TIKO Progress Blog

1st Semester Review

Year 1

Emmanuel Opoku
3 October - 18 December 2015

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1st Semester Review

Imperial College London
It has been a wonderful start to the year! It is incredible that the time between
moving in and coming to the end of the first semester has passed by so quickly.
There has been a lot of activities this semester that have aided my personal
development and knowledge of the Chemistry as a whole.
The majority of the lecture courses this semester focused on the core principles
of Chemistry to get everyone up to speed. Time spent in the laboratories were
also geared towards learning new skills that would be valuable to us as Chemists.
A lot of my time during the first semester was also dedicated to working with the
Let Us Learn campaign which is doing very well in terms of engagement with
those affected by laws we are fighting to change and hosting sessions that aid the
personal development of its core members.

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Organic Chemistry
Organic Chemistry is the study of carbon based compounds (the majority of naturally
occurring chemicals are organic compounds) In the first lecture course we covered the basics
of Chemistry the Imperial way! We were lucky enough to have this course delivered to us by
the head of Department, Prof Alan Armstrong, who did a great job to ensure we were all up
to speed with how we were expected to approach organic chemistry.
After covering the structure, mechanisms and reactivity of common compounds, Dr David
Montford covered alkanes, alkenes and alkynes. This covered the fundamentals of the shapes
of common carbon-based compounds and the main reactions we needed to be concerned
with. This was followed up by the stereochemistry lectures by Dr Matthew Fuchter which
clarified some questions raised on the first two organic lecture courses.
I found these lecture courses difficult at first due to lack of practice but by the time of the last
lecture course, everything was beginning to make sense and the more curly arrow
(mechanisms by which electrons move in reactions) questions I did, the more sense I could
make of the content. It has a been a rewarding semester in terms of my understanding of
organic Chemistry as I feel it is this aspect of Chemistry is most challenging.
Difficulty: Fairly Straightforward
Results: N\A

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Physical Chemistry
In Physical Chemistry we learnt a great deal about the energetics involved in a reaction. What
makes a reaction feasible and what factors can be changed to make a reaction that doesnt
go do exactly that. Nick Brooks gave our first lectures on Chemical Equilibria and explored
the properties of a system (reaction) that affected the energy contained within that system.
This also led to much discussion on the practical applications of thermodynamics and the
importance of its considerations in industry.
Dr Oscar Ces expanded on this with his Chemical Kinetics course which dealt with the
reactions in much more detail. Much of the course was based around determining the rates at
which chemical reactions proceeded by, considering special cases and the assumptions we
could make to make calculation and approximations more accurate. A lot of this course was
reliant on a students having strong mathematics background. Anything that was not
completely understood was re-explained by the lecturer which was also very helpful.
We received two additional lecture courses that come under this branch of Chemistry which
will not be examined but were crucial in our understanding of the subject as a whole.
Measurement Science from John de Mello highlighted the importance of understanding what
results displayed on measuring instruments we would encounter actually meant and how we
could optimise these results. We also received a course from Prof. Tom Welton about solvent
and solvent effects.
Physical Chemistry has been enjoyable this semester despite the fact that it is full of lengthy
mathematical derivation and methods. The approach to solving problems in this aspect of
Chemistry rarely differs. I have enjoyed Dr Oscar Ces lecture course of Chemical Kinetics
the most as it was so well explained and its fascinating how simple theories are the basis of the
multi-billion dollar industry of chemical manufacture.

Difficulty: Challenging
Results: N/A

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Inorganic Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry this semester started with a brief history of the atom from J. J.
Thompsons discovery of the atom to Schrdingers equations predicting the shapes of atomic
orbitals in a Hydrogen atom. Prof Nick Long also delved into detail about the behaviour of
electrons in the atom and how they affected each other. We also touched on the trends across
the periodic table and how they are brought about from the basic principles of how the
electrons filled the atom.
Prof Charlotte Williams then followed this up with her lectures on measurement and
characterisation of chemical compounds. She covered the 3 main methods of chemical
analysis we will be during our time at Imperial: Infrared Spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance and Mass Spectrometry. After her course, I was more informed on how these
measurements were obtained as well as the significance of being able to verify a product and
its purity when conducting any form of research.
As a result of these course I developed a greater appreciation for the multidisciplinary nature
of discoveries. For me, these courses served as a bridge between organic and physical aspects
of the course. I particularly enjoyed the workshops held by Prof Williams as they relied
heavily on problem solving (suggesting a possible compound based on analysis such as
spectroscopic data).
Difficulty: Fairly Straightforward
Results: N/A

