video, I'm just asking a question that I've been wondering for a while now. Did you ever hate or strongly dislike chemistry? If so, what changed for you? Did my channel play a part?
@@BuIIetBiII Honestly, that's how I felt about highschool chem too. I could see the logic behind math and physics and computer science, but chemistry seemed to be highly memorization-based. I remember having to memorize that the "fish metals" (so-called because the shape they make on the periodic table looks kind-of like a fish) had some special property for the Chemistry AP exam. I've long since forgotten any details. I think Aluminum was in the "tail" of the fish? Maybe it had something to do with galvanic reactions?
@@BuIIetBiII Chemistry (especially inorganic chemistry/stoichiometry) and Physics are in my opinion the only two subjects which highly depend on the professor and the way they are taught, and sadly it is true what people say about professors of those two subjects, most don't bother explaining it well, let alone showing examples, without all that it's basically just boring equations and formulae, which most kids and teenagers don't really like. I had a terrible teacher of physics for the entirety of my "high school" days, to a point where I was memorizing everything just by drilling it into my head for a perfect grade, with no interest in it what so ever, but then my friend from a different school told all the fun stories about physics which got me intrigued and as a 17 year old I took extra evening classes in a different school just for physics (much to my parents sadness of money), not because I needed them, but because I wanted to see the difference for myself, and there was a difference, suddenly everything I just memorized by heart, made sense, I actually understood physics for the first time, and it really changed my interest of it. As for chemistry, I never really had interest in it, I did understand most of it, but never really felt that it's my calling, but I do like watching experimentation of all sorts.
Chemistry was honestly like most things when it came to learning in an educational/classroom setting for me. It's like Math and all subjects, I am passionate for learning and gaining an appreciation for the subject at hand, but I utterly HATE doing it in school because all it meant was to just get a great grade.
You don't go to school to get an education. You go to school to get a letter on a piece of paper that will hopefully (but not always) allow you get a job with sufficient pay so you don't starve every day.
I know I'm a bit late, but here's my experience. I'm currently a high school student enrolled in AP chemistry. I have always been interested in chemistry ever since I was 6 years old. Both my parents are engineers so it kind of makes sense that I would take the sciences route. last year, i took regular chemistry instead of honors chemistry (because I wasn't in a high enough math yet) and i did really well and ended the year with an A. This year has been quite a shift. My friend and I were in the same chem class and we were both (some of) the smartest in the class. when we started our journey through AP chem, everything changed. we used to be so passionate about the subject and we used to love learning new things. now, being surrounded by classmates who took honors chem instead of regular, we have lost all excitement and love for the subject. the people around us put us down and make us feel inferior because we aren't getting the same grades as them, and we aren't as smart as them. there are only about 17 people in my class and a solid handful act this way. it almost made me rethink my entire decision to pursue chemistry as a career. the honors chem students learned a lot of what we are learning now, last year. so this entire year is a review for them, while it is all new to my friend and i. i also don't think my teacher likes me very much so that's great (i sent her your video of making gloves into hot sauce and she saw it but didn't respond). i honestly think her way of teaching is great but it's just the way people act sometimes that makes me stray away from the subject. watching your videos and others like it reminds me of how much i really love chem and that i just have to push through to the end. i keep having to tell myself that it will get better. this is not the end of my chemistry era. thank you for coming to my ted talk. even if no one sees this i'm glad i finally got this all off my chest
Don't worry. I think if you have the motivation to learn you can learn chemistry well and get even ahead of your class. You just can't give up when you mess something up and continue trying. I don't know what part of chemistry troubles you, so I can't try giving you any advices. But I wish you good luck with learning.
omg i so feel you man. i took regular chemistry last year because my grades dropped during remote school and since i had straight A+ throughout the year, i was recommended to take AP chemistry alongside physics. out of a class of 12 students, only a few took regular chemistry instead of honors. the kids in my lab group are seriously bad at explaining things and im often left trying to figure things out myself. the struggle is real :(
its the opposite at my school (very meritocratic) if u take ap chem or any difficult courses theyll be praising u so yeah keep it up dont let them bother u be the best and fuck em all
i was in a similar position. took ap chem after taking regular chem last year. i remembered during my first semester i was struggling a ton with keeping up with the students who took honors. i didn't necessarily have an intense passion or really loved chemistry, i was more so indifferent about it (although still considering it as a potential career option), but that feeling of being left behind and struggling so much when everyone around you seemed to be excelling without much effort was just frustrating to deal with. honestly, i still kind of struggle with this now in second semester (and failing literally all of the tests we've had this sem...), but i've learned to detach myself from the class a bit more and understand that my performance in this class shouldn't be dictating my self-worth this much, which was the biggest issue i had. from this class and my performance tho i also realized that chemistry just wasn't what i really wanted or should pursue in life. i'm glad to hear that you were able to persevere and stick with chemistry even despite the pretty discouraging environment you were in tho. a lot of people would've given up (like i sorta did) in such an environment, but this just goes to show how truly passionate and strong you are :) which is just super admirable honestly. like others have said, keep it up and don't let people get to you!! and let's do our best to ace that ap exammm
Honestly the stress of having to keep my grade in the class up got in the way of me having much fun learning it. The happiest I ever was in that class was in the beginning when we werent being graded and we could just focus on whats being taught
IKR!! My personal favorite field of science is evolutionary biology and I've been learning about it on my own since I was 7. Needless to say, I was really excited in learning about it in GT bio. Unfortunately, most of it was focused on microbiology and everything we did learn about it was stuff I already knew. Because of the focus on grades and doing busywork I couldn't find the motivation to turn in most of my assignments. Add on the fact that because I knew so much I overthunk everything and I ended up hating something I knew I loved.
God fucking damn this response is everything wrong with this school system. Just that you were learning more and had more fun with the subject before you were being graded says it all
I hated it because I was never allowed to explore things on my own and had to stay focused on one specific thing, and we all know what it's like to tell the kid with ADHD to focus, it just doesn't work. It made me think it was just linear and nothing special. Your wacky experiments made me realize just how in depth and involved chemistry can really be, and opened my eyes to the possibilities of what can be done
I think the whole "linear" format of teaching is why a lot of us (ADHD brains) dislike school in general. Yay for learning, boo for being railroaded and not allowed to experiment with the things learned. I'm not ashamed to admit this is probably why I did so poorly in school, ended up cheating to get out of it, and then just stopped entirely. Math may have actually been interesting if I'd been allowed to do more with it than just repeating steps with different numbers. Plus, engaging the learner is paramount to retaining knowledge. Any time I'm actually interested and excited about a project Nigel does, I actually kinda learn something. The diagrams unfortunately still make no sense to me, but that's ok because chemistry looks cool and that's what keeps me coming back. If the only things happening on screen were diagrams, results, and explanations... I might have never gotten into this side of RU-vid honestly.
