Bill Mitchell '04
Major: Chemistry
Minor: Chinese
Activities: Nordic skiing (also the nordic skiing
webmaster); IM ultimate frisbee; triathlon; photography
Less than two years after graduating from Breck, I have
firmly rooted myself in my studies at Carleton.
I spent the last summer doing chemistry research with one of the
Carleton professors, investigating a catalyst for making biodegradeable
plastics from a chemical derived from corn.
I am one of the co-authors for our paper, published this winter in
Macromolecules. This summer I will be
returning to the same lab for more research, before going to
Many of these activities are essentially continuations of
analogous ones at Breck. Breck's Science
Research program really helped me fit in to the chemistry department
immediately. Because of my research
experience, I was accepted into a research lab after freshman year despite
heavy competition from sophomores and juniors.
If I hadn't been involved in research at Breck and learned some of the
techniques used in my lab at Carleton, I wouldn't have had a chance of being
accepted having not yet taken organic chemistry.
Unsurprisingly, thirteen years of Chinese prepared me well
for taking Chinese in college. Although
in high school I complained about the volume of Chinese homework on a daily
basis, I now appreciate just how well it hammered the fundamentals of Chinese
into my head. Now I find the challenge
is pushing myself as hard as Wong Laoshi pushed our class, so that I can come
away feeling that I really know the material.
Many of my teachers at Breck had great influences on my success here at Carleton, including Ms. Fruen, Ms. Johnson, and even a Breck Research alumna by inspiring me to pursue science research. Wong Laoshi influenced me by holding me and the Chinese classes to a set of high expectations, Mr. Moos by providing the challenge I was looking for in an English class, and Mr. Kohl by the varied hands-on math projects--including building a small trebuchet.