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Laboratories
I have thoroughly enjoyed labs this semester. We had 3 different rotations in the three months
with my favourite being the synthesis labs. Alongside synthesis labs, we had a computational
and measurement lab rotation too.
In computational labs, we learnt how to program/code in Python which was essentially like
Microsoft Excel (only better in every way possible). Python is capable of processing and
handling large amounts of data and processing them in little to no time. The language was
quite difficult to understand and get used to but after the first few 3-hour lab sessions, its
started to become second-nature. The lab sessions all had a exercises at the end that required
us to employ what we learnt in that session as well as some creativity to come up with the
required lines of code.
Measurement labs was also a lot of fun! Our task was simple; build a working spectrometer
out of LEGO and component parts and compare it against a commercial instrument. This
was a lot of fun because of the trial-and-improvement nature of the lab sessions. we managed
to create a working spectrometer out of LEGO and it was surprisingly reliable after some
tweaking. The hands-on approach in this lab session led by Dr Andrew McKinley appealed to
me from the onset.
I most enjoyed synthesis labs as there was never a dull moment. We only had one week in the
laboratory to synthesise 1-benzyl-4-phenyl-1H-triazide from benzene azide and phenyl
acetylene using copper iodide as a catalyst (which we synthesised ourselves) under direction
from Dr David Mountford. There was so much room for error but we managed to get some
product and conduct an investigation with a larger group into how changing the solvent used
in the refluxing of the initial reagents affected the yield of the desired product.
Difficulty: Challenging
Results: N/A

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Spanish
As an ancillary, I chose to study Spanish as it serves as a healthy distraction every Tuesday
afternoon and gives me something else to work at when Im not doing some Chemistry.
Seorita Maria Fernndez head the classes and this semester we covered everything some of
the basics on the Level 2 Spanish course. These included health, clothes, the body and food.
I hope to have a firm grasp of the language so that I could eventually work abroad in a
Spanish-speaking country if I wanted to. I am also studying Spanish to make the process of
learning Portuguese easier. I am enjoying the course very much, mainly due to the
charismatic nature of our Spanish teacher and the fact that it is something different to have a
go at.
Difficulty: Straightforward
Results: Coursework 1 (Grammar - A, Essay - B)

Extra-Curricular Activities
This semester, I have played a very active role as the Chemistry Year rep. My role is to act as
the medium by which feedback on the Chemistry course is communicate to senior staff
members. Myself and the other representative for Chemistry have managed to get every
lecturer to hold a drop-in clinic at the end of their lecture course as requested by the
majority of 1st Year Chemists after we carried out a poll on the matter.

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There is also talk of a physics pre-course being organised for the next cohort of Chemists to
arrive at Imperial as a few people found it challenging to grasp some concepts as they
contained too much physics. The aim of these pre-courses will be to bring everyone
(including those who havent chosen Physics at A Level) to speed in terms of what is required
to understand the majority of the course in 1st Year.

As you might be aware of, every Wednesday, university breaks up earlier to give students the
chance to participate in some sporting activities. I decided to join the Ultimate Frisbee Society
at Imperial - the DiscDoctors - who train over in Hyde Park on a Wednesday afternoon. I
havent been to train as often as Id like and my goal next semester is to head to training more
often.
I have also had the opportunity to get to know fellow course-mates by hosting a few dinners
over at my accommodation. The first of which was a Mexican night followed by a Curry
night which was great fun. I was also invited to play at the ChemSoc Christmas party which
was surprisingly one of the best nights Ive had at university. Graduates and lecturers alike
were seated in the same hall as undergraduates to celebrate the end of term and the festive
period ahead.

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Let Us Learn
It brings me great pleasure to see and be a part of the progress that the Let Us Learn
campaign has been able to make since its inception only a year and a half ago. From a dozen
like-minded people to an organisation that now represents a cohort of about 300 young
adults across the country, the campaign is now in a position to make some real change!
I was glad to attend a two-day leadership training course hosted by CitizensUK at Queen
Mary University focusing on giving us the tools to bring about change in our communities.
We were joined by other great young minds from the Blood, Sweat and Tears campaign
campaigning for a better portrayal of minorities in the media.
The take-home message from the training was that change was negotiated. To get to the
negotiating table you needed power, and the only way to build meaningful power was to have
1-to-1s which built strong relational power through the art of sharing stories. In this was
helpful tools like how to conduct an effective power analysis, how to structure a story/speech
and even incorporated some role-play to highlight what makes for successful negotiation.
This was also a perfect opportunity for core members of the campaign to bond as a team.
The next few months will prove to be very busy as we are planning to take direct action
alongside the young campaigners at Blood, Sweat and Tears to put what weve learnt from
the training into action.

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