Study Chemistry at Otago

Lucy Hughes:

Kia ora, my name is Lucy, and I’m a student in the Chemistry Department here at Otago. One of my personal favourite things about Chemistry at Otago is that the department is really close-knit—everyone gets to know you by name, and the lecturers are really interested in the work that you’re doing. But more than that, Otago gives you opportunities that aren’t normally available to students. In my third year, I got to work in drug development in a research group, which was so cool.

Dr David McMorran:

Hi guys, my name is Dave McMorran, and I’m a teacher in the Chemistry Department. I’m here to talk to you a little bit about Chemistry at Otago.

I like to think about chemistry as being sort of three things: it’s about making things, it’s about measuring things, and it’s about understanding things. In chemistry, we’re all about making new molecules—mixing atoms and molecules together to make new stuff. But we’re also about measuring things—trying to work out what structure those new things have, how they’re put together, and how they interact with the environment and with your body.

And then there’s understanding. We want to understand why reactions happen the way they do, why molecules are the shape that they are, and with that understanding, we can get some idea about how we can design new molecules that can do useful and important things. So, if you want to design a new drug or a new solar cell, you need to understand some chemistry.

But why would you want to do Chemistry at Otago? Well, one reason might be because we have fantastic facilities. We’ve got the most modern chemistry teaching building in the country. It’s full of flat-screen TVs, iPads, and shiny new instruments that you can use as part of your learning.

We’ve also got lots of really good staff—staff who are not only known internationally for their research but also known within the University and nationally as great teachers. We have people who have won national teaching awards and university teaching awards, and these are the people you’re going to see when you come and learn chemistry with us.

In the first year, we have two chemistry papers: CHEM 191 and CHEM 111. Both of these build on the chemistry that you will have learnt at school, hopefully. We’re going to teach you how to make some stuff, how to measure some stuff, and how to understand stuff in those courses.

The courses are assessed using exams but also through lab reports, where you get to write out and show your understanding of what’s going on. In the second and third year, we have more specialised papers focusing on specific areas of chemistry. But all the way through, you’re looking at more and more complicated and interesting examples to show us how we can make more complicated and interesting molecules.