Oil and Water by Amira

Oil and Water by Amira - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

In Chemistry, we learned OIL RIG: Oxidation is loss and Reduction is gained. It's a simple way to memorize how electrons move in a reaction. But, it also showed how my brain cells moved in class. It felt that during lecture my brain was being oxidized. I felt that I was continuously losing information with each powerpoint slide that passed by. The formulas and equations all grew more questions and confusion no matter how many notes I took. But in lab, the pieces began to fit back together. The same information that I was so confused by had been gained back by experiencing it firsthand. The ability to watch the solutions change color, preparing the solutions and determining the outcome had made the reduction happen. That is where I felt I truly learned. But when the written exams had started to approach, everything I thought I knew began to crumble. The math, the equations and the lengthy calculations didn't relate to the experiments I had just done. I realized that I could balance the mass of a substance in lab but couldn't balance a chemical equation on my lecture test to save my life. I started to spend hours memorizing formulas, making flashcards and repeating practicing the same equations over and over again. But no matter how much I studied, the test always looked different from what I had studied to do. The more I had struggled, was the more I wanted to give up. Then, after failing my second test everything changed. I told myself that instead of separating lab from lecture, I had to view them as 2 different pieces of the same puzzle. When I actually was able to piece them together, I realised that the math I was struggling for so long weren't random numbers, they were ways to measure and predict what I had already been observing in lab. The next studying method I tried was applying what I learned in lab directly to my lecture material. Suddenly, the math started to make sense. What I first didn't understand now had meaning, and that transformed how I approached learning entirely. Chemistry taught me another lesson besides Oil Rig, it taught me that memorizing alone is never enough. I learned to connect concepts that had different formats, and how to adapt to different thinking when not knowing what to do. I had stopped studying harder and began to study smarter. So, even though I didn't enjoy the struggle I learned something besides chemistry in that class, and that is a lesson I will carry with me in every subject that I encounter.