I started hating chemistry from the time I started preparing for the JEE (an Indian exam for engineering) about a year ago. I thought it was all about memorising chemical reactions, equations and exceptions. This was all when I had my old teacher, now they replaced the teacher and the new one is so good, she made me start to really like the subject! I realised the real reason I didn't like it was the way it was thought to me - just memorise without understanding. My new teacher made us understood everything in a fun way and showed us that logic is more important in chemistry than memorisation. Now I really have an appreciation of Chemistry and plan to not neglect it in the future.
@@primenumberbuster404 it's feeding your brain , nothin else to many students , ppl enjoy when they actually have a good teacher who doesn't spoil students by filtering out the subject's importance for important topics of exam
I know this is two years old but im still gonna put my experience out there, my high school chem class was a big dissapointment, i didnt understand a majority of the subject matter because the teacher I had was honestly just not good. She prioritzed student drama over lessons and would move any students who spoke to eachother (including me, when I would ask the person next to me for clarification on something, the only bastion of hope I had for passing the class) to the back of the room so by the end of the year I was surrounded by all the kids who didnt want to be there, unable to learn a subject I had been excited for since childhood, so for a long time I associated chemistry as a whole with my personal experience. Anyways, your videos have absolutely 180'd my view on chem, almost igniting a passion for it, since I discovered you about a year and a half ago I think ive watched just about all the content youve put out and the way you put your videos together is always relatively easy to understand and very well edited. I can safely say yes, I have hated chem and nigel helped me find a love for it I didnt think I would.
it honestly baffles me how some of these teachers are employed. they obviously dont care about the overarching goal of student education and tend to be overly immature when they cant manage kids being kids. these are the same people who stay purposefully ignorant to evolving subjects such as technology and i honestly do not understand what would drive somebody to adopt these mindsets, especially when its a career. of course theres the other end of the spectrum of amazing teachers although the amount out there doing a poor, even damaging job isnt that great. its such a relief to get into a good uni and have this issue be obsolete while learning the subject matter im passionate about. (animation if youre curious)
I had a similar incident too. The teacher gave us the look of "How can you not understand that" and making us feel really unmotivated to keep on focusing. One time, the teacher made a mistake and got called out by one of the student. Then,she put on her annoyed face. I don't know what happens to the teacher, but I really don't care about her personal problems. A teacher should'nt have that attitude at all. Sorry for making you read my rant.
@@maxrelax5940 IMO why there are these kinds of teachers everywhere you look is because the whole education system is underfunded and not enough teachers are out there to fill the positions needed that's why schools take anyone they can get just to fill the position. An example from my life (I live in Europe so it may not be the same for you guys in other countries): In my 8th grade our old music teacher went into retirement because she couldn't take our class, the more delinquent boys were too much for her. She might I add was at that school for a very long time even before my mother stepped foot in there. She was replaced with a blond haired Karen who thought she was above everyone and when the boys got too rowdy she would literary scream at them in like a high pitched prepubescent voice. After that nobody respected her. She also was the reason for the schools choir to disband because of her constant negative attitude and bossing around. She later that year got fired and for the 9th grade nobody took music as a subject. It took the whole year to get her replaced by a normal teacher. Come 10th grade only 3 ppl of our 30 ppl class took music as a subject and as far as I know the choir is still non existent.
@@Pancakeman_49 yeah legit. no matter where youre from this issue is somehow universal. and on top of that they literally scam you into paying thousands worth of school fees (for me at least) that are entirely non compulsory while half of them continue to deliver services as youve mentioned
I think the problem with chemistry education is the same as all stem education, which is students just follow a curriculum where they get told what to do every step of the way. Your videos present an intellectual curiosity naturally leading to the desire to experiment and find answers. I think that's something we can all relate to. How many times have students been given the opportunity to choose what they want to do an experiment on? Virtually never, at least until they become RAs or start working on a thesis. There is no passion with anything students do, and every experiment is intended to teach something related to the lecture part of the curriculum. There's no "let's wonder what would happen if we did this and find out" it's all "follow the directions precisely and it's -10 if you don't get the expected result"
@@BO-nm1ht Well, I just had some ideas watching the waste disposal videos. Let's see what my students say next year. But you are right about the "real environment" part. It's going to need some convincing...
The biggest problem with letting students just "experiment", especially during developmental periods, is that there's a chance they could create some seriously dangerous stuff out of curiosity.
When I was younger I used to love chemistry so much, I found it incredibly interesting. Years later when I started high school I suddenly started to despise it. This was because my teacher would always intensely criticize me (or really, harass and abuse me) for making a mistake or even just asking a question. Ever since then I have always had a fear of science as a whole. I could never even look at a scientific paper without shaking and going into a full on panic attack. I’ve dealt with all this for years now, but ever since I found your channel I have finally started to move past those horrible experiences. To be completely honest, I think it’s because you seem like a super nice and knowledgeable human being that makes chemistry seem fun again. Your videos don’t make me feel like the world will explode if mistakes happen. I am so incredibly thankful to you for helping me get through my PTSD (which is something many doctors and therapists have tried to do and have failed). Without your videos I don’t know what would’ve happened to me, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making my life better for me than it ever has been in so long. :)
That's heartbreaking. That sense of passion and wonder for a subject is always such an endearing thing to see in others. That teacher sounds infuriating.
I just like the idea of combining things to get a mystery thing, when i was a kid. i didn't even know how to read in my senior year of HS. I knew English more than Spanish, since i interacted with friends.
i kinda share the same experience as u did except the fact i'm still in high school (10th to be specific). i can't lie i really adored science ever since i started to learn about it more importantly chemistry since my father used to own a lab himself. but in the recent 2-3 years due to some reasons i've came to the point of absolutely hating science mostly due to my abusive teacher and arrogant classmates. they all tease me for asking a question or getting something wrong. this channel is actually helping me to remind me of the good old days when i loved to do experiments with my dad. i really wish i would've found this channel before so that i would've never paid any attention to those who wants to get me down. btw sorry for the long boring note xd
I had a poor experience with Chem in high school. We'd make it back to our labs and half of the class would be scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do. My second year was also during covid so I didn't grasp a lot of what was happening. I love your videos because it's removing all the stress of trying to pass a class, and just exploring genuine curiosity. The structure is so organized too. Even if I don't understand exactly what you're doing, I can still easily follow along and that's awesome.
I just didn't like the routine of class and the memorization of things. On top of that it felt rushed so I couldn't ask questions about things I didn't get/ things I wanted to learn more about.
'it felt rushed so I couldn't ask questions about things I didn't get/ things I wanted to learn more about' This is very sadly true. With some subjects there is just too much content to the point where if a teacher teaches something and not everyone understands, well tough! There just isn't enough time to revisit it or to look into it in a bit more detail.
