Labs good, bad, ugliest @#$@#!$ in the galaxy!!!!

[Stanislaw]

Do any of you have to do any labs for your classes?

Me, I have a

Biology Lab
Chemistry Lab
Computer science Lab


And I have come to the conclusion that they... s :mad: ck.
Labs are long, wast of time, and on the most part have hours of work associated with them... :rage:

well, anyone else have school related stuff they don't like???

[amuse]

yeah. anatomy, and it's a lot less interesting here than at my junior college (class transfered as "intro to human bio", if you're wondering why i'm taking again). we don't even have microscopes in it! no histology - ???
i'm thinking of changing skulls, lol.
like we don't even have the ethmoid and sphenoid bones separate from the rest of the cranial bones. nothing in depth and detailed required. very, very horrid.

[mono]

I have many, many laboratory classes. Being in a nursing program, we oddly practice many skills on fellow nursing students, not including most . . . invasive procedures, but, like you, amuse, I took the whole series of human anatomy and physiology (which I continue to love), microbiology, chemistry (both organic and inorganic), and botany as an elective science, which all involved loooong, and often very enjoyable, labs.
How surprising, amuse, that you have no microscopes! Histology I consider VERY important, and precise models (if not real) of bones and other preservable tissues, including on slides for viewing.

[papayahed]

The problem with labs, especially chemistry lab is that they don't have any of the good stuff.

I remember being in chemistry lab and the TA gave us a lecture on being careful when handling chemicals blah blah blah, especially the Hydrochloric acid blah blah blah....Later on at my first job I realized the acid we were using in chem lab was about as strong as lemon aid.

[Stanislaw]

I know where you are coming from... the first labs I had to do we were working with the ever dangerouse copper (II) sulfate...but wait for it... it was salt, yup just standard NaCl!

But we get to use real copper (II) sulfate. Man the teachers lie to us like there is no tommorow.

Another problem is that we must share "personal" equipment with the other classes. We are each given our "individual" lockers; so if anything breaks it is our fault and responsibility to replace it.

now I had a 100mL graduated cylinder disapear from my drawer...(ie. 50$) now the lab instructors were blaming me, but it turns out I don't have multiple personality disorder, and did not infact break without my own knowledge, some other knuckle head was sharing my drawer (without my knowledge)...however I was able to prove to the instructors that it was not my fault, by having them examine the contents of the broken glass bin...the flask had samples of what the other guy was testing/measuring still in it...it was a good thing that the guy never bothered to clean off his used equipment!

But now this semester, I have been granted my own drawer accesible only by me!

[simon]

I've got an astronomy lab, and we don't even get to go out at night and look at the stars. We sit in a labroom and look at stars on a computer program that doesn't even work right. It says millimeters when it should say arc per second. That's a large error, you'd think they would fix something like that. And why, why, do they have to be three hours long?

[kilted exile]

I have taken many labs/practical courses over the last couple of years, and not one lab so far has had the sufficient standard of equipment for me to experiment with. Last year, for example, during a chem. lab I had to identify various substances by their melting point. Which is simple when you have the correct equipment, however I was expected to use a bunsen burner for the heat source, and a very cheap alcohol thermometer to read the temperature (ok, i can understand the college not being able to afford electronic temperature gauges, but can I at least get a decent mercury thermometer). Suffice to say what should have taken 15mins. took 2hrs.

[Stanislaw]

I know where you are coming from, we have crappy insuficient equipment aswell, heck the bunsen burners are so old that there is oxidation on some units.

[Taliesin]

We have got practical courses in mathematics and in physics. In physics We have got brilliantly fine rulers. Nothing wrong with them. We do not actually imagine how much they cost, but compares to other people's thoughts here who claim that things like that cost a lot, We suppose that they must have been expensive. So that's fine. Also we have got quite fine scales and weighs.
Does one need any more things.

And the maths practicum is a pure joy. We go to a real class (that means a class where stress is on the maths and physics and other real studies) and therefore We have got extra material.
Btw. Our classmate asked from the teacher in the practicum (We go to the 10th grade- (yes, so young and so insane already)) if the thing (symmetrical equation(that is for example like this: 8x^8+5x^7+x^6-3x^5+2x^4-3x^3+x^2+5x+8=0)) we were studying is in school program. The teacher answered negatively. Then he asked when does the thing come in university - The answer was: "Well, this topic isn't actually taken in the university either."

These are the things we study.

