Don't Procrastinate! 4

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12. As a chemistry (pre-med) major, I took chemistry, calculus, and biology my first semester of college. I had biology with Walt Sinnamon, whom I would also have for zoology my second semester. I really appreciated Dr. Sinnamon. Biology is a sensitive subject at an evangelical college. I was completely open to hearing arguments for evolution, but I was firmly in the seven literal 24 hour days camp at the time. [1]

It was never clear to me what Dr. Sinnamon's actual position on evolution was. He seemed to play it neutral. He did teach a distinction between macro- and micro-evolution. He introduced me to the concept of speciation, the point where two organisms are sufficiently different to be considered different species.

Man, those were days when my memory seemed to be at a peak. Oh, to have the brain I had then. If I could just take the knowledge I have now and put it in my youthful brain. It was like a sponge. I remember Allen Payne and me cramming for Zoology quizzes right before class at lunch and then getting perfect scores. Obviously that's not the way to learn something long term, but back then I could get by with it.

13. Because of my AP scores, I was given credit for calculus 1 and 2. I went straight into calculus III with Micky Rickman. Mr. Pickett from high school didn't fail me. I think there were only four of us in the class, Allen, Micah, maybe Rodney. I would go on to take Differential Equations in the spring too.

As one might have predicted, I found myself with far more work to do during finals week my first semester than seemed humanly possible. I've already mentioned needing to finish reading the Old Testament. There was no final exam in Calculus III but I went to the last class after trying to pull two all nighters in a row.

I fell asleep in class, to say the least. When I woke up, the lights were out and I was mouth gaping wide on my desk. They said that they asked Mr. Rickman if they should wake me up. He replied that I obviously needed sleep more than the lecture for that final day.

14. However, I was not ready to skip Chem 1 and 2. I only got a 3 on the Chem AP exam. I went straight into Inorganic Analytical Chemistry out of my depth. I have sometimes joked that Analytical Chemistry called me into ministry. It's a joke but God does use such things to get us where we need to go.

By the way, in general I wouldn't recommend someone skipping college intro classes like that in a field you plan to go into. For example, even though I got a 5 on my AP calculus exam, a math major would need to know the "epsilon-delta confusion." No matter how great your high school might be, a dual credit high school class just isn't a college class in the vast majority of cases.

I am now a pragmatist. I know dual credit and AP are the name of the game. A college just can't afford not to accept such things. But in most cases it's not the same. In our current situation, most above average students will come to college as sophomores, like I did. It is what it is. But there is almost certainly a loss here for future leaders. It is a loss in being able to see a bigger picture. It means a narrower society less equipped to face the future and more prone to make bad decisions.

Dr. Schmutz set up the course to involve ten experiments. There were some lectures and a couple tests, but the heart of the course involved determining the nature of the ten samples he would give us. There was no deadline for the experiments, save the end of the semester. Given my tendency to procrastinate--and the fact that I was much more theoretical than experimental--this was a disaster waiting to happen.

The last couple weeks of the semester were great fun but not particularly successful. My uncertainty reading the weight of samples could go on so neurotically that one I believe gained moisture while I was sitting there. For the first time in the history of the universe, I created mass out of nothing. My resulting precipitate weighed more than the combined ingredients with which I started.

Micah and I spent one of my two all-nighters in the chem office. Rodney joined us for some of it. We signed out of the dorm for the night and did experiments most of the night. I stirred instant tea in a beaker with a magnetic stirrer, and we had macaroni and cheese on Petri dishes.

Inexperienced in the ways of finals weeks, my plane was scheduled before I had finished writing up all my labs. I gathered all the data I could and headed for the airport. I was asleep before the plane's wheels left the runway.

Dr. Schmutz was very merciful. He let me call in the results of my final experiment from Florida. The numbers weren't right. I knew it. It was awful. I still believe that the B- he gave me for the class was an act of mercy. Thus ended my first semester of college.

That B- would later haunt me. Although I graduated from Central with the highest GPA in my class, there was a rule that said the valedictorian couldn't have a grade lower than a B. Amy Smith, the second highest GPA, found herself in the same situation. They did make an exception to the rule so that we could both be summa cum laude.

[1] I was often bored in church as a child--except when my sister preached. You never knew what she was going to say. It kept you on the edge of your seat. At other times, the Pix fliers from Sunday School often sustained me through a service, with its cartoon excerpts from the biblical story.

One day in church I added up the numbers of the from the genealogies in Genesis to see when in the history of the world each person died. It was then I realized that, if the numbers are taken literally without any gaps, Methuselah died the year of the flood!