It’s a fact that all study programmes need changes; some of them need urgent and radical changes, and that’s the case of most of the Chilean university careers.
The curriculum of my study programme is so extensive, it has so much chemistry, it’s hilarious because that’s what the career is all about, but it is excessive, I think that some of the subjects are useless, or at least they are not indispensable. Maybe it should have a year where you decide whether you want a program dedicated to research or a program dedicated to industries, etc.
In Chemistry, and in the other careers of the faculty, the workload is huge, is so stressful and this lasts for six years, which is approximately the length of the study programme.
The faculty infrastructures are not bad; we have an old building where the laboratories, professors’ offices, etc. are. And some years ago a new facility was built and I think it was totally good, we needed that, also I think it would be a nice idea to “rework” the old building and make it more comfortable.
As I said before, some years ago a new facility was built, and it is amazing, it has more technology, to open the doors that lead you to the labs you have to have a card, if you don’t have it then they keep closed. That’s good because it restricts the area to the people that have to be there. In the old building, everyone can get in.
Finally, the teaching methods, here I can say that is the hardest thing to change because it’s hard to find a person who has a passion for teaching (and good at it) and also good at the subject. This is so relevant and important because it affects directly in the teaching methods, but I can say that I noticed that there are a lot of professors trying to improve their methods for good.