[amuse]

And the maths practicum is a pure joy.
Btw. Our classmate asked from the teacher in the practicum if the thing we were studying is in school program. The teacher answered negatively. Then he asked when does the thing come in university - The answer was: "Well, this topic isn't actually taken in the university either."

These are the things we study.
oh you are Fortunate, Taliesins! btw, i like your avi.

[Shea]

I hated my french lab. I could never understand them because they went too fast and spoke a different dialect from my Hatian teacher. I'm so glad that's over.

It's not really a lab, but my bane class this semester is Literary Criticism. I have the archetypal nerd instructor. First of all she wears the same type of clothes every day, a turtleneck that "halos" her skinny neck, a sweater, and a cordoroy blazer. But the worst thing is that she goes into a falsetto every third to eighth syllable. She never makes an attempt to describe things interestingly, it's just dry, bare facts. The material however is very interesting, but for her dull manner. I dread that hour. But at least it's not as bad as that French lab.

[papayahed]

I have taken many labs/practical courses over the last couple of years, and not one lab so far has had the sufficient standard of equipment for me to experiment with. Last year, for example, during a chem. lab I had to identify various substances by their melting point. Which is simple when you have the correct equipment, however I was expected to use a bunsen burner for the heat source, and a very cheap alcohol thermometer to read the temperature (ok, i can understand the college not being able to afford electronic temperature gauges, but can I at least get a decent mercury thermometer). Suffice to say what should have taken 15mins. took 2hrs.


I don't think they allow Mercury Thermometers within a hundred yards of any college lab. It's funny 30 years ago they used to let students play with mercury in their hands and now its an acute hazardous with special kits for clean up.

[Jay]

We still got to play with mercury, it's fun making looots of small balls out of a big one and then 'glue' them back into one again, or put the ball between two pieces of glass and then squeeze it out again. Mercury's fun :D and feels weird, such a small ball and is so heavy :p.

[kilted exile]

I don't think they allow Mercury Thermometers within a hundred yards of any college lab.

Don't think college has a real problem with using mercury - we have bottles of the stuff to use in the manometers. They just like to spend money on other things e.g new fitness equipment in the gym.

[Bongitybongbong]

All labs= bad :rage: :mad: :mad: :rage:

[papayahed]

Don't think college has a real problem with using mercury - we have bottles of the stuff to use in the manometers. They just like to spend money on other things e.g new fitness equipment in the gym.


I'm wondering how long it's been in the lab. My old company used mercury compounds on a regular basis and the disposal costs were crazy high. At least 3 times more than your regular ol' hazardous material.

[ihaveaheadache]

What a coincidence, I just got off lab. I usually spend 3 hours writing the report.

[subterranean]

I had bad labs back in highschool. We rarely used them since they were lacking of the neccesary things which were needed to do experiments, even simple experiments like seeing clorohply of green leafs. When the biology teacher told us the draw the pattern, I copied the drawing in my text book coz I could hardly see the pattern thru the awful microscope.

[Monica]

I have a subject which is called laboratory and it's actually phonetics (English). It lasts for 90 minutes and we read aloud the same stuff all over again. Bubble, babble, baublle... or it-eat, live-leave, Matt-mutt... Awful :(

[mono]

The problem with labs, especially chemistry lab is that they don't have any of the good stuff.
I think this fact sometimes depends on the instructor; many colleges and universities have the potential for having really fun (while maintaining being educational) experiments. In an organic chemistry course, we had one lab session discussing the fermentation of alcohol, then brewed our own using molasses, water, and yeast (equivalent to brandy, we would find); later we would have to mathematically measure the proof (ours: 112, he-he).

[papayahed]

I think this fact sometimes depends on the instructor; many colleges and universities have the potential for having really fun (while maintaining being educational) experiments. In an organic chemistry course, we had one lab session discussing the fermentation of alcohol, then brewed our own using molasses, water, and yeast (equivalent to brandy, we would find); later we would have to mathematically measure the proof (ours: 112, he-he).


Now that's fun stuff!!!! Perhaps I should have taken the organic chem lab (Not being a chem major I was able to opt out).

I think the most exciting thing that happened in a lab was when the lab instructor lit my can of ethanol on fire in microbiology lab.

The coolest thing that happened outside of a lab was when I found pure sodium in my work lab and we took a small piece and put it in some water (outside of course). Kaboom, was that fun.

[Stanislaw]

Yeah, sodium is pretty awesome in the right conditions!

[papayahed]

Speaking of Mercury:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=1&u=/ap/20050306/ap_on_re_us/schools_mercury