Saturday, April 17, 2010
What knowledge have you connected with past knowledge? (2)
Having struggled through organic chemistry, I realize now the connections and reasons why taking organic chemistry before biochemistry is useful. I am finding that I retained more information than initially thought. Monosaccharides and polysaccharides I have seen before in biology, along with glycosidic bonds and are depicted in many slides. I did not understand what mechanism the linkage used. The concern at the time was only to understand the basic shape and what role starches play with regard to aquiring energy from them. Now in biochemistry, I understand not only the reason for the shape and type of linkages but also why and how naming of the different starches are done. It completes the understanding of the whole starch concept by going deeper and filling in the gaps. Taking chemistry I learned about redox reactions, but did not know where these reactions were found and what practical applications they had. Biochemistry links the past knowledge with real applications that does make it easier to learn and understand.
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I have felt that way about courses that I have taken as well. Always wondering why they make you take a course that you will probably never use or need. My children make comments about this when they are doing homework and are frustrated because they are having trouble understanding it. Through my college experiences I have found that all subjects seem to intertwine with each other. We use math in chemistry and physics. We use biology to understand chemistry and chemistry to understand biology. I even find myself referring to philosophy at times throughout my studies. When I took philosophy I spent the first 6 weeks thinking that it was the dumbest class I had ever taken and that it was a waste of time. I now can say that it was beneficial and has made me a better learner and a wiser person.
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ReplyDeleteRobin, first off let me say that I don’t think there are very many people who find organic chemistry easy. It is almost like a rite of passage for a science major to take organic, struggle through it and later realize that it is likely the most difficult course they will ever take. Second, I could not agree with you more in that I too have been surprised by how much information I can recall from organic. I remember being completely lost at times during organic. Yet, as some of the same subjects are cropping up in biochemistry I am astonished that not only do I remember topics such as chirality and stereochemistry, but also that the second time around they seem a whole lot easier.
ReplyDeleteAlso I like how you pointed that biochemistry is really helping to fill in the gaps that were left after discussions of redox reactions in chemistry and glycolysis in biology. I am happy for one that I am not the only one who was left with unanswered questions. However, I also think that only after having taken higher level science classes such as microbiology, organic chemistry or biochemistry do we really appreciate the simplicity of biology and chemistry. Also, it is undeniable that the basics we learned in biology and chemistry are making biochemistry much more manageable.