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Michael Kaess, Jesse Easter, and Kim Cohn'
Department of Chemistry, California State University, Bakersfield, Bakersfield, CA 93311
Before 1970 most undergraduates had little or no experience with computers. Although almost every college and university in the United States had computers, they were usually in separate buildings where some of the undergraduate students might run programs they created in a computer class. The introduction of microminiaturized logic circuits in the early 1970s made it possible to build inexpensive computer systems, which were quickly integrated into research and teaching situations. In 1985, the first series of articles appeared in this Journal discussing the application of spreadsheets to problems in chemistry (1). Today, many students come to chemistry classes with some background in the use of some programs, usually word processing packages. Recent articles (2) have suggested that it is more important for students to make use of commercial software packages than to require students to prepare and implement programs themselves.
Rationale
Because our school accepts students directly from high school as well as many transfer students from two-year colleges, some students in upper-division courses have never used a computer while others have built, modified, or programmed computers. Consequently, one of the problems faculty at our school face is getting students who have had limited or no experience with computers to use computers as a tool in chemistry classes in the same way they use calculators. In addition, the faculty need to help students who have had extensive computer experience to integrate and reinforce their skills. To help both of these groups, we used experienced students as student programmers. They prepared computer modules that made use of a microcomputer to introduce computational chemistry, molecular mechanics, and modeling. The...