What Is Chemistry?

What Is Chemistry?When you are looking for a Bachelor's Degree in Virginia Tech Chemistry you will be able to work closely with a number of faculty members, allowing you to understand a wide variety of chemistry topics. Some classes will focus on the structure of molecules, others on how molecules interact with one another and still others will deal with the chemical reactions that take place when certain chemicals react. You will be able to determine if there is a particular chemistry course you would like to take that has a particular set of subject areas that you would like to learn more about.Chemistry majors at Virginia Tech have the ability to study for both a Master's Degree and a PhD. Students who complete a PhD program are able to earn a doctorate degree from a specialized school such as Yale University. There are a number of different chemistry programs available through Virginia Tech that will offer you the ability to continue your education after your Bachelor's degree. S ome of these courses include Biology, Environmental Science, Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Materials Science and Engineering, Business and Management, and many more.In order to gain a high grade and a very good education, you will need to keep yourself up to date with the latest technology and research that are being done by scientists. You will need to be able to identify the characteristics of a chemical that will make it useful to the industrial or scientific community.To help you understand the areas that you may want to specialize in at Virginia Tech Chemistry is to find a course you are interested in taking. There are a number of different subjects you can choose from and each one of them will offer you the opportunity to further your education and begin a career. These courses are very important for any degree student, because they will allow you to work with chemistry professors and experts in the field.Virginia Tech Chemistry will allow you to become familiar with different ways to study. Many students choose to take several science courses during their undergraduate degree program. While these courses are essential to becoming well educated in the area of chemistry, they will also help you determine if there is a subject that is more suited to your personality and interests.The opportunity to live and work on campus at Virginia Tech Chemistry is the most convenient way to receive a Bachelor's degree. There are many students who will apply to be accepted to a PhD program during their Bachelor's degree program. If you decide to focus on an area of chemistry then this can allow you to continue your education and work on your interests throughout your graduate degree program.Science is one of the most difficult subjects to comprehend and in some cases, it can be nearly impossible to fully grasp the principles and methods behind physics. These subjects are the focus of the courses that are offered through Virginia Tech. Each course will offer you the oppo rtunity to get the most out of your education.

