Putting the Study in Study Abroad

Some people after reading my blog are concerned that no studying happens at Study Abroad. (Ahem... Wendell...) In fact I was advised that in case any administrators were reading this I might want to include the fact that I am actually working some down here... OK... the students might be working harder than me... But isn't that the joy of being the prof? I just haven't written about studying as much, because really which would your rather hear about: My trip to the Andes or the nucleophilic attack of the catalytic serine of chymotrypsin on the carbon of the carbonyl of the peptide bond? That's what I thought... And you can snap back out of the stupor I just put you in.

But seriously, I've been impressed at how dedicated the students have been to studying. I think all the students I traveled with on Spring Break brought work from both of their International Studies classes to work on. (Being the nice teacher, I didn't assign them anything... then again, I was traveling with them, and didn't want to spend the whole week hearing about how heavy the chemistry books were.) I even got a picture of two of the girls studying in our hostel in Santiago.

If anything the students study too much and don't go out as much as they should... well or they intend to study and talk to people at home online a lot. (I think they study about like I write P-chem lecture notes. OH... I worked for 4 hours... of course 2 of those hours was spent talking to friends at home.) At least one student is taking the 3 hardest classes offered here: Latin American Thought, Biochemistry I, and Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences.

OHH! in case you are wondering, here's what I've been covering in my classes lately:
Intro chemistry - Solutions - Percent solutions, Equivalents, Molarity, etc.
Biochemistry - Inhibitors, Catalytic Mechanisms, and Enzyme Regulatory Strategies
Physical Chemistry - Rates of Reactions