As in any field of science in this new age of technological advancement, chemistry is influenced by these advancements through the instruments they use and the techniques they employ to use them. In today's world, the knowledge of how to operate and interpret several types of instruments is so extremely important that some companies, when advertising jobs for chemists, include the phrase "with knowledge of using such and such instrument strongly recommended." To provide this recommended skills, the Chemistry Department at the University of Scranton has put in the money and time to expose their students to the techniques of using these these instruments as soon and as often as possible in their academic careers. (To see this influence, click here.)
Nowhere in the public laboratories of the Chemistry Department can a student not find an instrument of some kind. Besides the main Instruments Laboratory in Loyola 316 where the majority of the instruments reside, there are pH meters and Gas Chromatographs (GC) in the 400 level labs, and residing in one of these labs are portable Infrared (IR) Spectrometer with a computer attached to interpret the signal. On the first floor resides the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer. All these instruments are explained, through theory and/or application, through class and research, and the average student will come away from his/her years at the University with the basic knowledge of the major types of machines and maybe through research, some of the specifics of the particular.