What You Can Learn from a Less-Than-Perfect Gig

What You Can Learn from a Less-Than-Perfect Gig Suzy S. No matter how much practice and preparation you put in, sometimes gigs or performances dont go as planned. But in the end, its all about what you gain from the experience. Read on for Los Angeles teacher John P.s story Every band encounters problems when they play shows. Sometimes it’s a few small things: a PA that isn’t loud enough, a crowd that isn’t into your music, malfunctioning gear, a tough time slot. Sometimes all those things can come together to cause a storm so perfect you just have to laugh and admire it. That’s what happened when my band The Quick And The Dead played our last show in Las Vegas. We started out with everything planned perfectly. We were going to stay with our friend Victor. The club had a new PA they’d just installed. Two of the guys were going to fly out from Los Angeles and meet us. We were well-rehearsed. What we found, however, was that things didn’t always go as planned. When we stopped for gas in the middle of the desert, Mike, the driver and drummer of our band, noticed the engine overheating. We ended up stranded at the next gas station for over two hours until AAA came. We were towed to the next available town, which was about twenty miles south. Even though we were pressed for time, we made the most of it as we waited.  We took a guitar and a hand drum from the truck and jammed in the parking lot. Just the three of us and the wide open Nevada sky. An iPhone captured the impromptu jam, which turned out pretty fun to listen to. As time continued to pass, we finally noticed the Avis car-rental place around the corner of the repair shop. We shook our heads and raced inside. We had twenty minutes until they closed and the only thing they had available was a huge Ford F-150 pickup truck. “We’ll take it.” We ran into a dollar store to see if there were any supplies we might need. My friend Jim and I found a cheap blue tarp for ten bucks and thought we should get it so no one would be able to see our gear. Then we hurried back to the shop, took all our gear from Mike’s Pathfinder and loaded the pickup. “We can still make the gig,” Mike said. “It’s only four o’clock.” An hour later the storm clouds blew in. The highway traffic crawled. Pitter. Pitter. Rain splattered the windshield. A mad dash on  Xxyyxx Road allowed us to secure the tarp as best we could. The sky turned pink and then purple. The light seemed fake, like a movie set. Soon thereafter the sky exploded in rain and lightning. The storm followed us all the way to Las Vegas. Crossing our fingers for our gear, we soldiered on. It took forever to get to Henderson. Our gear was untouched, which seemed miraculous. *** It was almost midnight when we arrived, two hours past our scheduled slot. There was still another band to wait through. By the time we dragged our gear in, the clock hovered near two in the morning.  Finally, we made our way on stage to play our set. The crowd. Hated us. From the first note, our brand of classic-inspired rock did not go over well. Neither did the horrendous feedback, the result of the owners having a new PA, which they did not know how to use, and just let us deal with on our own. A few songs in, Bryan, our other guitarist, suffered a mysteriously dead amp. The thing just cut out and would not turn back on. After unplugging and re-plugging it in, he finally got it to work. That was the least of our problems. We played low, but the feedback was non-stop. Even Neil Young would have been taken aback. Victor’s turn at fronting the band for a Rolling Stones song went over horribly. The people all had their backs to us by then, drinking at the bar, probably praying it would be over. Rarely have I ever wanted to get out of somewhere so quickly. But what I did was to change it around. We’d lost the crowd, so I focused in on my bandmates. We’ve known one another for years. Bryan and I traded solos, each trying to compliment the other. I shared the mic with Troy. I locked in with Mike. And then I looked down at my sunburst Les Paul, which has been with me all over the country, and has played shows in so many great moments, and smiled. We had earned a great story that night, one that we would be able to tell for years. No matter how much planning you do, there are sometimes things that will gather to just completely shut down a show. It happens, and the best thing to do is to just realize the next night things will be better. You can travel great distances and go through a lot, and it’s still an honor to play music, regardless of the outcome. Until we got back to the hotel room and realized we had three and a half hours to return our rental truck, a drive that usually would take four, but that’s a story for another time. You might also like Expert Audition Tips TakeLessons Exclusive! Jumpstarting Your Music Career: 5 Tips Nobody Talks About Avoiding 5 Common Rehearsal Mistakes John P. teaches bass guitar, guitar, music recording, songwriting, and acting lessons to students of all ages in Los Angeles, CA. He joined the TakeLessons team in October 2012, bringing several years of experience teaching, performing and touring with his bands. Learn more about John, or search for a teacher near you! Photo by Hans Gotun

How to Work With an AP Physics Tutor

How to Work With an AP Physics Tutor Improving Academic Performance One way to ensure that you get the most value from your education is to hire a guide, someone who can provide personal attention to facilitate your learning process. Given that AP Physics is one of the most challenging courses you can take in high school, and given that it is usually preparation for even more specialized studies, hiring a dedicated AP Physics tutor makes a lot of sense. The responsibility for getting the most out of your education, however, still belongs to you, the student. Here are some steps you should take to ensure that you are using your AP Physics tutor’s services wisely. Do Your Best On Your Own The most successful physicists and engineers have been the ones who are independent thinkers. Before dumping all the responsibility in your tutor’s lap, try your best to read and understand the material and work through the problems on your own. If you get stuck in one place, don’t stop there and throw up your hands in frustration; instead note the difficulty you are having and move on as best you can. Not only will this build the study skills that you will need to progress along your educational path, it is also cost effective. The time you spend with your AP Physics tutor should be spent on filling in the gaps in your understanding, not starting from scratch. Prepare Ahead Of Time When you sit down with your tutor isn’t the time to decide what you need help with. You should spend time before the tutoring session reviewing what you know and figuring out where the gaps are, so that you can focus on those specific areas that you need help with. Do you not know the formulas? Can you not figure out which ones to use? Be ready to bring your AP Physics tutor up to speed with where you are, so that he or she can help you get caught up with the current material. Ask Questions Receiving help from a tutor is not a passive activity. You should take advantage of the personal attention to ask questions and seek clarification of anything that you don’t have a solid understanding of. Make sure you understand what you are learning from both a computational and a conceptual perspective. Unlike a teacher, it is not a tutor’s role to spoon fed you the entire curriculum, but rather to respond to your specific needs and fill in the gaps in your understanding. Review What You Learn Once the session is over, briefly review the concepts that you have acquired, and make sure that you understand them when you don’t have the tutor to explain them to you. Part of being a good scientist or engineer is being confident of your results without external verification. Review them again before the next session and make sure that you still have them; if you don’t, see the previous step. Build the habit of rigorously convincing yourself that you have learned the material, and any actual test you take will come to seem like a piece of cake. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(215486, '6baac2ae-05a3-4610-9d1f-265c8cbd809f', {});