On the more geeky perspective, I used to be so excited for chemistry when I was younger. I always loved the idea of alchemists and wizards brewing these different concoctions and making something amazing with them. But once I finally got to high school and learn chemistry, it never really clicked that it was a science and had a lot of math involved in it. All the stuff we learned was more on paper than actual flashy experiments that amaze people, which, you know, it's fair and safe and practical. But it felt disappointing. Even the smartest kid in our class admitted he gave up on trying to understand how it works. But everytime I watch you experiment and use all these tools and mix things into bottles and see a reaction, I always get that same sense of wonder again.
Everyone feels the wonder at the flashy reactions. It's those that feel the same wonder at the mass of equations and numbers behind those reactions that are really fit for the subject.
For me personally, I've never hated chemistry. I've always found it extremely interesting and would love to do it, even as some sort of a career. The issue for me is that chemistry to that degree requires much more time, effort, and commitment than I really have time for. It will always be one of those things I wish I had more time and money to put into. Your channels are very enjoyable to me because you don't just explain what you're doing, but also explain why things are happening or the theory behind those things
Chemistry is objectively difficult. It hits every part of what makes people struggle. The terminology and language is difficult. The maths behind it is far from basic. It’s filled with theory, but also requires physical lab work and special training on equipment. Compared to other courses, it is expensive for schools to fund the necessary materials and equipment, so many schools are stuck with old or broken tools. This of course leaves a bad impression in general on young students. Like you said, I think most get into chemistry because they found something they thought was cool and interesting and that something happened to be chemistry.
used to be the same same in Romania, because schools were somewhat underfunded and can't afford maintaining chemistry labs, so the glassware got old, the reagents were expired, thus likely contaminated and hazardous and so on. However, things are improoving now
NileBlue he is just running away from truth ,I am also Indian and we are doing fine in chemistry I had no problem!! Stop blaming on others ,this idiot!!
My experience in chemistry was bad teaching and bad curriculum. I struggled in math, and as a result, also struggled in Stoichiometry which put a damper on my willingness to explore the subject. Refining gold is mostly what sparked my interest. I found your channel close to the beginning while watching nurd rage.
@@jaybonn5973 the relationship between the relative quantities of substances taking part in a reaction or forming a compound, typically a ratio of whole integers. in layman terms, The ratio in which you would need to add two substances to make a complete reaction with no leftovers, or the mathematics involved
I dislike the Idea of a curriculum in generel. teachers are forced to be laser focused on teaching eveything in the curiculum and there is no leaway for being charismatic and exiting the students; or going slow if it is nessesery etc.
you are the reason i want to be a chemist! you make everything seem so fun and explain everything so a high school student can understand. in school when i ask my teacher to explain why does something we learn happens he is like "because it is that way". i feel like school doesn't encourage our curiosity and practical thinking. we just learn to accept things and never question them. and that's why i love your channels so much. you show all the failures but never give up until you reach your target. i hope that someday I'll end up having the same passion about my work as you do!
I've always had such a big love for chemistry! When I was in the forth grade, we had to show off our favorite things. Mine was baking soda and vinegar with blue food coloring for mine. It made me so happy to show off my love for how the reactions worked in science. Then when I had chemistry class years later. It was kinda stressing/boring to remember formulas for tests- that I felt would never be important again- but then I found your channel and suddenly I have that spark again to understand and learn more about chemistry than ever! The way you explain formulas and materials/elements is so easy to follow! Thank you for everything and keep going at it!
I'm a high school dropout. It's not that I'm unintelligent, its just my learning style coupled with social anxiety... Well, school didn't really work out for me. *I also had to work to support my family.* Today I have an associates in science and I'm a licensed electrician. I own my own company and do pretty well for myself. I went to a trade school before finishing my college credits. I'm a visual and hands-on learner. And the closer to 1-on-1 teaching, the better I did. The trade school I went to was small groups in a "shop" rather than a "classroom" environment, so I thrived. In trade school, I got voted to be the student shop foreman, and today, I love my career. I found my place in a leadership role somewhere that I was comfortable. Just like electricity, chemistry always interested me. But school never did. I guess thats why I enjoy your channel.
Same here man. Social anxiety sucks. I had hard time connecting school with real world applications of it so I gave up and went in the Navy. Most of my current coworkers always say Im the smartest person they've ever met. Ha ha. I laugh because most of them are ex cons or drop outs so they've never met truly smart people. I once worked at company that built chemical analyzers after I got out of Navy and those people were some smart people. I decided I was in over my head and went route of trades. I do industrial ammonia refrigeration now but spend my free time learning calculus and chemistry. If my memory wasn't so bad I'd be ok. Ha ha
@Xolo 1980 yeah, real unintelligent. It would've been extremely unintelligent to watch my family fall into poverty and homelessness. You're ignorant as fuck. Some people have to fight to survive. Not everyone is handed everything in life.
For school I always did pretty well, but I never actually enjoyed it. I always fell back to working on cars and all, I got my certifications for basically everything but body work. I’ve been doin well, I’m as we speak, getting the certifications for aviation mechanics. What doesn’t make sense to me is, people really disapprove of trade schools. A high school diploma and most college degrees just mean nothing. People in trade schools for things like, welding, mechanics, and electrician stuff are always needed. They are always paid well, always do well for themselves, but people get after ya for not having the degree or diploma. You’re just another example of how school systems don’t work. And honestly, congratulations dude. That’s some real impressive stuff. The high school diploma and the college degrees don’t measure intelligence, just the ability to memorize the garbage crammed down your throat.
You are my favorite chemist on the Internet, the way you explained everything in such an understandable fashion as well as how awesome you make everything look is the reason I love chemistry now, love you and your amazing content man
I just found your channel, but when I read the title I can say I hated chemistry when it started getting mad hard. But fast forward a year and 8 months after finishing the curriculum and looking back at all I learnt, I got this sudden feeling of satisfaction and gratitude to this beautiful subject that tbh changed my life and how I look at the world. I gained new appreciation for the world of science and discovery and gained respect of all those before me who had the time, effort, and genius to come up with the laws that make up this subject.
A polish high school student here. Im actually taking my country's equivalent of extended chemistry and biology and honestly, it made me grow to hate chemistry. We don't even get to do experiments ourselves, i'm actually yet to even touch a beaker despite being halfway into my third year. Instead, we do a lot of theory stuff and even more calculations, like for example stechiometry. It makes chem look like some sort of math class with reactions. Since i tend to struggle in precise calculations, i had to drop out of chemistry finals and focus fully on biology instead. I honestly watch those videos to remind myself that chemistry also has a more fun and interesting side that is less about punching numbers into your calculator and more about experimenting to see what happens, trying out new ways to achieve a result or just plain using your creativity. I heard from the recent stink juice video that Nile hasn't even touched a calculator in years and it actually made my brain explode, as the way chemistry is taught in my school, i thought that it involves insane amounts of calculations off-camera.
