The first thing that every freshman BioChem student comes to hate about Seattle University is the punishing and perplexing schedule. Freshman year begins with 4 mandatory core classes in the discipline, with labs, plus a single elective, but, the workload isn’t the whole problem. Somehow, after many years of complaints, the scheduling office has never figured out a way to organize the core classes into one manageable chunk of time. Because of this, the BioChem cohort spends 10-12 hours on campus at least 3 days a week, with many long unnecessary periods of aimless downtime.
It was a Thursday afternoon in a first-floor, drop-ceiling classroom at Seattle University, and it was raining (like always) when the Calc 1 class Mark Chen was in finally concluded. The professor finished his thought and turned to erase the board as the students filed out into the hallway, digging into their bags for umbrellas and jackets.