The Uni Study Thread Mk II

That sounds waaaay cooler than biomed.

See now I'm really jealous at that sounds like heaven to me as this is what I wouldn't mind doing as a career.

In that case then, if you didn't calibrate it, don't mention it at all but no doubt they will have been calibrated by lab staff at some point. And you will really have to watch your quantities. Another thing I noticed when watching some experts (3rd years) defending their statements was they seemed picky in making sure when weighing out evidence, all of it was re-recovered and none left over on the balance etc.

I guess if you're not defending it in court you need the S9 then. Best of luck with it. I'd rather do that then write notes for forensic physical methods revision.

That sounds waaaay cooler than biomed.

But I'm sure they'll agree with me when I say learning all the knowledge required to do this sort of analysis and writing such a legal statement and report is a complete ass!

I'm basically writing notes of this sort of stuff right now and I'm already bored

Eesh, we didn't actually weigh things onto balances, GC-MS and IR stages. We just covered the crystal as we were told to - but no trace was left, all was cleaned with methanol solution. For NMR specific quantities were used (apart from "3 fingers of X solution" whatever the hell that means).
Ah I still need to start writing notes for criminalistic methods (sounds very similar to forensic physical methods - do you do things like fingerprint enhancement, shoe prints analysis, ink and stuff?).

I'm doing biomed so we do things like immunology, haematology, clinical microbiology and so on. I only ever feel CSI-ish when I'm using Gilson pipettes. The analytical biochemistry stuff kills me.

Ahh fair enough. I'm not sure on the solution myself, but it could be something to do with the solvent used for analysing a substance by NMR? That's just a guess though.

Similar, yea. We're more focusing on methods used in recovery of evidence, so what developer is best for fingerprints on which surface, order of recovery, what the different types of blood splatter can tell us about what happened at the SOC (in terms of both the drop type and the distribution of blood splatter), what the different types of toolmark impressions are and how you recover them etc. We did all the show print/ink analysis things for a module last year so this year it's focusing on what you can tell from the recovered evidence and how to properly recover and analyse it.



Quick question, are most people starting back at uni on monday?

We're doing all of that stuff too....pretty much exactly that. Along with a module in Forensic Chemistry (so basically drug analysis, blood analysis, trace evidence etc).
About the Gilson pipette, we just call it a micropipette - pretty sure all forensics student would have used them. We have to more or less every session.
I go back on the 30th, then have 2 more weeks of class and exams straight afterwards.

Awesome. We did all our drug analysis stuff and that in first year. You have a module in Forensic Chemistry? Wow. That's my degree title

Ahh, micro pipette. We only used them in the biochemistry module last year. Never needed them again.

Ah ok, that's cool. It's just everyone of my friends seem to be going back tomorrow, and I'm only just over a week into my 4 week holiday!

I've finished everything for my project now. I can just go into uni and hand it in. No last minute panic or anything. And I get to go to choir tonight. Awesome.

3 week intensive module starts tomorrow. We get a boat day on Weds/Thurs.

Last year we were doing 'Chemical Science Principles' - so making our own aspirin, learning how to analyse various analytical data, re-learning chemistry A2 again bla bla. Last semester we had Forensic Genetics, so the same stuff Human Biology students do in 2nd year, and Spectroscopy and Advanced Analysis - so the theory behind chromatography and spectroscopy/spectrometry, which instruments to use on which sample etc. Now it's Drugs of Abuse alongside Pharmacy and Chemistry students and then the stuff you've explained. It's interesting to learn what other forensics students do. Really varied course taking something from each science.

Aha we got 4 weeks, 2 too many I think.
Back to writing up my blood stain experiment

I don't know, I'm enjoying the 4 weeks off. Although I'll probably go back to uni and back to work earlier then I usually would though.

It is interesting to see what other forensics students do. Our modules are very very science based generally but we also do all of the recovery of evidence and laws behind it too.

How much theory do you do with spectroscopy? We seem to have to go into quantum chemistry for ours, schrodinger and boltzmann equations and the such

two of my housemates for next year do forensic chemistry at my uni (uea)- they seem to do a lot of 'normal' chemistry plus a couple of forensics modules. they've mentioned a lot of inorganic and organic chemistry and genetics. next year one of my friends is taking medicinal chemistry as her elective and in 3rd year they go to Miami for a semester as part of their course.

Yea, my course is the same. Even the scientists do a lot of chemistry, it's just we do more chemistry and less forensics than they do.
I've 2 inorganic modules, one organic and one thermodynamics/spectroscopy (so physical chemistry) module this year. I've also a medicinal chemistry module next year (and we had one in 1st year too)

What do they do in miami?

ah yes i think they do physical chemistry as well. pretty sure they haven't done medicinal chemistry this year (their 1st) and im not sure myself but this is what is says on the uni course profile they do stuff like Crime Scene Investigation. It's all here if your interested
http://www.uea.ac.uk/che/courses/mchem-forensic-and-investigative-chemistry#year_3

This all sounds very different to my course. Next year we're doing toxicology, ballistics, arson, insects (decomposing bodies) etc -which all will include a lot of chemistry and biology but it's very much tending towards the crime scene investigation. Next year we have the option of going to Tennessee to the Body Farm and doing a course there for a month.

Yeah we did a lot of Boltzmann, Schrodinger and quantum chemistry - I hated every bit of it! The stuff I'm doing right this second is very mathsy. Sometimes the amount of various different sciences in forensics frustrates me - I'm no good at maths or physics, whereas I love biology and chemistry (especially organic).