I had to get up to date with general and physical chemistry over the last few months for my graduate studies; my background is in theoretical physics and I've not taken any chemistry above GCSEs.
I spent my nights working through a couple of chemistry textbooks and man, I loved it. It's an exquisitely complex subject: I wouldn't call it elegant, but there's an intrinsic beauty in the sheer practicality of it.
A lot of very, very smart people I've spoken to - most of whom had taken chemistry for A-levels - have found it odd that I've enjoyed it so much. Their memories of the subject are in complete contradiction to mine (literally speaking, because they associate chemistry with memorisation).
The difference, I think, is the fact that my introduction to chemistry came after I became competent with quantum and statistical physics: the fundamental topics of physics from which chemistry as a whole springs forth. Now that I think about it, the introductory chemistry book I studied at first would have been unbearably frustrating if all I had to work with were constitutive relations and hand-wavy arguments.
Chemistry was dull until I took Atomic Physics at university (where I was reading Physics); I still remember the textbook, the masterpiece of brevity "Atomic Spectra" by T.P.Softley.
At that point, suddenly there was an underlying structure to it and it was no longer just the dull memorisation of facts that had made it my worst performing subject at secondary school (like you, GCSE was as far as I took it and I regret even wasting my time on it there). Far too late, of course; by then Chemistry was a distant blob in the rear-view mirror.
A lot of very, very smart people I've spoken to - most of whom had taken chemistry for A-levels - have found it odd that I've enjoyed it so much. Their memories of the subject are in complete contradiction to mine (literally speaking, because they associate chemistry with memorisation).
The difference, I think, is the fact that my introduction to chemistry came after I became competent with quantum and statistical physics: the fundamental topics of physics from which chemistry as a whole springs forth. Now that I think about it, the introductory chemistry book I studied at first would have been unbearably frustrating if all I had to work with were constitutive relations and hand-wavy arguments.