Conservation training and chemistry

I am an undergraduate art student who is very interested in art
conservation training.  I work in the print rooms at the Elvehjem
Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and my
exposure to art handling, etc, has provided the fodder for my
interest.  Most, if not all, of the graduate programs I've looked
into require a good amount of chemistry classes as a prerequisite.
I've enrolled in my first intro chemistry course and am having an
extremely difficult time with it.

My concerns are: what if I can't hack it in chemistry?  Are there
alternative routes to take to go through conservation training?  I'm
also curious as to what kind of role chemistry plays in
conservation--obviously the interactions between materials are
important, but since I've never really spoken with any professionals
in the field, I'm interested in actual applications.

Any insight and/or advice you can provide me will be very useful.

Lisa Muccigrosso


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:40
                 Distributed: Monday, February 28, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-18-40-034
                                  ***