I am curious as to each member's chemistry education. Obviously there are many here in the know more so then others and I am curious how many of them are self-taught as to formally trained. Understandably some may not wish to divulge too specifically but even just a generalization would be appreciated. I'll start.

Although I have a Bachelor's in Business my only formal chemistry education was a high school chemistry course (that I long since forgotten). All chemistry I know has been learned through forums, Wikipedia, and more recently college textbooks (both physical ones and PDF ones). Also from home lab "experiments" (you know like just making nice innocent differently colored flames of fire  ). All this learning has come in the last 2 years.

no formal chemistry education.  everything i learned was from books, chem websites, and these forums.

Just chemistry in highschool. Beside that I have just learnt from what I have read on Wikipedia, the forums and a few good books. Hoping to start a bachelors in Chemistry next year

 Almost the same for me..long ago high school chem...also ,,long since forgotten...so the past couple of years in my spare time,,I have been trying to "get it to make sense again.." TF(thank Fuck) for erowid/Rhodium,various books,, and the WWW in general--I've learnt a lot,,but not enough to share any chemistry of great (or any worth!)......... coz its already so well covered in this forum alone!
   NO shit ,,if I were to try and read the couple of gigs of data on this forum, alone would take me Years,,,plus You tube,,and SM (which is how I 'found' this wonderful forum....)
       I'd just like to say thanx to all of you who have made this such a "user friendly forum"  I like science "in general" but "the aspects" of organic chemistry,,covered by this forum,,have become to me "necessary and essential knowledge"
    TEN cheers to you Vesp,,you've doing a GREAT job,,and to all the Mods and helpers,,  thanx for your help and care....Hyppy

Found this hobby then changed my major to chem

Some people like to dive in deep you can't make much of interest here without graduate level stuff being involved.  Education is overrated.  This and other places like it are about practical chemistry.  Practical chemistry is a harsh mistress - it works or it don't.  Theoretical is all fine and dandy but knowing it too well can be a help or a hindrence, cause a lot of time things in the real world don't quite line up with theoretical.

Go back and read the Old 19th and early 20th chemistry text books - they started out doing shit really fast back in that day.   Most people here started off with stuff that is graduate level in terms of following recipes.  Some understand what they're doing and others don't.  If you don't know chemistry very deeply it is easy to be bullshitted by fancy words etc.

Saw an old thread on wetdreams the other day - someone asked if they reacted meth again would that boost the meth. 

thought of starting a thread titled "You know they don't have a clue when...."

I can detect Bullshitting in computer science but not with the same skill in chemistry.  You do need to learn to tell who is on the up and up and who is bullshitting.  Many people will outright lie and make it sound good.

Salat

 Very well put Salat,,and as you can see from Sedits comment, it can be a True Passion, and for many here it is, in varying degrees of both knowledge and understanding....

 In many ways, this type of chemistry often "Requires" flexible thinking and many "educated guesses"
 As you well know Salat,, there "Isnt ONLY one way"--- Our beloved Jon has discovered many neat things, to many's benefit...there ARE a LOT of very clever people here
 Vesp you've done a great job, and as for college,,do what's the Most Fun
 cheers  hyppy

Our beloved jon....

Now there's a term I never thought I'd hear....

You're slipping jon!!

Salat

Physics Bsc dropout here. No formal education in chemistry besides school. Self taught from old USSR books, now updating and re-learning everything to modern concepts/English terminology.

Edit: ahh and forgot - next year applying to university to get a degree in chemistry.

Harsh mistress is sometimes the case since we play those games.  I was mostly just poking fun of jon.

My husband has posted a few times.  He has Aspergers so in general he tends to piss people off without trying.  Even when he belonged to the hive he didn't talk much.   It's a bit frustrating because sometimes people don't believe in him because of alter ego games and the SWIM sort of talk used on these forums sometimes.  I really am an advanced newbie and he's self taught.  I once posted a pic of one of his setups and it was pristine while mine look like something the cat drug in.

Is there a ghost in the avatar for real?  I just photoshopped a cat with a picture of one of my setups and added some background but it was pretty much random.

Salat