#edinburgh physics

Before I start, let me just clarify one thing, having an aesthetically pleasing set of notes doesn’t mean your life is under control and you’re a perfect student. Except when I want to make a pretty post, most of my notes are absolute crap, with notes squeezed into margins, arrows rearranging things I wrote in the wrong order. Because whilst your profs and lecturers might say “make sure you have clear working”, heck unless I’m writing assignments, the notes I learn best from are the ones with tonnes of info crammed into it. So, to the actual advice...

1) Do lots of practice questions - A lot of the time you might think you understand a topic, but then do an exam question and be like “huh, wtf is going on here?!”. Do the practice questions, but do the whole question unaided BEFORE you even open the worked solution document (if there is one). It can be SO tempting to just look through the worked solutions and be like “yea, I think I’d understand and be able to do that” when actually, without the solutions you probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.

2) Ask for help - particularly with maths and physics, if you just have textbook answers or online answers, if you’re just given a plain old answer but that doesn’t match your answer, it can be completely bewildering, if you just don’t know how to get to that answer. Put it away, try it again from scratch tomorrow, and if you still can’t do it, it’s time to pool in other people’s knowledge. If you have a friend on your course, you could ask them if they’ve already done that one. Two heads are better than one! Sometimes just discussing how you’d go about doing it is enough to give you a new idea. If they can’t do it, it’s time to pool in some more senior help. See if there’s a peer mentoring scheme at your institution, if not, drop your lecturer an email and if it’s a simple enough question, they might be able to answer it by email, if you’ve got a few questions you need answering, or you’re really baffled by the underlying concepts, ask to come an see them, either in an office hour if they have one, or if not, most of the time staff will be more than happy to arrange time for you to come see them. You may feel like you’re wasting their time or intruding, but remember, this is their job. You shouldn’t feel bad for asking someone for help when teaching students is literally part of their job. I’m known for being the most high maintenance student to all my lecturers. I probably email them once a week. They all know who I am even though they teach >700 students. But when you show that you’re actually interested in their subject and you have enthusiasm, and make sure you thank them for their help, they’re often more than happy to help because people asking interesting questions that make them think about how they do things and teach and ways to approach problems, they appreciate it! Note this is just generally, occasionally you may come across a reluctant lecturer or one who only teaches because it’s part of their contract and they have to, in which case, find someone else to ask!

3) Find more resources - don’t understand the way the textbook / lecturer explains a topic? Find another one, go to google, look at Yahoo answers even! One good reliable source of stuff is Khan academy videos - I found them invaluable for my Linear Algebra course last semester, bloody lifesaver. If you’ve got mates at other unis doing similar courses, see if they’ve done that topic and have lecture notes on them, see if that helps!

I’ve been getting anxious about next semester, next semester I’m going to be very stressed, taking far too many credits than I should be, and it’s not going to be easy, but just having this sudden realisation of all the people I’ve lost, and cherished, it’s hurts a lot, but given the fact they never could go to university, they never could do the things I’m doing, it’s made it just that bit easier, because part of me just has this feeling that me doing the things they can’t, I’m living the life they can’t.

I love the subject I study more than anything else, and I feel beyond privileged that I can do this, and one of the best institutions in the world, with friends I’ve grown to care about in a way I never thought I would or could.

So on Friday was my last day of lectures for the semester! Now it’s revision week then I’ve got my exams spread out between 9th December and 20th December so it’s likely to be a slightly boring couple of weeks. Here’s a little update of how I’ve found my modules this semester.

Physics 1A: probably my most enjoyable module, no surprises there given I study a physics degree so I do love the subject. I’ve got my coursework mark back (physics coursework is a combination of weekly reading tests, fortnightly written assignments and a class test we did). My overall (unmoderated) coursework grade is 92% which is an A1 grade (the gradings for Pre-Honours go from A1 down to A3 which are all Firsts, then B is a 2:1 and C is a 2:2)

Introduction to Linear Algebra: I’d say this is the most conceptually challenging course I’ve taken this semester, a lot of the concepts are new and it’s mainly vectors. I’ve definitely spend more hours on this than any of my other courses, because we’ve had 2 weekly reading quizzes, a weekly assessment, and a weekly hand in so if you get behind on just one of these it’s very hard to catch up. My advice to anyone thinking of taking this course is do everything as it comes so you don’t end up all stressed. My coursework mark for this was 97% (A1).

Astrobiology: this course is a bit out there, and it’s a mash up of all the sciences nd geology so it’s very hard to perform well on all of it as everyone has different strengths, and it’s kind of helped me overcome my obsession with wanting to do perfectly at everything. I haven’t got my coursework mark yet as they use your best 4/5 assignments and my 5th one hasn’t been marked yet and because I did badly on the first assignment I’m hoping my mark will go up. If I didn’t, my mark is at least 84%, which is an A2.

Having a weekend at home after I had quite a meltdown this week. I’ve had a lot of insecurities at uni - everyone else just seems like they’re absolutely thriving, and I just feel like I’m really struggling with managing work and life and knowing how much is the right amount of work to do, and that everyone seems like they’re doing really well at the moment, academically and they all have vibrant social lives. As someone who suffers with social anxiety, I find it extremely difficult to adjust to things, to socialise with new people, to look after myself properly. I had a workshop on Thursday and I was very tired, and everyone else just seemed to understand absolutely everything that was going on, and I knew nothing! I ended up completely breaking down in tears in front of a workshop full of about 40 people, and I just grabbed my bag and did the one thing my anxiety always tells me to do - ran away. I honestly think I would’ve dropped out of my course there and then if it hadn’t been for the director of teaching / course organiser / lecturer who was in the workshop and saw what happened and knew something wasn’t right. He followed me out and stood in my way so I didn’t just leave in the state I was in. He listened to everything I said, and was so reassuring, literally saying that other people pretending they knew everything going on was “bullshit” and I couldn’t agree more. People cope with new environments in different ways, some people try to protect themselves by pretending they’re not vulnerable, they want people to think they know everything because they’re scared people will think they’re stupid, and I completely understand why people respond like that. But I am almost a polar opposite, I honestly will straight up say when I don’t understand something or when I’m stuck, but because so many people around me are acting as if they know it all, I do feel like the ugly duckling who is just a bit dumber than everyone else, and I’m struggling a lot. I feel very lucky that I’ve got such a good team of lecturers and tutors around me because the one who saw me on Thursday has sent me such a nice email and I’m going to see him next week to go through some stuff. I’ve been in a similar situation in maths workshops as well but not to the same level of breakdown because I’m high key terrified of everyone there so I’m actually too scared to show any sign of weakness as they’re all a lot smarter than me. I really am working on maths at trying to get better.