Today we had our first chemical process lab, and of all the laboratory sessions I have had in uni, this is by far the most boring lab ever. Even worse than preparing 120 protein samples.
We were supposed to measure the pressure drop in various valves and gates along pipes (to see the effects of shear stress / friction on fluid flow in pipes). This is based on the knowledge of fluid mechanics. And all we had to do was to turn this pump, turn that pump, turn here, turn there, for 2 hours. After that, the centrifugal pump experiment was also another turn here, turn there, brainless activity.
Anyway, that’s not the highlight of the day. We were supposed to have a “viva” session, i.e. interviewed by a professor, who would ask questions regarding the experiment, and you answer them on the spot. It accounted for 30% of the grade.
Now this professor taught us Thermodynamics in previous semester, so that is probably his concentration. Apart from us, there are other groups doing different experiments, i.e. Mass Spec, Equilibria, and, of course, Thermodynamics. We spent two hours waiting for the lecturer to come, but instead of getting ready for the viva we decided to exchange facebook accounts and talk rubbish. I was prepared to give away the 30% viva, and I was just casually commenting, “Hey, hopefully he is very lazy and didn’t study on fluids, so he will not ask us any questions and only ask the guys doing the thermo experiment.”
When he finally turned up, he approached us. He asked us which experiment we were doing, and we replied Fluids 2.
True enough!!! The prof actually told us: “I have no time to ask you guys questions on your experiment, so maybe I will ask another group, the Thermo group first. I will viva you guys next time.”
Then another group approached him, and again he asked them which experiment they were doing, and they said Fluids 1. Again, he told them the same thing.
And seeing their surprised and slightly annoyed look (for waiting two hours in vain), he became uber defensive and said very quickly “Hey, i think it is not a requirement to have a viva for every group. Right?”
Haha… slacker! Just like us! I was almost feeling sorry for him because he probably didn’t know that we, like him, were hoping that he wouldn’t ask us any questions because none of us knew what we were doing. (Oh yes, I have returned my fluid mechanics back to Prof T.)
Sigh, our professors are either lazy, or macabre. One question in our tutorial involved Sherlock Holmes investigating the disappearance of a worker who was last seen stirring a vat. Of course there were some concepts involved in the question, and the question ended asking us what happened to the worker? Today, I just realised the answer was that he fell into the vat and drowned, resulting in a chain of chemical reactions, mentioned by the owner of the vat, and stated in the question.
It is a creative question indeed, but what’s more disturbing is, I actually guessed the answer correctly! I couldn’t do the other questions though, sigh lol.
