By: Naveena Karusala, Honors Program First-Year

I would say the best part about General Chemistry (CHEM 1310) was its applicability. Often, labs and lecture tend to teach theory, making write-ups and tests seem almost artificial because students know these principles have been established and taught many times before. However, I think a policy discussion involving chemistry requires students to apply the principles they learned in a new way that they themselves had to think of and perform a cost-benefit analysis on. For example, we learned about the chemical principles behind the efficiency of making biodiesel, but also had to think about how efficiency factors into a company's ability to factor biodiesel into their system based on our own research and judgement.