We'll try to schedule informal events as well. More on this to follow soon. When you tell a friend that you are taking a chem course you are met with an audible exhalation of disgust or frustration. Others will sympathize with you for your terrible misfortune. It is difficult to fully convey what you think about something, much more how you feel about it, and the reasons as to why.
Most people believe that one's ability to comprehend chemistry or mathematics declines with age.
But for the rest of us, our mastery of the subject can only increase. Much like math, the more work you put into it, the better you understand it. Most people just conveniently hide behind the aforementioned consensus. You are at Brown. You return to the text at the end of the semester, the same text you once found to be incomprehensible, and you perceive it as childish and crude in its attempts to describe that which you now know at a higher level.