Picking a major and a minor are two of the most important choices you can make in college.

Each one can determine your future in one way or another. As a textiles, apparel and merchandising minor, I took a look at the prerequisites and was surprised to see CHEM 110 and 111 listed.

At first, I didn’t understand the connection between my obsession with fashion and chemistry. In the Undergraduate Catalog for 2008-09, under the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences, it states under ‘recommendation’ that “students who plan to major in a program offered by the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences should take chemistry and biology in high school.”

Under both the major and minor, it states that CHEM 110 and 111 are prerequisites before you can begin taking classes. So, beyond high school experience, it is required of you to learn even more chemistry once you are in college.

Obviously, in industrial fashion, dying fabrics would have some science applicable to it. How much does the chemistry taught in these two classes apply, though?

Bette Montgomery, associate professor of family, consumer and nutrition, declined to comment.

Chemistry professor Catherine Check said she believed the chemistry used in a fashion career is much more advanced than the fundamentals they teach in CHEM 110 and 111.

“I think it has something to do with the nomenclature, the general terms, that you learn in the lecture part of the course. If you learn about it in a beginner class, then that makes it easier to teach down the line,” Check said.

When looking at the course list for textiles, apparel and merchandising, classes such as FCNS 152, 351 and 353 require students to analyze fabrics and how they are made, how to process them, physical and chemical structure of fabrics, etc. Here, chemistry knowledge would come in handy, but this would only entail certain aspects of the course.

So why have students take a class that covers such a broad expanse of scientific knowledge? Couldn’t a class be generated to accommodate and teach these students what they need for their field of study?

According to Check, a concept class at a lower level already exists in the chemistry department. CHEM 100 is an even more beginner-level class that doesn’t require a lab, simply allowing students to learn the general concepts.

So how does the CHEM 111 lab fit into the basic chemistry knowledge?

“Learning in a laboratory setting tests students’ analytical skills. Following instructions, reading and being able to apply what you read to real life is important to any career one may someday have. Lab helps students with that,” Check said.

Whether these prerequisites should be required is not my question. Chemistry is somewhat applicable to the fashion world, but it may be easier for students who are already burdened by a heavy workload to focus on the important aspects that they will be able to use.

A more direct course being created may be the solution. Or perhaps these students should be required to take more chemistry in order to understand and comprehend the material easier and apply it to our chosen major or minor. Whatever the solution is, right now CHEM 110 and 111 are classes that most struggle to get through while barely gaining the knowledge needed later on.

Most students struggle with the required classes already on their plate; we shouldn’t have to wrestle with knowledge we don’t need.