Honestly I like your videos more because it's amazing how you follow through long projects which I would not be capable of doing since all that interests me is when you make amazing things out of elements and materials I didn't you could. It's the awesomeness and the surprising nature of your projects.
I personally really liked physics but never were really into chemistry and I guess it had a lot to do with the way it was thought. Regardless of the application of the concept we were learning, the teacher was missing the drive you have, basically seeing you enjoying it so much made us able to enjoy it for ourselves, and catch up quite a lot on the gaps left by the lack of drive of previous teachers. I guess also the way you cope with failures makes it so much more human of an approach. Thank you for this!
Extracting "capsaicin" and making "thermite" "ignited" your interest in it... I see what you did there. Also, I've been watching your videos for years how did I miss this one???
School ruins a passion for something because they force it as apposed to allowing someone to grow in it at their own pace, in their own way, and at their own level. You made chemistry fun and interesting, and it's not forced on us. We are happiest learning something when we enjoy it, and when we enjoy something, that is where passion comes from, and with passion comes more learning. By not enjoying something, it breaks everything. Some people have small sparks in their minds that keep them going, and others don't. I would say that most people just force themselves to do it during school just because of society's pressure to make you feel as though you must have good grades. I strongly disliked chemistry even with the small sparks of ""wow, that was super cool" simply because of the unreasonable pressure there was while in school. School was more about proving knowledge than gaining it, and it destroys peoples' passion, removes any interests, and puts pressure on people to be able to prove knowledge, even to the point of people just wanting to fake knowing the knowledge in order to be seen as smart. There is no pressure in your videos, and you do it all with passion, which is inspiring. There isn't a pressure of feeling as though I have to know anything at the end of the video, and because of this, I feel like I have learned more watching your videos than I have learned in years of school.
Same. I always loved chemistry, but after I was done with Highschool, my passion had become trampled down and I forgot about Chemistry as a sort of coping mechanism to avoid the unsatisfactory feelings I got being unable to learn it properly. However, when University came my passion reignited again. Even though I had trouble paying attention to instructions, as in I would rather just do things myself, making me always the last student to finish the experiment, I still loved Chemistry. Just not all the mathematical stuff associated with Chemistry lol.
I’ve never really hated Chem or had a dislike for it, mainly cuz my mom is a chem professor, so I’ve always seen it in a pretty positive light, but I know that I was always a little intimidated by it. Right before I started actually taking chem in school, I found your channel. It was so fun watching you do things and then doing them myself or watching you do something and then the why behind it clicked when I was in class. I stuck around because you make science cool, you make is so fun and it’s just crazy to me the things that you’re able to do, plus your sense of humor. Like , you say things in the most monotone voice but it’s just so entertaining idk. Plus you break stuff down so anyone can get it, so thx Nile!
It wasn't my strong suit in school, I tried my best but couldn't get a full grasp at the time. When I found your channels, however, you helped break down a bit of the processes and steps you take and how your reactions work. That and you do a great job performing the experiments and performing on camera. Keep it up man!
I never disliked chemistry and I guess my story is similar to yours. Admittedly mine is a little more irresponsible but I was younger and didn’t know better. I was really into pyrotechnics when I was 14 but unfortunately you can’t buy fireworks in Australia so I was always pulling apart flammable things and grinding up match heads and sparklers to try and make something. I even went as far as buying some KNO3 online to make sugar rockets. I didn’t really know what any of it was but I was in need of some chemicals I just couldn’t buy. After searching and searching I stumbled across Nile Red and Nurd Rage videos on making some of the chemicals I needed. I was so excited and loved the idea that I could turn one or two things into another thing. The concept just fascinated me. I moved away from pyrotechnics because my methods were dangerous, impractical and in efficient but my new found love for chemistry has stayed. A little while later I started learning about the basics of chemistry and school and moved on to do it as a subject. I love the theoretical and practical and anything to do with chemistry. I love the accessibility of your videos and the explanation. Your projects are more than anything I would do at a classroom or personal level so it’s really exciting to see you in my subscription feed and see what crazy thing you’ve cooked up this time.
bruh i was the same way but at 11 usto think I created something new in science feeld when i got a 9v battery with some pencil led , and light up like a light bulb i was trippen because i didnt know it was gunna do that same with fire work took all the gun powder out of bullets was a pyromaniac tbh mom always tought i was gunna burn the house down .... my brother did that part lmfao
Chemistry was cool until high school. My chemistry teach was awful. She was rude, boring, and treated everyone like preschoolers, but still found a way to make things impossible to understand.I wouldn’t be able to enjoy any subject that teacher taught, so that made me have a sour feeling about chemistry. But I find it extremely enjoyable and interesting watching you. It’s so much more hands on and interesting, and they way you explain things is perfect, even though I don’t fully grasp what is happening sometimes.
My school taught chemistry too early, at least for the way they taught it. They expected freshmen to understand algebra 2 concepts. I got along fine, because I transfered in and took it as a sophomore while taking algebra 2, but I can't imagine the amount of kids who were just totally lost or resentful about it.
Simply put you've shown things with chemistry which I never even knew was possible. Though I don't understand every part of the process I enjoy watching you take some simple compound and convert it into something amazing.
I've always liked the idea of chemistry but kinda hated doing it because I'm so bad at it, even fairly basic stuff. But it wasn't until I saw your videos that it switched in my mind from just playing with chemicals to straight up irl magic, the sort of stuff alchemists were trying to do. Transmuting one substance (or even objects) into something else. I still don't plan to do any of this stuff myself, but it's still so cool to see you do it. I think this channel allows me to learn a little bit about chemistry, by seeing it action in spite of my lack of proficiency and lack of resources.
When I started learning chemistry I was optimistically curious. And I liked it, much like many other "sciencey" subjects and we had a good teacher, but I quickly noticed I was just about alone in that opinion. Through helping other students and just observing their reactions to certain things I could see that it seemed to be a combination between the material asking us to learn a lot of abstract things that at best look unimportant and at worst completely out there (say why would you go in depth of the subatomic level when it in itself isn't understood that well, but not be more clear with more tangible things that we just blazed over) and the stigma chemistry has that it has to be hard and boring, so some students that could be really good don't even try. I was always fast with the abstract so I was really the ONLY ONE who menaged to keep up (and yet can barely find things as big as China on the map, don't worry we all have our strenghts and weaknesses). So basically no matter the teacher the lessons are badly made and focus on the theoretical and impractical, making chemistry seem like philosophy with atoms and coloured water, and the stigma around it doesn't help either...
Yes! It was absolutely super theoretical, and hyper minimalist on practical even if it was just like making cotton candy. The science behind cotton candy is awesome, and you can teach it really easily. The even cooler things is bread and soup. Chemistry you can eat, travels farther in putting students into chemistry that is dangerous without PPE(and fun) than any that I have seen. I was bored in class because it was never applied to things I interact with every day.
