CHM4930 -
SENIOR SEMINAR, Section 2
FALL 2009
Instructor: R. Lopez
de la Vega Time:
2:00 -3:50 pm
Place: CP 115 Office: CP 329
e-mail address: lopezdel@fiu.edu
Office hours: Monday
12:00-1:pm
Course objectives: To build professional skills,
including writing a resume, interviewing, searching of chemical and biochemical
databases, reading and comprehension of the chemical and biochemical
literature, selection of a lead reference(s) and an appropriate topic,
preparation and presentation of a seminar, and writing a paper conforming to
Grading: Resume 15%
Seminar
presentation 50%
Paper 20%
Attendance 15%
Exit
Exam Grade
Separately
Notes: To get a passing grade for this class, you must get at least
20% on your Exit exam. The student will take the exam one time
halfway through the semester and if needed will take it again during towards
the end of the semester..
Notes:
1)
Write and submit a working resume via e-mail as an attachment to Dr. Lopez de
la Vega, deadline to be announced. Guidelines can be accessed by following the link:
http://career.fiu.edu/index.php?id=71
read through each section of Resume Tips including RESUME CRITIQUE
GUIDELINES. Please note that Career
Services has a “walk-in” resume review service that is free of charge:
1:30-4:30 pm daily except for Tuesdays, GC 230. Please utilize the latter
service and ask the Career Services representative to “sign off” on your resume
before submitting it for credit.
2) Your seminar should be
no more than 30 minutes in length: 25 minutes for the talk with 5 minutes for
the question and answer period. Your
seminar and paper may be focused on a topic in chemistry and biochemistry that
highlights at least one article or full paper (no communications, notes,
letters, short articles, perspectives, or reviews) published in the last two
years of the following jounals: the Journal
of the American Chemical Society, Biochemistry, Journal of Organic Chemistry,
or Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
We urge you to consider papers that are from 5-8 published pages. Alternately
your seminar may be about the research you have been carrying out during your
stay at FIU. You can begin the search for a topic by
electronic profiling of the titles and abstracts of articles provided in the
Table of Contents of the issues of the journal of interest. To initiate this
process, go to http://pubs.acs.org, select the journal
of interest, specify the year (2008 - 2009), and open the Table of Contents for
the issue(s) of interest. Note that you
can also access HTML or PDF versions of entire articles at this site.
Alternatively, you can use a database, such as SciFinder
Scholar, to search for papers on topics of interest to you. Your seminar and paper topic and lead
reference(s) must be approved as a result of a meeting with Dr. Lopez no later than September 21,
2009. To initiate approval, please
complete Topic
approval form and forward it to your instructor by e-mail or leave it at
his mailbox at your earliest convenience.
Dates and times for the seminars will be assigned on a random
basis. If you are unable to give your
tal
3) You must submit an
abstract for your talk to your Dr. Lopez at least one week prior to the day of
your seminar. Also, please provide your
lead instructor with a hard copy of your PowerPoint presentation or your
transparencies one day before the day of your talk.
4) You must submit a paper
within seven days of your presentation that covers the major points of your
seminar. The text of your paper should
be 5-6 pages in length (double spaced); additional pages will include figures,
tables, photos, and references. The
paper should conform to the
5) You will be allowed to
miss one day of seminar presentations without penalty. Additional absences will be penalized up to
5% of your final grade per absence.
6)
Cheating or assisting other students in cheating is a violation of University
policy and will be punished. For further
information please refer to the University Code of
Academic Conduct.
7)
As per University policy, a grade of incomplete will only be given “…for work not completed because of
serious interruption not caused by the student’s own negligence.” An incomplete will only be given after
consultation with me and the preparation and signing of a written agreement
outlining the reason for the incomplete and a timetable for making up the
missing work.
Forms (click to download
form) and useful links.
Seminar topic and
approval form (word version)
Seminar topic and appoveal form (pdf version)
Tentative schedule:
|
Date |
Speaker
|
Topic - location |
|
August 28 |
|
Introduction to course |
|
September 4 |
|
No meeting today |
|
September 11 |
Patricia Pereira-Pujol,
Information Services |
“Searching Databases” room GL 280 |
|
September 18 |
Dr. Kathleen Watson |
“preparation,
organization, and delivery of presentations; comments on PowerPoint slides” PCA 165 |
|
September 21 |
Deadline for formal approval of topic and lead references |
|
|
September 25 |
Ivette Duarte |
“Interviewing Skills” GC 316 |
|
|
|
|
|
October 2 |
|
|
|
October 9 |
Chemistry
Exit Exam |
“tentative date” |
|
October 16 |
|
|
|
October 23 |
|
|
|
October 30 |
Student
Presentations |
|
|
November 6 |
Student
Presentations |
|
|
November 13 |
Student
Presentations |
|
|
November 20 |
Student
Presentations |
|
|
November 27 |
Student
Presentations |
|
|
December 4 |
|
|
|
December 11 |
|
|