Podcasts for Students Series Introduction

Podcasts for Students Series Introduction Improving Academic Performance In this series of blog posts, we’ll explore how podcasts can help students improve their academic performance and prepare for successful careers. We all know effectively managing your time is a key component of performing well at work and in school, and podcasts are an excellent way to learn new things while you are exercising, walking to class, or on the bus. Podcasts obviously cover a wide range of topics. Apple’s “categories” of podcasts include: arts, business, comedy, education, games, government, health, kids and family, music, news and politics, religion, science and medicine, society and culture, sports, technology, and TV/film. If you’re a student trying to identify ways to perform better in high school, college, or graduate school, you’ll probably find most relevant podcasts in education, or maybe health or even business. Here are a few different “types” of podcasts I’ve identified that could be particularly useful to students. Podcasts about productivity, health, and wellness provide foundational ideas for performing at a high level. These types of podcasts might provide you with ideas about time management, note-taking, having more energy through better nutrition, the benefits of mindfulness, setting goals, etc. A good example of to this category for me would be The Getting Things Done Podcast by David Allen. I read David Allen’s book by the same name, Getting Things Done, about a decade ago. It explores how to be more productive and less stressed through better note taking, organization, and use of to-do lists. I have been a die-hard believer in the importance of getting tasks out of your head, into a note-book, and onto a to-do list ever since. Allen and a co-author, Mark Wallace, have recently published a book that covers similar ideas and concepts aimed at teenagers (i.e., students) called Getting Things Done for Teens. Podcasts about specific topics can help you reach specific academic goals. You’ll find lots of podcasts about specific issues facing current or future high school, college, or graduate school students. There are podcasts about college admissions strategies and the application process, preparing for standardized tests, and more. With these types of podcasts, you are obviously learning about specific situations in which you may currently or will soon find yourself. An example of this type of podcast would be The College Essay Guy Podcast, described as a practical guide to college admissions. Podcasts about history, politics, economics, science, medicine, etc. can help motivate you and make you more curious and interested in different types of courses. Here, the idea would not necessarily be that you are going to study for your history of Rome final by listening to the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan (although you probably could, as it’s a somewhat thorough but also entertaining exploration of the history of Rome). Instead, this category of podcasts might pique your interest or curiosity and give you more context about a topic you are learning about in class. Simply by having more general background knowledge about a topic and having listened to it talked about in an entertaining way instead of a typical academic way, you may find yourself more interested and thus more likely to perform well in the class. For example, Malcom Gladwell is the author of several very popular books (including one, Outliers, that explains success as a function of a person’s environment along with personal motivation, drive, and effort that might be particularly interesting to students. It was in this book that he popularized the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at something). He has a podcast called Revisionist History that explores a variety of historical events from a different, often very interesting and unexpected angle. After listening to any one of these episodes it’s hard to not be at least a little more interested in the topic covered than you were beforehand. Here’s how to “use” podcasts. Podcasts are much less useful if you don’t act on or even remember what you are listening to. Podcasts about productivity tend to be chock full of useful ideas to try that will help you become more organized and use your time more efficiently. But you must remember those ideas if you plan on testing them out. I recommend taking simple notes during or immediately after each podcast episode. Then, make sure you somehow transfer the ideas onto a to-do list of some sort. The note-taking and to-do list building tool that I use most often is called Evernote, but simple pen and paper or any number of competitors to Evernote can help you capture and organize information. In our next article in this podcasts series, we’ll explore podcasts about productivity in more detail.

