How can I think more in terms of chemistry?

Do you know what specific area of chemistry you want to specialize in?

Don't sweat yourself over tedious facts so much, you'll learn them as you go. I've studied Organic Chemistry for quite a while, with almost 5 years of research and commercial laboratory experience, and have collaborated with Ph.D holders on more than one occasion and I didn't even know that tidbit fact about polymer density and london dispersion forces, which is even more shocking considering polymers is one of my areas of specialization

Knowing what particular area of chemistry you wish to specialize in will help you tremendously in being able to focus on what information will be most useful and most important to you. For instance, do you think you would need to know about london dispersion forces as it relates to polymer density if your plan is to go into Biochem?

Chemistry is so vast and there are practically an infinite number of possible chemical reactions and mechanisms out there that it's going to be impossible for any human to learn it all in their lifespan. Some concepts are of course going to be universal in chemistry, but others are so random that you'll probably never use them.

So my advice is to just think more about where you plan to end up with respect to Chemistry and worry more about those areas. It doesn't mean disregard your studies if you have a test coming up about a particular topic, just, try to develop yourself some perspective on where you're headed.

/r/chemistry Thread