@@IamDootsdoot Oh yeah, why don't they ever teach that stuff?! What made it worse is that my school didn't even have the materials to do even the experiments we were meant to do (still sour about not burning magnesium...). Our "experiments" consisted of crushing salt and such...riveting...
I see your opinion very interesting!!! It happen to me something similar...but I'm who think the abstract part is still hard to understand... I get to the point that i don't know if all this is just a great invention of our minds(because chemistry is basically based on math and physics... Like "the applied physics") and although i really saw me very amazed about chemistry i asked me... How is that almost everything goes well with equations, formulas, and the theorical part!! Is it just a "coincidence" product of our beautiful minds (i mean be able to explain the nature acording to just "atoms" )? It's also truly intriguing how is that what someone (first philosophers )believed once about the matter made of "fundamental blocks" that makes everything (atoms) is now explaining us until how we are made of and how our cells work!!!!
@@canderodr6981 It is all really a process of making theories and fixing and changing them whenever we discover something new, but it is exciting to think about just how far we've gone! Finding out about how it all works PERFECTLY in the subatomic level to create something we can see on the macro scale is kind of beautiful! But it is taught not only badly, but also when we're too young. If you're a little interested in psychology, at that age we are not only mentally unprepared, but at a PHYSICAL level children simply can not understand the abstract. Once you think of that the whole first like 6-10 years (it varies from child to child) of our education is actually impossible for children to understand, which is quite unfortunate, because chemistry is beautiful and slower children who might genuinely like it are just left in the dust...
Really? Every chemistry teacher I’ve ever has had this amazing chaotic aura around them and were so wonderfully passionate about it, from my experience chemistry teachers are easily always the most interesting out of the rest of science teachers
i totally agree with you, my teacher once told us that she doesn't even like chemistry and tell us that chemistry is hard, which doesn't help us that are struggling.
@@YuniX2 same. My teacher was a retired pharmaceutical chemist. We could get him to go off on tangent so easily especially when I took AP which was a 90 minute period. He would tell us how to make meth and other drugs because he thought it was funny. He also would tell us if a cat ever drank antifreeze just give them some beer. Antifreeze doesn’t get broken down and by the time it gets to the kidneys it’s too late, but by having alcohol it causes the body to start the process which it understands, breaking down alcohols, which in turn will start the breakdown of antifreeze to a compound that can trigger the body to finish processing it. A kid in my class has this little brother who is like 12 years younger than him and his sisters. The parents got lax on keeping stuff out of reach and keeping a close eye on him. The antifreeze had dropped down the side of the bottle and was on a bottom shelf. Like any three year old left in a garage with his 16 year old brother on his phone. He licked the bottle. And like a lot of it. His parents freaked out. He was trying to tell his parents but they were like this isn’t funny. They called poison control, and guess what they told them. Give the kid a little beer and take him to the hospital. He still won’t let his family forget it.
This is a very good question to bring up. Science and Chemistry was my favourite subject in high school and I was at the top of my class. I will never forget the time I was having some beef jerky at our dining table when I picked out the little "Oxygen Remover", I had just learned about what attracts Oxygen in one of our recent class so I went and grabbed a magnet from the fridge and sure enough, it stuck to the magnet. I am, by no means, a chemist nor do I have the drive or the passion to do chemistry but what I love about your content are the experiments we get to witness as you explain what is happening every step of the way. I have no way of doing any sort of testing or experiments so watching you performing these experiments is what's great about it. I used to love watching Bill Nye The Science Guy as a kid and actually got to do several experiments myself because their experiments contained everything that was safe and were readily available at home. Also you don't make any sort of unnecessary claims or muck up the facts to try to hide the fact that you may not fully understand (the best part about that is that you straight up say so if you don't fully understand and include some theories and ask your viewers what they might have to say about it) so I know that I can trust the information in your channel.
Hi there! Greek High-school student here! I am in my final year and in my country we have a very important Chem exam that all of the students in the field of Biological and Medical sciences have to pass with the best grade they can get in order to be prioritized and accepted by the university before other people can come in and take their place (positions are limited per year). So I see chemistry as an obstacle in my way for University. Also we hardly focus on the practical side of chemistry (never even been on a lab myself). Instead we have a HUGE amount of theoretical material to cover filled the most hard and obscure exercises anyone can think of! (Math and a lot o calculations included). Let me give you a briefing of our main units ( Osmotic pressure and the Vanthoff equation, transmolecular forces, thermochemistry and the Laplace and Hess laws, Chemical Kinetics, Chemical equilibrium and the laws of Le Chatelier, Ph and everything that covers acids, bases, salts, the common ion effect, titration (never actually done the experiment), oxidation and reduction, all of the IUPAC system of naming chemical compounds, Saytsef and Mendeleyefs law, the Grignard reaction, and finally quantum mechanics in chemistry and the Schrödinger model. That’s why I find chemistry hard. So your Chanel actually allows me to see all of the things I’ve been learning and analyzing so much irl for the first time. So I’d suggest that you keep up the fun and easy to learn way of just performing reactions.
Why would you have put biology as the second coolest science? As someone who would have picked chemistry and physics before biology I'm curious as to why you think that.
LobotomisedTardigrade I haven’t studied physics as a stand alone science subject. I’ve only done it as part of “science” the subject. Later we then pick between chemistry or biology as our school doesn’t have it as an option. I always thought it was cool how in physics that you could calculate where something would land if you threw it in a certain direction with a certain force with whatever other variables there are. I might have picked it over chemistry even though physics was my weakest area of science.
@@IrishAnonymous01 oh for the junior cert? I don't even remember it now, I done physics, chemistry and ag science for my leaving, physics was great enjoyed it so much especially the experiments. Chemistry didn't click for a while so I was indifferent but was my favourite at the end of the LC .Now I'm studying chemistry in college I done a bit of physics in first year it was alright too. I was on the edge of going engineering or chem ,kinda wish I had picked chemical engineering lol
I like your stuff because you present chemistry in a very visual way and it makes it easier to comprehend things (so that, for example, when I go to actually do practice problems I understand what is going on because of doing/watching labs about the questions). The problem schools have is that they usually don’t spend money on proper chemistry labs so they cannot do any influential labs often enough, additionally there are many safety precautions that heavily ban or limit certain chemicals thus being a further limitation.
