Funny Graduate School Experiences

chemistry_geek

chemistry_geek

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Earlier this semester I started teaching a freshman chemistry level laboratory for chemistry majors (as well as a freshman chemistry lab or non-chem majors). We did an experiment where potassium permanganate (KMnO4) was used. All the students were quizzed and asked to name the compound from a formula. One of my students incorrectly identified KMnO4 as "Pathogenic acid". The funny thing is, he thinks he's going to medical school. Uh, No, I don't think so. I HOPE NOT!

Anyone else have any particularly funny experiences from teaching in grad school or high school?
 
I don't have anything special in the teaching area, but I remember giving a presentation once to the Mathematics department on a project I was working on. My professor had moved me off of a project that I had taken on originally and onto a project which I had no experience with (he told me that if there was one person who could solve this problem, it was me). So there I was 6 weeks later and I had not made any head way at all. I had even stayed up for the last week of that period trying to make even the smallest amount of progress so I would have something to report.

So there I was, no sleep, bags under my eyes, and no progress to report, standing in front of some 50 professors, visiting scholars, and students. Half way through I forgot what I was talking about... I was completely lost. Fortunately my professor was sitting in the front row and started to ask specific questions which helped me get through to the end. It was the most embarrassing 40 minutes of my life! And considering that it took me another 5 months to finish that paper, I should never have tried to force it that last week before the presentation.
 
you know if 5% of my brain was working properly i might think these are funny experiences... but i mean math... and chemistry... you could at least have involved jar jar binks in these stories somehow! SHEESH! :)
 
I finally got the joke, RacerX! They're teaching Fourier series to a Math 101 class. Oh that, and the whole Jar Jar thing.

(Edited to protect the innocent. And I misspelled something.)
 
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