Due to the enormous importance of polymers and polymeric materials in today's society, a large fraction of scientists ends up working in the polymer/plastics industry. In light of this fact, chemistry majors and non-majors are being trained in the fundamentals of polymer chemistry in a new interdisciplinary course with an accompanying laboratory. The course has a decidedly industrial orientation, and is widely publicized among local polymer/plastics companies, for the benefit of industrial laboratory technicians. In offering the laboratory component of the course, a new Gel Permeation Chromatograph and a new Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer are being used along with existing polymer analysis instrumentation holdings.