I know this video is 3 years old almost now but, I really like watching your videos and "learning" something, my take on it is that I liked chem at the introduction phase but then when it started getting more technical I got sick so much that I was hospitalized and missed like 4 months of school. When I came back I couldn't keep up with everything and just bearly passed that year of school. I never had chem again but I have you so I can watch and be amazed how wierd and awseome the world of science is
Throughout high school I’ve always enjoyed and excelled in chemistry. I really liked learning and even studying it. I’ve been quite lucky with getting very good chemistry teachers who made the class enjoyable. Even in the dawn of online school when there was no scheduled zoom classes and all learning was practically self reliant I would usually end up spending the majority of the day doing chemistry or I’d even end up doing the weeks worth of work in one day. I just never got bored of the subject one bit and your videos only made me appreciate chemistry even more. The only downside to my time learning chemistry was that considering online school and social distance protocols once in class learning came back, I never really had the chance to do any labs really. Only a few in 9th grade. Absolutely no labs in 10th. A couple good ones in 11th and almost none in grade 12.
I personally found chemistry to be mind numbing. Some of the results I thought were pretty cool, but there was never any exploration, and we would often repeat experiments several times. More to the point, it was all incredibly simple. Burn this magnesium strip, drop this magnesium strip in this dilute hydrochloric acid. Learn the periodic table. We never covered some of the more interesting things, aside from one time when a teacher made some thermite and ignited it in a fume hood in a pile of iron sand. He then showed us all the resulting hunk of iron. That was a standout and is the only time I remember not being bored out of my mind, and it's a shame the teacher got in trouble for it. A lot of the reactions or experiments you do have more visual aspects. To the layman this is pretty cool, watching a powder form in a liquid because another liquid was added to it, or seeing a metal boil as it's distilled. It gives something for my mind to latch on to and appreciate, even though I don't understand the science. TL;DR Chemistry was too safe in school and your videos look way cooler and make me wish I knew how awesome chemistry can be.
I can definitely relate to this. In all of secondary school I was completely indifferent to chemistry and was much more interested in Physics and maths but when I went to sixth form at a significantly better school with a very well funded chemistry department my view of chemistry completely changed. The practicals were cool and your channel definitely helped but it was definitely the theory side and super curricular opportunities from my teachers that ignited a passion in the subject. I'm now set to study chemistry at university and simply can't fathom how different my life would be if I hadn't flippantly chosen chemistry over music as a fourth A level.
Personally I love chemistry. I love the calculations and being able to predict what outcome will occur if I mix two substances. What classes always lack though is really interesting labs that feel like they have a purpose. I feel your channel and content help scratch that itch to mix two things together or construct a real, tangible process to get a thing you want to happen really happen.
Going to a Catholic high school here in Australia in the 70s we missed out on so much science which was a real shame. I actually enjoyed science back then and thoroughly enjoy any videos I can find on all aspects of science including chemistry. Fun fact when I was at school there were 107 elements on the periodic table.
It hasn’t changed much in 50 years apparently. We had science but the stuff we did was covered in other subjects or dull as hell. Like it was vinegar volcano kinda engaging. The whole school system needs a reform…again…
@@topazmaymemory2982 it is constantly reforming itself. But not fast enough, or often not in the right direction. There’s better school systems out there, that are more efficient, and make the students more happy, in European countries like Switzerland. The reason why the school system sucks in most countries of the world, considering education is the most important tool of development of a human, is political.
@@DavidGoliath1 It's certainly not that simple. I know that for example the Physics curriculum in my state of Australia was for the last 20 years more of a science history class with writing skill being more important than physics knowledge or being able to apply known formulas to a novel question. That is clearly not what physics is about and for an example, a long answer exam question I saw was "explain the impact of transformers on rural Australia", thats a humanities question more than a physics one, you don't even have to understand how a transformer works to answer it. From an outside perspective that just looks like the people writing the cirriculum are out of touch and wrote a dumb cirriculum, but in reality it was designed so that small rural schools without a dedicated physics teacher could still teach 'physics'. If the course was more critical thinking based it would become so much harder to teach. My point is there are often good intentions behind these decisions even if they appear from the outside as non-sensical. Luckily the curriculum has changed to involve more critical thinking like "derive a formula to solve a previously unseen problem" but there's a good chance a lot of rural physics kids are going to be disadvantaged because of it.
@@fergusoddjob I get it, thus my point. Why are the rural kids disadvantaged ? It is a question of political order. Not everything is ill intentionned, but the combination of factors that make the average citizen uninformed and not as much educated as he should be, while also taking away the natural curiosity of the human mind(non scholae sed vitae discimus), is not coincidal by any means. In the end what matters is not the intention, it's the results and fact is that in more and more advanced countries the level of education sinks while the economy is booming. You know how many students i've seen in countries like Germany or France, where people finish 18 years of school and grammatical lessons and are unable to write a simple SMS without errors. It's not a simple problem of funding. It's a social problem that is in correlation with everything going wrong in society. I personally think that education, learning to accumulate and assemble knowledge, for as much people as possible, is the most important thing in a society, but i seem to be a minority.
@@DavidGoliath1 The rural kids are disadvantaged partly due to lack of funding but also because the student population is not dense enough to allow for dedicated teachers in each subject, at least thats my take away from some anecdotal evidence. I think intention is very important in this context, if people just assume that all politicians are useless and even corrupt they are easiy disenfranchised. They won't bother trying to stay up to date on politics or vote. Which, could be argued is a cause of the declining education standards in developed countries. You are dead right about the importance of education though, it is the single biggest factor that contributes to countries moving out of poverty and increasing quality of life. And its just as important in developed countries too.
Chemistry hasn't been this fun, since The anarchist cook book. For someone with no chemistry experience, you deconstruct the most complex formula's and make them almost as comprehensible, as they are visually stunning.
I was indifferent until I met one of my best friends who curiously looks a lot like you, we did some work together and he showed me what the termite was, that's why I really like your videos, they bring back very good memories, thank you so much!!
i personally absolutely love chemistry (and science in general) in your chaotic videos and in school i juts love knowing how things work and all these amazing things that happen that you'd never guess as you cant see. I'm just super interested in the amazing almost magical world of elements and reactions
Personally, I liked it when it was considered science in high school(up to gcse level). Then i took it to A level(Not sure of american equivalent) and my knowledge of it previously didn't work for me at all at that level, to the point where I almost dropped in for law. I spent time to get the fundamentals down and understand them and their wider applications, and as soon as i did I got a newfound respect for the subject, i'm now of the opinion its an easier subject to take on because when you understand those fundamentals you can quite easily take a wider array of the subject matter. Glad I didn't drop it because i'm now a chemistry graduate :) Seeing reactions take place where you knew the reaction scheme beforehand and seeing them work is incredibly satisfying as well.
I discovered your videos before I even took chem in highschool so I always kinda loved it. But I can definitely say that its the reactions that are just really cool to see and do. The way chem is taught in schools is kinda more like if you taught cooking just by memorizing facts and maybe making some super simple stuff.
