June 2004

Gillian Woodburn • A Major Breakthrough

Everyone probably goes through a phase of feeling really frustrated with his or her major. For me, it came as I was studying for my second test in “Organic Chemistry II.” I found myself flipping through notecards of reaction mechanisms, half watching the Oscars on TV and thinking to myself, Why am I doing this?

Gillian points out the error in the periodic table located in the chemistry building.

I don’t hate organic chemistry. I actually enjoy parts of the test because it requires a lot of problem solving. Our professor gives us a starting material and we have to figure out what steps to take to build a final material. Or, we’re given part of a reaction and need to identify the missing reactants.

It feels so good to stare at a problem that looks impossible, then to think really hard and remember the reaction that makes it work. It’s like fitting a piece into a puzzle—sometimes one of those 2,000-piece puzzles.

I walked out thinking, I like chemistry. I like the chemistry building, how it’s a little eerie in places and the temperature changes every time you go through a door. I like the way it smells…different. I like how the even-numbered rooms are all on one side of the building while the odds are on the other, and I like that most people who aren’t chemistry majors are kind of afraid of the building.

Every room has its own character. There’s 314, the cushy new lecture hall that you don’t get into until you have small classes. Room 206 is buried away behind the boilers on the second floor, while room 300, the oldest lecture hall on the face of the planet, has half-painted lilac walls and a periodic table so ancient that one of the elements is incorrectly named. Then there’s room 65, down in the basement, where only one set of stairs provides access.

While I’ve been struggling with my major, it’s also been a busy season for my family. My sister Hilary, now officially engaged, starts an interior design job near Dallas in May and will be getting married on New Year’s Eve. My sister Kendra has been accepted into the Iowa dental school, so she’ll be joining me next year. And my dad just got a new job. He’s worked with the South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunications for…about as long as I can remember. Starting this spring, though, he’ll be the new director of Capital University Center (CUC). Dad has been teaching physical geography for CUC for a while, and I asked him why he decided to take the new job.

He said, “After a while you get to thinking, ‘I don’t think there’s any other job I would be able to do. And I don’t know how I ever got the one I have!’ So, you have to try something else.” I guess he’s about to send off three girls to fend for themselves, so it’s his turn to do something different, too.

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