8 Majors With The Highest Paying Salaries

8 Majors With The Highest Paying Salaries Image via: http://www.topuniversities.com 7. Physics Starting Salary: $49,800 Mid-Career Salary: $101,000 A physics major can open many doors for you in the future. Career opportunities include teaching, working in a laboratory and/or computer programming. According to Bank Rate:  â€œThe American Institute of Physics reports that those with a physics degree find work in organizations ranging from high schools and hospitals to the U.S. military, museums, publishing firms, domestic and foreign governments and laboratories.” Image via: http://www.elevationnetworks.org/ 6. Business Management Information Systems Starting Salary: $53,800 Mid-Career Salary: $92,200 If you are interested in running a large business as a CEO, management information systems might be the right fit for you. In this major, students will learn how to manage a business through the use of business and computer-oriented programs. Bank Rate stated: “Management information systems majors to the rescue. Trained to analyze organizations computer databases, oversee projects and improve company productivity and efficiency, MIS grads enjoy a practically booming job market with the field growing 17 percent each year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” Image via: http://www.sjsu.edu 5. Business Accounting   Starting Salary: $53,901 Mid-Career Salary: $96,675 According to Accounting Web, the salary of accountants has decreased by 0.6 percent from 2013. In addition, lower paying positions for recent graduates may be the ultimate reason for this drop. However, accounting is a great foundation for other high-end paying jobs for the future. Image via: http://mygoodstewardaccountant.com 4. Pre-Nursing Starting Salary: $55,400 Mid-Career Salary: $71,000 Known for its high demand and competitiveness, nursing requires acknowledgement of heavy science-based material. Don’t worry if you don’t know which field to specialize inthere are approximately 100 different types of fields that nurses can apply to. As a nurse, you’re bound to find out which one will suite you. According to The Best Schools, the highest paid nurse holds the position of Nurse Anesthetist with a median salary of $154,390. However, the steps to obtain this position could be quite rigorous. The position requires a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree. After working for a year in a care facility, such as the emergency room, you can apply to take the certification exam. Image via: https://northcentralcollege.edu 3.  Computer Science Starting Salary: $59,800 Mid-Career Salary: $102,000 The reason why this major is high in demand is because it presents numerous job opportunities within the field of computer science. Students who study computer science will learn how to understand programming language and eventually be able to create programs of their own. These jobs can range anywhere from informational technology (IT) to computer system development. If you attend a prestigious college, you are more likely to be noticed. However, it still may be difficult to land a successful job after graduation. An article from Forbes stated: “Nearly 70 percent of computer science majors had at least one job before they graduated from college last year, according to data gathered by the National Association for Colleges and Employers, which surveyed nearly 10,000 college seniors who were set to earn bachelor’s degrees in the spring of last year.” Image via: http://news.lib.uchicago.edu 2. Mathematics Actuarial Mathematics Starting Salary: $58,700 Mid-Career Salary:  $120,000 Actuary mathematicians analyze financial consequences and risks based on statistical data. As professional business professionals, actuaries have jobs that range from insurance companies to consulting firms. In a Business Insider interview, Mike Boot, managing director at Society of Actuaries, said “quite frankly, there are relatively few actuaries and people in our profession are well compensated for their jobs.” Image via: http://www.merton.ox.ac.uk 1. Engineering Petroleum Engineering Starting Salary: $103,000 Mid-Career Salary: $160,000 Out of all the majors within the engineering field, petroleum engineering is presently the number one highest paid in starting salary and mid-career salary. Petroleum engineers deal with crude oil and/or natural gas in the workplace environment. With a rough amount of only 1,000 students a year graduating with this degree, it is highly competitive due to its difficulty in specialized course rigor. Not only do petroleum engineers get paid well but other engineering majors do too, such as chemical, electrical, materials science and aerospace. Image via: http://www.resumeok.com Search through the Uloop job listings to find your next Part-Time or Full-Time employment or Internship opportunity. Employers are waiting to hear from you!

