A reality show about a college course — a chemistry class no less?
That’s what “ChemLab Boot Camp” is. The 14-part series of short videos is being released one episode at a time on the online learning site of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The novel show follows a diverse group of 14 freshmen as they struggle to master the laboratory techniques of chemistry and allied fields during an intense three-week course that MIT has offered for years. Just like on the “Survivor” TV series, they undergo a competitive challenge with a free meal dangled as the winner’s reward, but the real prize — beyond the equivalent of three semester hours — is a job in a campus research lab.
“We wanted to show pre-college students how exciting and useful chemistry is,” explained Dr. John Essigmann, a chemistry professor and executive producer of the series. “And, very practically, we wanted to show how the students get the skills that it takes to get a real job.”
“ChemLab Boot Camp” blends educational purposes and entertainment values with rocking background songs, close-up shots of faces and individual students sharing their thoughts and feelings. One student even raps a bit. George Zaidan, the producer and director, describes the series as “enter-teachment.”
“We weren’t thinking a reality show like ‘Jersey Shore,’ that kind of reality show. We were just thinking: What is it really like being a freshman at MIT, taking a very intense laboratory course for the first time?” said Zaidan, a freelance producer and 2008 MIT graduate.
Unlike standard TV fare, Zaidan said, the content has not been manipulated and no casting has been done to maximize drama. The 14 students who applied for the course — eight Asian, four White and two African-American — were accepted and appear in the videos.
