The Final Chemistry Experiment: A Journey of Growth for the Class of 2026

The Final Chemistry Experiment: A Journey of Growth for the Class of 2026

Everything ends where it all began.

Exams are just around the corner. The pressure, the doubts, the nerves start to build but before they take over, let’s take a moment to pause, look back and realise just how far students have come.

Two years ago, standing in front of the chemistry lab door, everything was still unwritten. There were expectations, uncertainties, and just-emerging curiosities. And that sentence, fixed above the entrance like both a promise and a challenge at the same time: “in this laboratory mistakes are expected, respected, inspected, corrected.”

In front of those words, encouraged by Professor Vincenzo Rosario La Franca Pittarresi, (Head of Science Department), the students began their first chemistry lesson with an unusual invitation: to write a letter to their future selves. A simple, almost quiet gesture, which already contained the full meaning of the journey that was about to begin.

Today, just a few months before graduation, that same laboratory has become the stage for an ending that is as symbolic as it is surprising.
For their final experiment (the synthesis of aspirin), the professor prepared a surprise: transforming the lab into a real mad lab. Warning tape, danger signs, lights, and theatrical details all hinting ironically, at an experiment “gone wrong.”
And then there they were, the students, dressed as mad scientists, in lab coats and goggles, laughing and ready for the customary photo. A light-hearted moment that perfectly captured the spirit in which these two years have been lived: curiosity, play, mistakes, discovery and growth.

But the biggest surprise was yet to come.
Professor Pittarresi handed back those letters students wrote on their very first day. Forgotten pages, left waiting for two years, ready to return to the hands of those who had written them.
Reading them again was not easy. For many, it was a deeply moving moment: naïve words, hopes, fears; all still there, yet seen through different eyes.

There were students like Davide, who had hoped not to lose his curiosity along the way, wishing that “that passion for knowledge hasn’t been extinguished from the hardships,” reminding himself that whatever direction he might take, he would still find a way to give value to what he was learning: “whatever path you decide to take… you’ll be using this knowledge to help people.”

Among them, Nina’s letter tells a different story: at the beginning of her journey, she did not imagine a future in science at all. Chemistry was not her favourite subject. And yet, over time, something changed. Lessons, challenges, revisions, small achievements, everything contributed to transforming that distance into passion.
In her letter, she wrote to herself: “Dear future Nina, chemistry hasn’t always been your favourite subject… but it has always been a big part of your life and you shouldn’t let go… if you push through, you can go on to live a life around the subjects you really love…”
Words written without knowing that, two years later, they would become a kind of prophecy, as Nina has chosen chemistry as her university path.

Perhaps this is the deepest meaning of these two years: realising that while you study, you change. That your certainties shift and redefine themselves. That learning does not simply mean accumulating knowledge, but also learning to look within, to recognise what truly matters. Sometimes even to remind yourself, as Virginia wrote: “enjoy the process and not just view it as a mandatory task.”

The laboratory, which has welcomed them all this time, has not been just a physical place. It has been a space of transformation. A place where making mistakes was not a failure, but a necessary condition for growth.

And so, returning there one last time, everything takes on a different meaning.
The laughter in costume, the silence while reading the letters, the tearful eyes: different moments, yet connected by the same invisible thread. The one that links the first day to the last.

Everything ends where it all began.
But those who walk out of that door today are no longer the same as those who, two years ago, first walked in.