4 Differences Between High School and College English Courses - TutorNerds

4 Differences Between High School and College English Courses - TutorNerds 4 differences between high school and college English courses By the time students reach their freshman year of college, they will have already taken four separate English courses. It likely seems that students know everything there is to know at this point, but once students reach the college level most of the old rules go out the window. There are several differences between high school and college English courses of which most notably is the time and independence required. If students can prepare for these differences, theyre more likely to do well in their challenging university-level classes our Orange County private high school and college English tutors are here to help. 1.   The 5 paragraph essay By the end of high school students will be pros when it comes to writing a five-paragraph essay. In fact, it seems that the whole world must be written in five paragraphs because this particular format is given such emphasis throughout a student’s high school experience. Unfortunately, most college professors disregard this format almost straight away. This can be a tough sell for students who have molded their writing to fit within five paragraphs since they were a freshman. However, getting away from this format is a great thing for students and allows more independent thought as well as the ability to write about whats important rather than trying to meet a specific word count. Most college papers have a required word count range allowing student writers to get an idea of their scope of work without being too strict or limiting. 2. Scholarly works cited College students will be utilizing scholarly sources to a much higher degree than they did in high school. Its important for students to familiarize themselves with the campus library and know how to tell the difference between a scholarly journal and a basic credible source. This can be more difficult these days because almost everything is found online, making it harder to distinguish between a scholarly article and a basic one. Students should start by looking for an abstract and an author with three letters after their name to help them get an idea if theyre on the right track (READ: 5 Things That Can Ruin Your Study Time). 3. More time, more revisions In general, high school students will have to write a rough draft and final draft when it comes to essay writing. However, once they get into college, they may find that theyre writing four or more drafts before they create something they can turn in to the professor. Students often need to change their thesis once they start doing extensive research or may find that their original idea was either too broad or too narrow. This means a lot more effort on the part of the student as well as excellent time management skills. Students are given three or four weeks to complete their essay from start to finish, but they will likely need the majority of this time to deal with those extra drafts. 4. Complex thought processes In high school, students mainly work on an analytical essay or an argumentative one and often take a position on one extreme or the other. Once at university, students will be asked to look at several different sides of an argument and perhaps come up with a thesis that lies within the gray area of the two opposing opinions. This requires a much more complex thought process and can certainly be mentally fatiguing. Students working all hours of the night will often find that the ideas dont come to them as quickly as they wanted. Its a good idea for students to carve out a specific time in their schedule or work with a study group where they can brainstorm for different ideas. Whether youre in high school or college, do well in your English classes with the help of private Orange County English tutoring from TutorNerds. All blog entries, with the exception of guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at pr@tutornerds.com for guest blogging and collaborations. We want to make this the best free education resource in SoCal, so feel free to suggest what you would like to see us write.

Irvine Math Tutoring Tips How to Excel at Math this Summer

Irvine Math Tutoring Tips How to Excel at Math this Summer Tips From an Irvine Math Tutor: 3 Great Ways to Help Your Kid Excel at Math this Summer Tips From an Irvine Math Tutor: 3 Great Ways to Help Your Kid Excel at Math this Summer Math is one of the core subjects and is important for every young student to learn and master, but its also one of the harder subjects and a fair portion of students struggle when it comes to calculating numbers. Students who are always a little bit behind will find math frustrating and start to avoid it, making the situation even worse. Summer is a great time for students to sit down in the comfort of their own home and work with a one-on-one tutor or attend a summer school program to gain math skills that they found challenging throughout the school year. Because students wont have to focus on other subjects over the summer, they can give 100% of their mental energy to math and, hopefully, feel more confident with numbers once they start school in the fall want to improve your math grades? Book a private Irvine math tutor for the summer. 1. Set an individual pace Many younger students struggle with math because they need a little bit of extra time to understand the concepts and the process. More often than not, students must move on to a new lesson immediately upon understanding the original concept. When it comes to math students, they need time to practice their newly developed skills and become comfortable calculating a particular type of problem before they can move on. If students are working on math over the summer, its essential that they can set their own individual pace, so they have time to practice what theyve learned before their brain has to comprehend something new all over again. 2. Apply math to the real world Many students become bored with math problems, and consequently stop making an effort, because they dont understand why math is important. Many math textbooks demand a set of problems without an explanation of why these calculations are important. When students see that they can apply computation to the real world, especially something they are interested in, it becomes more exciting and encourages students to focus on the task at hand. Students might utilize geometry to build a model house or some other kind of structure that requires careful measurement and correct calculation of triangles, squares, rectangles Etc. Students could apply fractions to a recipe and learn how to cook or bake as part of the process. Once numbers are applied to real-world situations, they become a lot more interesting (READ: Tips from a Fullerton Reading Tutor: 3 Ways to Work on Reading this Summer). 3. Take breaks When a student is working on a topic that has been difficult for the past year they will start to view it as frustrating. Everybody gets frustrated at some point, but younger students have a lower frustration tolerance, in general. If students are working on math two hours a day, Monday through Friday, all summer, they will probably learn to hate math all over again. Since their brains are working hard to refine a new skill, students are probably better off having breaks in between sessions. Perhaps they work on math Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday. Taking breaks from learning is an essential element of the overall process. Improve your math grades over the summer with the help of a private Irvine math tutor. Call us today to book your tutor! Members of the TutorNerds team and our private tutors write every blog post. If you have any questions about our blog, please email us at pr@tutornerds.com.