This summer, a team of Zhejiang University, consisted with 20 students of the Department of Chemistry, went to Queen’s University of Belfast in the North Ireland for summer school. During the whole 33 days there, they have learnt and experienced a lot of things.
The courses of the summer school are divided into several parts: professional lectures, laboratory classes, general skills lectures and presentation training project.
There are several subjects of the professional lectures part: specialty English, Excel training program, electronic chemistry, computational chemistry and so on. All of them are well-prepared by the professors and tutors, who are very knowledgeable and always patient.
However, in the laboratory classes, the professors turn so strict that many students become afraid of making mistakes. For example, one student takes off her safety glasses for a while when she feels a little hot, and then is seen and punished seriously by the professor by saying “if you take off the safety glasses, go out right now”.
The most interesting part is the general skills lecture, during which students not only get to know how to write a CV but also learn what to do in an interview.
Other than fun and pleasure, students have some challenges, for instance, the presentation project. Students are required to do an experiment about computational chemistry in the morning of that day, in the afternoon, show what they get in front of the other students and teachers. What’s more, they also should explain and discuss about the results and the theories. Though it is difficult, most of the students act perfectly in such a short time.
At the end of the summer school, students not only get some exciting experience, but broad their horizon, also, get some friendship.
