Welcome to the web pages of the Division of Chemistry at the University of the South Pacific. Here you will find all the information you need about chemistry courses and programs of study at USP. We will keep you up to date with current research and tell you about our departmental and facilities and keep you up-to-date with all the news from the Department. If you need further assistance or advice about our courses please do not hesitate to contact us.
Chemistry is the central science. All aspects of technical development require people with expertise in chemistry. A basic chemical education is required by doctors, dentists, engineers, agriculturalists, foresters, factory managers, etc. Thus, there is a continuing need for chemistry teachers in the region. In addition there is an increasing need for graduates with some chemistry background for work in industry as quality control staff, production managers and in a range of government and private research laboratories, e.g. mineral exploration, environmental pollution monitoring, agriculture. The contribution of chemistry graduates to regional development is considerable.
The teaching of chemistry at degree level at USP covers courses at the 100-, 200-, 300- and postgraduate levels. Courses at the 100- and 200-levels provide a basic framework in the important aspects of modern chemistry - atomic and molecular structure, thermodynamics, kinetics, electrochemistry, inorganic, spectroscopy, structure and mechanism in organic chemistry. This `basic' knowledge is then applied at the 300-level to topics of considerable regional importance - instrumental analysis, industrial chemistry, environmental chemistry and marine chemistry. In this way students are given a clear indication of how the principles of chemistry are important in the world around them.
Postgraduate (400-level) courses combine an extension of the application of fundamental principles in situations of regional importance with a more advanced treatment of some of the basic aspects of chemistry not covered in detail in undergraduate courses, e.g. soil, food and water chemistry, natural products chemistry, biochemistry, polymer chemistry and recent advances in chromatography, and spectroscopy.
