Back to Hendrix

It was a very strange experience to speak to a crowd of students in the same room where I had my first college chemistry course. I could see the row of seats where I used to sit 34 years ago, and I was glad that I was speaking later in the morning than that old class used to start (7:40 AM, and no, my notes were not always coherent). I wasn't able to relive the experience of walking into the old labs, though, because they've been extensively renovated and are far nicer (and more functional) than they were back then. The building itself has been expanded, like many other parts of the campus - from some angles, the place looked almost exactly as it did in the early 1980s, but from others, it looked the way your old school does when you have a dream about it, with odd buildings somehow added to the landscape. The students themselves were excellent hosts, and seemed more poised and on top of things than I remember us being back then. But I think that's a common impression that people have during such visits. My guess is that we simultaneously over- and under-rate our previous selves; the accurate picture is the hardest one to get into focus. I fielded a lot of good questions about chemistry and drug research, but I also had sympathy for the guy who was falling asleep during the first class I spoke to. I'd already done the math: here I was, thirty years after graduating, and what would I have made back then of some guy from the class of 1953? I'd have been sure that I was looking...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Blog Housekeeping Source Type: blogs