My chem teacher is super strict and she never stopped to make sure we fully understood stuff and is more focused on making sure we memorise the stuff. Thus, most of the time i am confused by the seemingly random letters and numbers that were the chemical formulae. Your channel broke it down into easy digestible videos that also focused on fun, interesting and cool side of chemistry. Thanks a lot for making such nice videos! Cheers!
Never took it, rural school without dedicated classes + I'm a dropout, but you inspire me to take chem classes when I eventually get back to school because your videos are so interesting and entertaining.
I personally have always found chemistry interesting, even if i dont do any myself. The thing that sticks with me on this channel is how thoroughly each step is explained and has a really good pace that keeps the videos entertaining, but doesnt feel like youre trying to fill a bucket with a firehose by going too fast. Keep up the interesting videos, love em all.
My first semester of sophomore year in highschool, my chem teacher was a women who followed the average school model of boys being to rowdy and unable to be good students and would treat the girls of the class with much more respect, I had butted heads alot with her and it was disappointing because I had an interest in chem. It wasn't until I switched my second semester to a male teacher who was truly a dedicated teacher. His class was full of really delinquent kids who found any small amount of stimuli as a reason to interrupt the lesson and seeing his dedication to teaching even during these really rude and annoying interruptions was something that really made me appreciate not only chemistry more but also those who teach purely out of personal interest and wanting to share that personal passion for a academic benefit. It's why I appreciate your channel and other channels like it so much. Please keep doing what you do we all have alot of fun watching you do amazing things with basic starting blocks!
I'm years late but, I'm getting into chemistry because of your channel. A lot of it confuses me but as a blacksmith learning how to smelt different alloys and what those properties have give me incredible flexibility when making jewelry and knives.
Personally in school I liked Chemistry but I never tried it myself I thought I was too stupid. I am currently in cosmetology school and found your channel randomly. I love your content! I binge watch your videos and I have found other channels like yours but I don’t like them as much. I really enjoy your personality and how in-depth your go into your videos. You can tell just how much effort goes into them. Also I love how personal this channel feels. Its like you are having an actual conversation with us.
I was somewhat interested in chemistry content on RU-vid prior to discovering your channels a few years ago, but I wouldn't watch as many chemistry-related videos back then as I do now. The way you present your projects with a steady, consistent pace keeps things interesting and not too dry. I think that's part of what got me hooked on your content and led me to discover other good channels that have a focus on chemistry.
Nigel, you’ve made me learn way more about the crazy world of chem than my chem prof last year. Im not the best in class learner but watching stuff explained in video form or working hands on in chem was always fun to me. The whole academic side of chem classes is what i hated. Doing experiments and working with stuff in the real world were my favorite classes, but we only had Labs once a week.
Having to memorize the entire periodic table was a drag, and stoichiometry was also not always the easiest thing for me. Felt like there was too many moving pieces with any given chemistry problem. Didn't feel intuitive
@@trollrat2828 Idk about your country, but where I live we have to actually memorize the whole thing... Same way that in math you have to memorize all the formulas for some reason.
@@whitethorndeer7945 dont get me wrong, like I get maths, because math is subject of understanding abstract concepts with models and formulas - but like the entire periodic table memorized?? it's so uneccessary because like 70% of the elements is rare and almost never used in common chemical reactions
Nah I've always loved chemistry, your channel just allows me to see everything done on a practical scale and appreciate how the theory can be applied in many different ways and I really appreciate how precise you try to be that really butters my egg roll
This video is very very old, but I wanted to offer some personal experiences. I have never "hated" chemistry, the subject, but I have hated being a chemistry major at times. I think chemistry presents a very large hurdle of intimidation that people struggle to get over, and it makes them very rash. I'm currently finishing my bachelor's degree, and as I find myself deeper in the world of chemistry (in my case, biochemistry specifically), it gets more and more lonely. Lab sections and colleagues and classmates change, as do the professors, and it can be difficult to talk to those outside of my program because they're extremely keen on changing the subject to something less "stuffy," even if they specifically ask me a question. Whenever I begin to doubt myself, or to feel isolated in my interests, I come back to your content because it reminds me how much I love chemistry, no matter how boring others may think it is. Keep doing what you do.
I always liked chemistry but hated doing it, if that makes sense. Making me do the math to describe the reactions, the delicate nature of the experiments in the lab. I just got frustrated with them. It doesn't help that I had more bad teachers than good. But SEEING chemistry in action by someone who knows what they're doing? Some of the coolest stuff in the world. It's so fascinating, and I learn a lot through watching your videos. It helps that you don't grade us for it. Please forgive me for commenting on this old video. I'm going to go back to lurking now.
I loved chemistry in 11th grade. My teacher was honestly one of the best teachers I've ever met. I remember one time she told the class that we had all completely failed a recent test, and instead of being upset, she told us it wouldn't be counted, she'd reteach the unit, and then we'd retake the test. I've had so many teachers, decent teachers even, that just blame the class when they've failed to teach. Unfortunately covid ended the year short, and I feel a stronger calling to psychology, so chemistry will just have to remain an interest for me. Still, Mrs. Krull will always be a role-model to me.
When i started to watch your videos in Nilered My perspective about Chemistry changed it started when i was scrolling on RU-vid 2 Years ago i want to watch Science Experiment and to repeat the experiment by my self ( Btw I’m a Senior HighSchool Student in the Philippines 🇵🇭) but what i want is after conducting the experiment i want to know what the science behind it so I continued to scroll i think for an Hour and i saw your video about White Phosphorus so I watched it and that caught my interest i was like “Wow this is a pretty cool Experiment then so I watch more of your videos my favourite video of yours is when you try pouring acid in your hand that Change my Perspective and I thought when you spilled acid in your Hand in seconds your hand will dissolve but after watching that video i was very amazed because all people believe that acid will react with anything and Dissolve your Skin in second so Thank you For making that video and Take care May God Bless 🙂🙂🙂 -ChemADD 💗💯
I was very enthusiastic about chemistry because of all the experiments, I thought it will be fun in school and it was, indeed, for the first year of my middle school. My teacher was awesome, she amazed my class and we've all had great grades. Then my teacher has been changed for a guy that came to literally dictate chemistry book to our notebooks, so I quite hated it, I barely understood anything and it was terrible. Now that I'm in high school my new teacher is the best! She woke up my younger chemisty-passionate self and I'm enjoying classes more than ever. Doesn't matter whether we're learning complicated equations or theory i love because i understand it (mostly) and I'm curious to learn new things. So, yeah, in my case it mostly depended on my teachers
your projects definetely seem really interesting, and I'm sure I would love to do those types of projects as well. I only took a year ish of chem in high school and I was indifferent towards it, however some of the labs were very interesting, and I wish we did more practical labs. I really love physics and a big part of this was the practical labs we would do to demonstrate the theoretical understandings in person.
