Updated 11/23/21

Some of you may be wondering why you need to take chemistry.  Fortunately for you, I’ve put together a list of ten excellent reasons for expanding your mind with atoms and molecules and such:

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10)  It’s fun to say Erlenmeyer!

Pictured:  Fun

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9)  If your parents ground you, dissolve their car!

Tommy’s chemistry knowledge caused the car to vanish nearly without a trace. Unfortunately, police got suspicious when they discovered that his CDs had all been removed from the wreckage.

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8)  It gives you an excellent excuse to carry a periodic table around with you. As if you need one.

Though people envied Dr. Winslow’s cool periodic table, they wished he’d stop talking about his colon surgery.

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7)  Colleges like it more than “Basketweaving 101.”

Though Jonas’s love of baskets kept him from being accepted into college, he eventually had the last laugh.

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6)  It makes you look smart, like famed expert on all things science, Bill Nye.

Here’s his high school picture.  Mr. Nye is a great spokesman for science education, as long as you overlook the whole “Activeion” thing.

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5)  Learn what’s in your school lunch and how to kill it.

While everybody agreed that the fish of the day was good, students at Andrew Jackson High School couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

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4)  You don’t have to mess with messy dead things like you do in biology.

Sheila liked her biology class, but was a little concerned that each of the subjects for dissection came in trash bags.

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3)  Goggles, goggles, goggles!

Everybody admired her commitment to safety, but some thought that Stacy had taken the “Proper Lab Practices” video a little too seriously.

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2)  You don’t have to get all sweaty like you do in P.E.

The excitement level about having a swimming program drastically decreased when they realized that the pool was filled with collected sweat as a “cost cutting measure.”

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1)  All major corporations are now asking job applicants to balance equations.

On one hand, Laura thought that his inexperience might cause problems in the workplace. On the other hand, there was something about the way that he counted nitrogen atoms that really appealed to her. 

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Photo credits:

#10 – Erlenmeyer lady:  By English: Airman 1st Class Jason Epley, U.S. Air Force [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

#9 – Dead car:  By Wing-Chi Poon [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

#8 – Dr. Winslow’s colon:  By Internet Archive Book Images [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons.  Note:  I have been unable to find any information about Dr. Winslow online, but, in case it wasn’t clear, please be aware that this is a joke and not meant to suggest anything about his health or personality.

#7 – Really big basket:  By Photo shot by Derek Jensen (Tysto (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  By the way, this picture shows the Longaberger basket company corporate headquarters in Ohio.  If you’d like to schedule a visit to Longaberger, visit http://www.longaberger.com/homestead/.

#6 – Dr. Hawking: By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

#5 – Fish of the day:  The Sea Troll, by Theodor Kittelsen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

#4 – Dissection:  By Meagan Jean Wooley (originally posted to Flickr as Necropsy) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Incidentally, this photo is of a dog’s testicle, and I’m very proud of not making a testicle joke on this page.

#3 – Wetsuit: Joe Mabel [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

#2 – Pool: By ThomasMaxe (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

#1 – Interview: By bpsusf (http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfbps/4607149870/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.