Tutors of Christmas Day 10: Fernando Keung
What are you currently studying at university?
I’m currently a third-year undergraduate student studying MSci Chemistry at University College London (UCL), and I will head into my 4th Master’s Year next year in 2025/26, looking to pursue a career in chemistry research post-graduation.
Any memorable moments from tutoring a pupil? Funny story? Great lesson?
Perhaps this may be too uneventful to be a “memorable” moment, but I did get to show my students some pictures of my undergraduate chemistry labs – my reaction set-ups, the lab equipment, working in a university lab setting, and showing them pictures of IR/NMR spectra of various molecules I synthesized as part of my required undergraduate labs to give them a more concrete example of real-world spectroscopy.
For additional context, in Chemistry A-Level, students are expected to be able to identify key functional groups and reconstruct the molecule from NMR/IR spectra (with the occasional mass spectrometry data) given some molecular formula.
A-Level students don’t usually get to use the actual ATIR spectrometers (and a big expensive 300MHz NMR machine, or a mass spectrometer), and the spectra they have to analyse are usually very idealised and too overly simple.
Normally there are a whole bunch of contingent factors that will make spectra harder to analyse, which chemistry undergrads will learn how to interpret, especially when synthesizing an unknown compound; the skills and theory knowledge needed to gather information from the resultant spectra and deduce what is in the product you made after however many hours of lab time is most certainly not taught in A-Levels.
I thought that by showing them pictures of my real spectra that I got during my undergrad labs would give them a more concrete example (and motivation) as to why chemists need to learn about spectroscopy, instead of just yet another area of knowledge to check off in a list for their exams. It’s also a nice opportunity for my students to see what exactly a chemistry undergrad does in a university research lab setting.
