NMR Spectroscopy

I have never had much use for it. Plain and simple. So, when I was going over some review lessons yesterday, I was not surprised that I did not know an easy NMR question. But, it is really not my fault and I will tell you why.

In college, we had an assistant professor - a distinction that I clearly made when discussing him with anyone, including professors, classmates, even my mom. He was in charge of the Organic Chemistry Lab also known as Hell, and I think he still might be.

The times I was in O-Chem lab were arguably the worst times I ever had in college. The labs were poorly written, the TA's sucked, and the material was god awful, not to mention they would last anywhere from 4 to 5 hours. But, what made it worse was that every Thursday, the university decided they would give the chemistry professors a day off and have the Lab Director of Hell discuss topics that we supposedly covered in lab.

Now, I always had lab on Fridays mainly because I liked the positive pain I felt knowing that when I got out of lab, it would be the weekend. Unfortunately, that meant I had no idea what the Lab Director was talking about on Thursdays, since I always prepared for lab on the prior evening. Subsequently, when it came to the quizzes about the lab material, I was SOL. I never really thought about studying on Wednesday night, and why should I? Lab was always on Friday, and I was bound to forget the material if I had studied it two days beforehand.

Looking back on it, a lot of the quizzes and end of the year exams (pointless) involved NMR Spectroscopy, and I do not remember knowing 100% if the answer I chose was the correct answer. Needless to say, I failed the lab quizzes and exams. Like, well below average. But, I was always lucky enough to be with a great lab partner who helped me do well on the labs, much to their chagrin.

I guess I should learn from my mistakes and finally learn NMR Spectroscopy, but alas, I am not 100% I want to do that either.