Okay so I'm an 11th grader and honestly, Until 8th grade I saw chemistry as a subject that I only liked because it gave me marks. But in 9th grade, I had a wonderful teacher for chemistry and he made me more interested in the subject. Then, in 10th grade I found your channel and I've been more drawn to chemistry now. I'd like to thank you for helping me clear my concepts in organic chemistry. Also, now my perspective of the subject has changed and I enjoy it more than ever.
In Highschool, i enjoyed chemistry insofar as it related to the typical cool stuff like fire and explosions lol. I was more on the neutral side about it and didnt care to learn anything really. I only found a love for chemistry when i started watching Cody’sLab videos about recovering metal like gold from ore or wtv. That led me to youtube chemistry and i quickly found yours and ive been a big fan of both of you (and others) ever since. You guys have different styles but generally speaking it was the delivery of the information that was enticing. I think a big part (for me) of why its easier to enjoy things like chemistry on your channel for example is it isnt tied to a test or homework. I decided to watch your stuff and learn about chemistry myself (and now im studying biochem in uni lol). When shit is forced onto you its less enthralling. Your videos are a great way to explore something without a gun to my head
I just came across this video and thought I'd comment. I don't hate chemistry I actually love it. When you learn the behinds of everything it's so interesting to see how it plays out in our world. But the exam pressure, the questions we get asked and the grades we get were all the downfall of it. My chem teachers were all bad until I got a tutor solely to help me pass my exams. But she gave such a profound understanding for chem and kept reassuring me that I'm not stupid I just don't understand it YET and that like everything, practice makes perfect. I didn't even have to revise most the time coz the way she explained and the way I understood helped me keep it in my brain until now. And I'll always thank her for that.
I’ve always adored chemistry. It’s always made sense to me, though I don’t remember it particularly well at the moment, I’m hoping to get back into it in my next semester.
Video just popped up for me, so I'm fairly late to the party, ahah! I've always enjoyed chemistry, my dad's been a chemist and teacher for a solid 20-25 years by now, I have vague memories of being in the lab at the University of Oslo, looking at all the cool and interesting machines, tubes and bottles. In school, science was alright, but I never had any big chemistry in high-school, at least nothing that I can remember. I re-took some exams to better my grades 5-odd years ago, and got a decent one due to my interest and enjoyment of the chemistry-part of science even though my main task was more on genetics. Your videos always has a sense of "fun/goofy science teacher who does the crazy experiments in class" to me, and I really like that! To me (a slightly above-average interest in chemistry, without an education in or for it), a perfect mix of fun and learning
When i leaned it, it was a 100% detached from reality. Here's X amount of A, and you also have B, now balance the equasion. And do that 500 in a row with different starting conditions. Boring as hell.
Your channel hasn't really changed my appreciation of chemistry (I'm still terrible at it) but it made it fascinating mostly because it really emphasizes Lavoisier's saying "nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed"
As someone who had no interest in chemistry and hated it throughout school, I really like your videos even though I don't understand much. I find them interesting because it's obvious to see the passion that you have for the subject, and that comes through in your content :D
Chemistry has always been a fascinating subject to me. In Italy most of high schools last five years: the first two you study preparatory subjects, then you get into your desired address (in my case I.T.). Chemistry became a obstacle I had to dodge, so I kinda started to hate it. But in 2019, I discovered your channel(s) and now I enjoy this topic, so thank you Nile
I loved chemistry in school until it ended up just becoming math and equations. It became much less interesting and exciting and turned into a hassle because I find math like that to be really difficult. Your channel really made me enjoy chemistry again because you speak in a way thats understandable and you make it really interesting
i think that this view holds true to most everything that has its roots in math. this means things like chemistry and engineering, where you initially only look at the mathematical side of things and only after that can you get to do the fun things you wanted to do from the very beginning.
When I first started learning chemistry it seemed like I was being taught an amalgamation of facts, without real rules or a solid backbone tying everything together. As I have learned more (currently learning organic chemistry) I have finally been taught/know enough to see the ties connecting different reaction mechanisms and unique molecular interactions. NOW I enjoy chemistry because it is more about following a set of logic based rules to predict the outcome of a reaction. As I learn new reaction mechanisms and different reagent uses I build upon those rules and reinforce what I've learned, it is incredibly rewarding.
It will be soon the end of my PhD in organic chemistry (palladium catalysed C(sp3)-H activation). So I loved chemistry since a long time, I would say since 2009 when I was in high school. I like your work because you do thing that I would like to do, but I don’t have the time for that during my PhD. I wish you the best for the future! (And sorry if there is mistake in this short text, I am french so obviously not that good in English ^^)
I first started liking chemistry when I sent from junior high school to senior high school. It was first then the teachers actually dtarted gravhund me and I finally got some actual learning in. This just goes to show how important the teacher of a subject is. Have an amazing day to you who are reading this.
i really didn't dislike chemistry, I just didn't learn from chemestry from school. But the way you show and explain whats happening and why gave me a eye opener on how it works!
AP Chem and Physics were really difficult in HS and that pretty much scared me away from pretty much anything that involved either subject, I decided to avoid engineering in college and from what I've heard from friends, ochem is brutal so I'm really glad I didn't take that path. With that being said I already had an interest in Chem, I just didn't want to pursue it as a career. Video's like yours managed to get me through the harder parts of chemistry, especially because a lot of the class is just theory. I ended up sending some of your videos to my chem teacher, partially because she was also a big chem nerd and was always looking for cool new experiments, but also because I was hoping your videos could either preserve or invigorate a love of chem in other students.
i think its the time pressure thats put on us for us to retain as much information about chemistry for a day or 2 to leave like 90% of that stuff out of our minds for the rest of our lives. you dont really make us learn something in a short timeline, we choose what time we get to watch your videos.
I think It's the way that you make your videos why I like them (And what made me start thinking about chemistry a bit more). It doesn't seem to me like you go out of your way to make your videos fun to watch, they just naturally are. I think I found your channel by the Aluminum and Mercury video a bit over a year ago, and it looked like a very fun topic, I was watching it and I was surprised about the reaction between the two things. I think your channel changed my opinion on chemistry because it's just things that I've never even thought of doing before at all. Seeing someone else doing it just made me want to do it myself and watch it happen right in front of me. I thought chemistry was boring before because I just thought it was another one of those boring classes in high school, but now I actually might take chemistry in my 12th year of high school, I might aswell.
For a while I thought chemistry was what I wanted to do for a living, but then the reality of college hit. I'm in the slow pursuit of a career in content creation now, but I'd be lying if I said my inner chemistry nerd was gone. It still lies dormant, and your videos and others like them always reawaken it.
Nileblue: I didn't start liking chemistry until I started doing my own projects like extracting spicy bois and plating zinc Canadian FBI: Fair Nileblue: And thermite Canadian FBI: *in shrek voice* "HolD THe PhOnE"
