[summoner]

Hi, I've seen a few discussions about self-teaching but nothing on point and was hoping I could get some guidance about both substantive matters and chemistry department culture.

I am a PhD student in Environmental Studies, with a focus on environmental psychology.  As part of my research I need to have a good grounding in environmental chemistry, particularly as it relates to water pollution, as in actually do some original research on the matter, including taking measurements (though I won't have to run the chemical tests).  Problem is, I haven't had a chemistry class since high school, which was 2 decades ago.  I have been trying to convince my advisor to let me take the basic general chemistry course for a while, with no luck, as he/she thinks I should learn it on my own or by auditing higher-level chemistry courses.

Honestly since this stuff will be showing up in my dissertation, I want to have more than a surface knowledge about it; I want to be able to discuss it intelligently with people who have chemistry backgrounds, teach the basics to undergrads, etc..  I am not sure how to proceed, though.

So, to sum it up, my three questions:

1.  The forums provide good suggestions about self-study materials, but I am not exactly sure what subfields I should focus on for the purposes of learning what I need to know.  General chemistry, certainly, and environmental chemistry, too, but how far should I get into biochemistry?  And is the lab component in formal classes an integral part of the process of understanding the subject?  Would I be missing out on not having that?

2.  From a chemistry department culture perspective, what would be the best way to approach chemists about getting some hands on experience on the subject, or about just auditing or sitting in on classes?  Are chemistry departments usually open to outsiders coming for guidance?

3.  Any other suggestions about how to proceed?

Thanks for any assistance on the matter...

[orgo814]

I don't think general chemistry would be very useful to you except as a prerequisite to other classes. General Chemistry simply makes use of general mathematical formulas and equations to solve for things such as concentrations, rates of reactions, thermochemical data, etc which I don't think would be very useful to you. Environmental Chemistry is in fact a course most universities offer which would pretty much be all I think you would need (although I don't know the nature of your project so I can't tell you based off that). However, at least at my university, a good founding in organic is necessary to understand some of the concepts in that particular course (and usually a prereq). However, that's a lot of prerequisites you would need to fulfill just to take one class since you would need gen chem for organic and organic for environmental. Since you mentioned water pollution, maybe pick up a descriptive inorganic chemistry book and take a look at that.. I can recommend one if you would like. There's good information on water pollution by many elements in relation to acidity/basicity and other chemical/physical properties. I would also recommend learning how to interpret pourbaix diagrams since these can give you valuable information on the acidity/basicity of almost every element in relation to the pH of water which would obviously be useful to you in studying water pollution. Good luck.

[Corribus]

If you haven't had a chemistry class since high school, really a general chemistry course is the place to start. Thankfully, though, general chemistry is reasonably approachable for someone who wants to learn on their own.  I suggest just buying (or checking out from the library) a good quality general chemistry textbook and starting at chapter 1. Do the problems in the back of each chapter until you feel you understand concepts. And of course you are welcome to ask questions here if you encounter conceptual difficulties.

You won't get any course credits this way, obviously, but it doesn't seem like that's what you are after.

By the way, what is 'environmental psychology'? I've never even heard of this.

[Dan]

This free General chemistry course may be of interest:

https://www.coursera.org/course/genchem1

It started in March, but I think you can still access all the materials/lectures and work through it. I don't know exactly how it works (I have not done any Coursera courses myself, but know people who have), but I think starting late just means that you might not get a certificate for completing it because you will have missed test deadlines.

[summoner]

Thank you all for your *delete me*  Each of the replies was extremely useful and I will be following up with everyone's recommendation.  I think my problem is I have had some collegiate or graduate exposure to just about every subject except chemistry, so it' s kind of a big black box to me.  I've found I have regretted my lack of chemistry knowledge most commonly when coming across chemical reactions (how does compound X change over time/exposure to compound or element Y, etc.), so that's kind of the major thing I want to get down.

Corribus, environmental psychology generally refers to how people mentally react to their environment; kind of vague I know, but my research focuses on how individuals and organizations (mostly governmental) evaluate risk from water pollution, sort of the mental and organizational thought processes that go into those evaluations.  So I kind of really need to have a good understanding of actual scientifically determinate risks of pollution before really understanding how these evaluations are made.

[summoner]

Thank you all for your *delete me* 

Not sure why my thanking people was replaced with a "*delete me*"...

[Corribus]

@summoner,

Interesting about the environmental psychology. I also have been involved with, and published in the peer-review literature related to, risk perception research. I've read dozens of articles on the subject and I find it completely fascinating. The area I've been interested in is related to foods rather than environment, but I suspect many of the issues are the same.

Cool stuff, best of luck in the chemistry self-teaching.

[billnotgatez]

@summoner
So many people say "help me" that it has become a dirty word
So the system substitutes for bad words
I know you know the forum rules and did not intentionally use the dirty words
If you have any further questions you can PM me so as not to detract from the thread topic

Not sure why my thanking people was replaced with a "*delete me*"...

From forum rules

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another discussion on this
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=70110.0