I graduated with a 1:1 Chem degree 20 years ago and have forgotten so much of my chemistry and maths that I can’t help my daughter with her GCSE higher paper revision 🙁

Anyone else been in the same position?

Yep, use it or lose it.

Yep, but I got a 2:2 and should have done engineering instead which I might have enjoyed and still be using. It’s 25 years for me.

Largely the same here, except I got a 2:1 and it was slightly longer.

Somewhat more embarrassingly, I still work in the chemical industry. I know my area pretty well, but get me onto ‘general’ chemistry and I’m lost. Diels-Alder – what? Grignard reagents – eh? Lewis bases – are you sure?

I’ll be honest and say I feel really stupid. I had a flick through the revision guide and said to my daughter “Oh, I can do that question” and she replies. “Dad, that’s level 4, you get a Grade D/C for that” the A and A* questions are another level! (for me anyway)

If you can explain what a Mole is, you’ll be doing a better job than my chemistry teacher!

I got a 2:2 in Electronic Engineering – There’s loads of analogue electronics that I would have a hard time regurgitating, but I use fair bit of the other stuff in my day to day (without really thinking about it).

Not sure my boolean algebra is any good these days though.

23 years since graduating in Chemistry and 19 years this summer since I did any lab work.

Salary was utter sh!t, loved the work though. Never found any job as interesting in IT as the ones I had in the lab.
Can’t remember half of what I studied in Chemistry, in 19 years of IT, there’s a hell of a lot of that that’s fallen out of my head too.

Got an A* in maths GCSE. An A in maths A level. Studied higher maths during my engineering degree.

Had to go on the BBC bitesize website in order to help my 10 year old daughter with her maths homework the other day.

I was contemplating relearning so I could help her, but have concluded I’d have to go back to primary school 8-|

Same with anything, some subjects are very broad and you can’t possibly know it all, you might have a vague idea.

IT is a good one.. Asking a website developer about network security is about as useful as asking a fish how to climb a tree.
But people assume that if you work in IT, you know absolutely everything, lol!

****’ moles

But people assume that if you work in IT, you know absolutely everything, lol!

This book is immensely helpful. I have a 2:1 in History with American Studies 😀

the imposters handbook

I’m a motor mechanic (by trade) but I’ve no idea how my car works.
Stopped spannering around 15 years ago. 😥

At 28, am I too old to move into engineering from a biology background?

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing I care for are bicycles, bicycle suspension, tits, beer and aeroplanes.

Why I did a bioscience degree is beyond me.

Did maths at uni. Found one of my textbooks on the shelf at my mum’s the other day. Error Correcting Codes. Baffling, it just looked like the “Ded Hard Sums” on the blackboard they stick Stephen Hawking in front of for photos.

Quite impressed with myself that I ever understood it at all!

Why I did a bioscience degree is beyond me.

tits

?

Yeah, there was that – the engineering year had about one woman in it. I think I was outnumbered 10 to 1 by women.

The only things I remember from my course, are the bits of contract law that I’ve occasionally used to traumatise a HR person.

It’s been only 8 yrs, I’ve completed my graduation and I can’t remember most of it.

29 years for me. I studied computing and I work in IT. I’m sure a lot/most/all of what I studied is obsolete now so I don’t think it matters that I can’t remember much of the course. It would be interesting to see what the current course content contains and compare it to what I studied all those years ago.

I use my fingers when attempting to do mathematics. Funkmaster Jr is going to need third party help for his homework 😳

Last thing i remember of my maths degree was the letter telling me i shouldn’t come back to resit 3rd year again.

Could do the work but completely un interested and the majority of its gone from my brain but i do use some algebraic tricks to build engineering models.

At 28, am I too old to move into engineering from a biology background?

Not even slightly. Take a salary hit and get on with it. Engineering degrees don’t teach the engineering process IME.

OP

obv – no one walks around with that stuff in their head

The chemistry they teach you in school is lies, then they re-educate you at college which is again lies, and they finally tell you at the end of your degree that all the stuff you’ve just written in exams and dissertations is at best a good guess.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing I care for are bicycles, bicycle suspension, tits, beer and aeroplanes

Aptitude tests as they should be. I can only tick two of those boxes (never been very interested in kit) so no engineering for me. (The fact I frame the quote as a psychometric scale might mean I’ve not actually moved that far from studies.)

I studied mechanical engineering, graduated 7 years ago. I’d do pretty well in certain areas that I actually use day to day, but the other stuff? No danger.

“Yep, but I got a 2:2 and should have done engineering instead which I might have enjoyed and still be using. It’s 25 years for me.“

Change Chemistry to Physics and knock off three years – and that’s me.

Some of the general maths / logical thinking has been useful but most of it was a waste of time.

Joint honours maths degree (Maths and Further Matshs at A level). When helping my kids (and I was only late 30’s when they where teenagers) I had to revise in advance for their GCSE stuff 😳

I should also admit I was a very unpopular “teacher” as I would never do their homework, I would write out similar questions and show them how to do those.

Not even slightly. Take a salary hit and get on with it. Engineering degrees don’t teach the engineering process IME.

Where/how would I start in and around London? By spamming engineering companies with my CV, perhaps move into an engineering QA role but that wouldn’t really teach me any engineering?

I’d quite like to learn CAD and composites engineering/design.

I graduated in Chemistry 25 years ago and haven’t worked within the industry for 20 years.

My sons are doing GCSEs any day now.

I’m the opposite – I’m actually surprised how much I remember.

the thing that disappoints me is how little attention seems to be paid to teaching the underlying basics of chemistry.

And moles!! It’s simple a mole is just a god damn big number.

A mole of cannonballs weighs more than a mole of marbles, ergo a mole of iron atoms weighs more than a mole of hydrogen atoms.

20 years for me since finishing my last postdoc but I have retained quite a bit. Group theory seems to have stuck somewhat and its use in deciphering the rotational aspects of IR spectroscopy has for some reason stuck in my head. Ooo I do like the old PQR bands.

And I do like a bit of Z-nucleophilic substitution, me. 🙂

Oh God, I wish you hadn’t mentioned Group Theory; almost made me shudder.

Some much time expended for so little gain; sometimes it’s best to accept your limits