Chem-related activities - Suggestions?

<p>I love chemistry, but I'm having trouble finding anything to do that's chem-related besides reading books about chem. I'm going to prep for and sit this year's USNCO open exam (and hopefully further rounds), and I'm going to cold-email chem professors at local universities for research intern/volunteer positions next summer. I'm also going to try and take a community college o-chem course, but it depends how scheduling goes.</p>

<p>That's not an awful lot though, and they're all pretty iffy. I've asked google and besides what I've listed above, most of what I find is for stuff in other science fields (man, bio kids have it made!). Do you, dear HSL posters, have any suggestions?</p>

<p>There’s only so much you can do with chemistry, try finding activities for other sciences too</p>

<p>Do a lot of stuff not just in chem but other sciences. Does your school offer science olympiad, science bowl, or other science academic team competition things? If so, then those could suit you. There’s not too much else you can do besides USNCO and working in a lab over the summer at the high school level, so just make the most of what you have. If you really want to try to make top 20 for USNCO, study Atkins’ Chemical Principles book and do lots of practice exams. My friend was a camper this year and he studied for 2-3 months from Atkins’ book and past exams. He did say that it was hard to find enough time to study because he didn’t have a lot of free time since he goes to a rigorous boarding/prep school. So if you do have some free time, you could read the Atkins’ book a few hours a day.</p>

<p>That’s pretty much what I’m doing, I was just hoping there was more chem stuff out there. I also like linguistics, but there’s even less you can do with that, right now I’m just doing the occasional practice problem for NACLO. I think I’ll try and get a bio book, see what that’s like. I hated my bio class but the teacher was terrible and made the whole subject unpleasant. Thanks for the answers.</p>

<p>can you actually prepare for the NACLO?</p>

<p>Not really. It seems like it would be a good idea to familiarize oneself with the format of the questions, just to know what to expect going in. I think it is the science olympiad closest to USAMO, because they both reply mostly on logic and problem-solving skills. I do linguistics puzzles because IMO they’re fun. It makes the part of me that feels like I should be doing something productive feel better to call them “prep”.</p>

<p>What about Chem do you like?</p>

<p>Not so much the mathy, plug and chug bits. I like how everything interacts with each other, and how atoms are used as building blocks for pretty much everything. I like most of it excluding the plug and chug stuff.</p>