{"id":1946,"date":"2022-01-10T16:51:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T16:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2025-11-12T12:13:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T12:13:37","slug":"what-ive-learnt-as-a-chemistry-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/2022\/01\/10\/what-ive-learnt-as-a-chemistry-student\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’ve learnt as a Chemistry student"},"content":{"rendered":"

This topic could be easily summarised by just listing all my modules and lab projects. However, you could just google that and frankly there are much more important things that I have taken from this degree. Sure, without knowing the basics of Chemistry, I wouldn\u2019t get far in academia, but the other things I\u2019ve learnt are just as significant.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Teamwork makes the dream work<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/b>First and foremost, <\/span>it\u2019s always easier to solve a problem as a team. Also, and especially when at university, you are not the only person struggling with a topic. Talk to the people on your course and\u00a0chances are you will figure it out together. If not, there are always people in the higher years or even lecturers that are happy to help.\u00a0This not only makes\u00a0the university experience that much better but also prepares you for a career in academia where everyone works in research\u00a0groups,\u00a0and it is very unlikely that you will be the only person working on a research question.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Work-life balance is important<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/b>A \u201cbad\u201d grade is not the end of the world and sometimes it\u2019s more worth it to maintain a healthy work-life balance than to stress yourself out over Christmas because of one essay. Yes, I am speaking from experience and to be honest I don\u2019t even remember the grade that I got. I\u2019m not saying to completely forget about all your assignments, but just try and recognise when you\u2019ve done enough work and let it go.<\/span> You don’t want to get so stressed that you become unwell or unhappy. And remember, if you are struggling you can always chat to your personal tutor, Student Services or any of the academics at King’s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone makes mistakes<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/b>Even the \u201csmartest\u201d people make mistakes and don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing sometimes. It\u2019s easy to look at master\u2019s or PhD students and think that they know everything and can do no wrong. But, although they probably know more than undergrads, they also can make silly mistakes just like you and me. So, don\u2019t be intimidated by them and know that they\u2019re more like you than you think, and you\u2019ll get to where they are one day too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seize every opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n

You won’t believe how fast your degree goes. It feels like yesterday that I started as a nervous first-year. The biggest piece of advice I can give a first year is to seize every opportunity, don’t worry about looking silly or not making friends, everyone is just as nervous as you are! You will find your tribe, and just give everything a go! You’ll look back and be amazed at how much you have developed as a Chemist and also as a person.<\/p>\n

So, to sum up, a degree isn\u2019t just about what you learn in lectures and assignments but also what you learn because of them.\u00a0A\u00a0Chemistry degree prepares you for your future in more ways than one and I am so glad I\u00a0took the opportunity to study this subject at King\u2019s.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This topic could be easily summarised by just listing all my modules and lab projects. However, you could just google that and frankly there are […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1226,"featured_media":679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,90],"tags":[12,67,101],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chemistry","category-undergraduate","tag-chemistry","tag-undergraduate","tag-what-i-have-learnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2664,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/nms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}