Category: Opinion
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The Chemistry of Baking Cookies
WRITTEN BY SHRUTIRUPA SAHA ILLUSTRATED BY CASSANDRA CHANG A Rundown of Broma’s Bakery’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe The scene is set: it is Week 4, and midterms are in full swing, you are somewhere juggling exhausting study schedules, numerous assignments, finishing up last minute edits to lab reports, and rewatching your chemistry lecture videos- stress…
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Careers in Chemistry: Patent Law
WRITTEN BY ALYSSA PICKAR ILLUSTRATED BY JAMIE YAN For many students entering college as a chemistry or any science major, the career choices laid out often feel pre-written. Medical or pharmacy school, or a PhD leading to academia or industry work. These are often the default trajectories, and very much rigorous and honorable in their…
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Beyond the Bottle
WRITTEN BY AUDREY HAN ILLUSTRATED BY DIANA FENG Medication is, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable discoveries in human history. It saves lives, provides comfort to families, and gives countless people the chance to live with purpose and possibility. As amazing of a miracle pharmaceuticals are, waste disposal practices for medications have historically…
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The Chemistry of Art… and the Art of Chemistry!
WRITTEN BY EMMA YUGUCHI ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLOTTE CHANG Chemistry and art share a profound, symbiotic relationship: chemistry provides the materials, processes, and innovations that enable artistic expression, while art inspires creativity, visualization, and novel applications in chemistry. This interplay has produced timeless works and breakthroughs, demonstrating how scientific precision can fuel aesthetic beauty, and how…
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Putting Pen to Paper: The Importance of Scientific Writing
WRITTEN BY ALYSSA PICKAR ILLUSTRATED BY CASSANDRA CHANG If you’re any kind of science major, no doubt you’ve heard the age old adage that STEM majors can’t write. Writing might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of chemistry, but it’s one of the most important tools a scientist can…
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Bleach: A Double-Edged Sword for Cleaning
WRITTEN BY JAGGER NELSON ILLUSTRATED BY ANDREA ARMENDI In 2019, a Buffalo Wild Wings employee collapsed and later died after mopping the floor with a bleach-based cleaner that had been accidentally mixed with an acidic solution.1 He had simply been doing his job, unaware that combining two common products would release chlorine gas—a toxic chemical…
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Biochemistry, Japanese, and Study Abroad
WRITTEN BY PRAHARSHITHA “HARU” THUMATI ILLUSTRATED BY CASSANDRA CHANG My name is Praharshitha, and I’m a third year double majoring in Biochemistry and Japanese Studies. I work at the McCammon Lab doing computational chemistry, and I’m hoping to go to grad school in a similar field. Although chemistry is very important to me, languages have…
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FOUR WAYS joining a lab will CHANGE YOUR LIFE (not clickbait)
WRITTEN BY YALE HUANG ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLOTTE CHANG Contamination is the nightmare of scientists around the world. Trifluoroacetic acid on your gloves? Scrub your hands, call EH&S, and pray to the chemistry gods that you don’t have permanent skin damage. Mycoplasma in your tissue culture? Toss out everything in the incubator and endure the judgment…
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Why You Should Get Involved in Research
WRITTEN BY VICKY CHEN ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLOTTE CHANG If you told the 18-year-old version of myself who was stepping into UC San Diego for the first time that I would be conducting research in a Ph.D. program four years later, I wouldn’t have believed it. As a first-generation college student, I arrived without a clear…
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Note to My Past Self: First-Gen Edition
WRITTEN BY EMILY VO ILLUSTRATED BY ANDREA ARMENDI The first moment that made me feel that I didn’t belong in college was when I was having dinner with my roommates. As we were getting to know each other, conversations about our families naturally came up. Everyone started talking about their parents’ alum schools and their…