Watch the Video: Chemistry Major loves to ‘blow things up’

Meet Nora, a Chemistry Major at UW-Green Bay. While attending the UW-Green Bay, Manitowoc Campus, she fell in love with chemistry after taking a General Chemistry class with Prof. Amy Kabrhel. “Her teaching style is infectious. The way she taught just made me want to learn more. Formula on the board, she’s going to show you how to blow something up with it.” The hands-on experiments, participation in research and professors who take the time to know every student has inspired Nora pursue her graduate degree and make changes surrounding how medications are produced.

Transcript: When I started at the Manitowoc campus, I was actually unsure of what I wanted to pursue. So, taking General Chemistry with Dr Amy Kabrhel, her teaching style is infectious. The way she taught just made me want to learn more. Formula on the board, she’s going to show you how to blow something up with it. So, that solidified my decision in continuing on the Chemistry path. Being at the main campus has been such a positive experience. Professors here really work hard to make what we’re learning into something interesting. So, the hands-on learning here, is very helpful in actually understanding why something is happening. My favorite chemistry lab so far has been the Organic Chemistry 2 Lab. My favorite lab we did in there actually was making homemade glow sticks so, definitely a fun thing to be doing. The professors here on campus are so fabulous at making time for students. Like they just know your name, they know what you’re going for, they know what you are hoping to do after graduation. Sometimes some of the professors ask me questions about stuff that I don’t even remember talking to them about. They just like remember so much about students you know. It’s a really welcoming feeling. On campus, professors are always running their own sets of research. There are opportunities to join in on their projects and get a little more hands-on experience. My goal with doing research, is to bring about change and make things better for the general population. It really bothers me seeing in the news recalls on medication or shortages because there aren’t enough products to be making them. So, my goal is to attend graduate school in pharmacy and drug research, in hopes of finding a more natural way to make medications and treatments, moving away from synthetics and using things we can be naturally sourcing, rather than creating them in a lab.