Chemistry has been uniquely difficult as a subject to study in my view. You need to be good at all of memorization, problem-solving with theory, and laboratory experiment: it's difficult to succeed with a weakness in any one of these. Though one could technically try to be a computational chemist for people who didn't enjoy the experimental work, you'd still have to go through a lot of labwork as a student. I have a special respect for people who've succeeded as chemists as a result.
Also, as a side note of personal curiosity that's on a bit of a tangent in case anyone with experience in chemistry is reading this: I heard an anecdote about improving results in teaching labs once that I've thought about from time to time, but I'm not sure if it's credible.
A chemistry undergraduate was running experiments at a teaching lab, when he decided to go the extra mile and look up how to calibrate his equipment. He then calibrated his equipment carefully before running the rest of his experiments each time that semester. His experimental results were so consistently close to the theoretical results, that he was accused of falsifying data by his instructor (though ultimately, he didn't receive any penalties). Would this be plausible, or a tall tale? I was always wondering since then, if taking the time to calibrate all of one's tools before an experiment could have such a big impact for experimenters—or alternatively, if the student actually was manipulating the data. But then again, maybe this was some kind of statistical fluke, and he attributed the randomness to his calibrations.
Also, as a side note of personal curiosity that's on a bit of a tangent in case anyone with experience in chemistry is reading this: I heard an anecdote about improving results in teaching labs once that I've thought about from time to time, but I'm not sure if it's credible.
A chemistry undergraduate was running experiments at a teaching lab, when he decided to go the extra mile and look up how to calibrate his equipment. He then calibrated his equipment carefully before running the rest of his experiments each time that semester. His experimental results were so consistently close to the theoretical results, that he was accused of falsifying data by his instructor (though ultimately, he didn't receive any penalties). Would this be plausible, or a tall tale? I was always wondering since then, if taking the time to calibrate all of one's tools before an experiment could have such a big impact for experimenters—or alternatively, if the student actually was manipulating the data. But then again, maybe this was some kind of statistical fluke, and he attributed the randomness to his calibrations.