July the Sixteenth

It’s 7:40 right now. I have the awkward situation, virtue of the other classes filling up, of being in a morning class, Chemistry II, and a night class, Ordinary Differential Equations. I’m pretty much just hanging around right now, waiting for the class to start. The teachers here are reasonably good, though the courses are rushed since they’re summer and six-week long.

So, why did I choose to take summer courses here?

1. I really didn’t have anything better to do over the summer. As a side note, admittedly I feel kind of bad, since everyone around me seems to be doing the class for a prerequisite or something of the sort, and here I am, doing it for fun. It’s sort of awkward, but I’m antisocial and I keep my mouth shut, so it’s not a big deal.
2. I know I’m going to have to take this class eventually. Or, I guess, I want to. I figured since I already did both parts of Physics C, these classes should be easier. Chemistry shouldn’t require any fancy math… well, not explicitly. So far, there are obvious equations which are the results of solving differential equations, like the algebraic form of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, and related rates. So I’ve got Math, Physics, and Chemistry down, and I’ll probably do AP Biology just to round out the set.
3. Preparations for AP Classes, to an extent. Differential Equations, I will say, are just all-encompassing, and they show up in a rather large amount of things, and I plan on just taking the AP Chemistry exam without sitting for the class.
4. It’s fun hanging out with people with Masters and PhDs in their fields.
5. I can’t afford to go to a real college over the summer. My family’s poor.

I guess that pretty much sums up the extent. And I’m pretty satisfied. Although the content is compressed, I know that Ordinary Differential Equations is the sort of course that’s pretty cookbook, i.e. it teaches you a bunch of recipes. It’s on the same grounds as Calculus BC. And I’ll have eight months to prepare for AP Chemistry…

It’s 10:00 AM now. Admittedly, I wrote the first version of this part at 8:30, but WordPress didn’t save it properly… I suppose I learned a lesson about blogs… copy and paste before doing anything. I guess that’s what I deserve for relying on Community College wi-fi.

Well, anyways, right now for Chemistry we’re doing rates and equilibrium. It makes me realize how important math is to science, because while some people around me are confused, it’s actually pretty negligible, with regards to intuition, with knowledge of Differential Equations modelling.

One thing that’s nice about Community College is that no one minds if you have a laptop out. Frankly, this helps me, since I can look up derivations and things like that. Like, for example, this equation:

$K_p = K_c (RT)^{\Delta n}$

Now, I have no damn idea where that formula came from. However, with the power of the internet, I found a proof in ~5 minutes. It’s pretty clean, too, so I’ll probably write it up in LaTeX and post it here.

It’s now 11:00 PM, and I am really exhausted… I had a Differential Equations test today, and I really underestimated it and I squandered the time allotted pretty badly. The teacher drops the lowest test, though, so I’ll have to try harder next time. Now, I finished the test, but I know I made lots of petty algebra mistakes on the way. I really like the class, though. The teacher’s pretty genial, and he knows his stuff. He’s also not terribly insufferable, like some high school teachers can get… For him, it’s just the tests that are insane, and I like a good challenge. I still have to write up a lab report for Chemistry later tonight, and I probably won’t get any sleep tomorrow, since there’s a Chemistry test the day after tomorrow…