How to Survive the First Year of a Physics degree
~A summary of first year~ What to do and what not to do
Itâs about that time of year when the year 13s and gap yah students are starting to think about the new chapter of their life that will (pandemic allowing) commence in Autumn. First year. Iâve just submitted my last piece of coursework for the year, in my Mathematical Physics degree at the University of Edinburgh, and I feel Iâve learnt so much this year. Not just calculus and quantum mechanics, but I mean life stuff. As well as a lot of physics and maths, that is.
Tip 1 - donât do all the work.
Yes, I know your lecturers have told you the importance of working. I know your lecturers have told you to do all the exercises in the textbook as reading before the lectures. Yes I know it seems like everyone else has done all the exercises. But no, you donât need to. I started off first semester on a course called Introduction to Linear Algebra, and in each of our reading guides were a list of exercises to do in the textbook - usually âdo all the odd numbers exercises from chapters 1-2, plus question 34 and 40âł and Iâd stay up until like 3am every day working through them as there were about 50-60 exercises per chapter, and a few chapters per week, and I was like âoh my god. How is everyone getting everything done, how is everyone doing all of this?â and when I got texts from people like âhey becky have you done question 17 yetâ âhave you read chapter 2Ⲡbut no no no and no. Yes, someone else *may* have done question 17, it doesnât mean you have to. Pick the most important exercises to do, pick the ones you donât understand really how to do, spend time learning the techniques behind problem solving and donât just do questions for the sake of doing questions. I ended up just being like *nope* and just picking, sometimes only about 5 questions (rather than 120...) and doing them properly, and I got 94% on that course so - you donât *need* to do it all to do well.
The key thing I learnt in semester 1 was -Â you have as much work to do as you want to do. If you finish all your work, youâll find more to do, so the thing you have to learn is what the right amount of work is *for you* not for your friend, not for your course mates, not for that person who keeps asking you the answers to the hand ins x y and z, for you.
Tip 2 - donât take extra courses unless you have to
I inflicted extra course credits on myself, meaning I was taking 1/3 more courses than most (I think all...) people in my year. My advice - donât. It may make you, or even other people think youâre âacademically drivenâ or something, but in reality, it means your spreading yourself too thin and you donât have the time to invest in other stuff, like reading around the bits you find interesting. Just because you *can* take extra courses donât mean you *should*.
Tip 3 - ask questions
I have become *known* in my yeargroup, in the School of Physics, by my lecturers and TAs and tutors, for being literally the first person to ask questions. Iâve had drunk classmates come up to me on pub crawls saying âomg Becky thanks for asking those questions in lectures, I was too scared to ask but I didnât understand that either,â - trust me, youâre not the only one who doesnât understand something. The general rule of thumb is, in the lectures, if your lecturer is up for answering questions (some lecturers on content heavy course are very pushed for time so prefer questions at the end), then stick to those questions about the content of the course - eg. clarifying something on the slides, asking for them to explain a concept you donât get. If you want to know something *extra* that isnât on the syllabus but youâre curious about knowing, go up to them at the end for that, or drop them an email, or if itâs too long to put in an email, ask to see them in their office.
Trust me when I say, once youâve established a relationship with the people who teach you, itâs much easier to ask them stuff. Once you get to know whoâs good at answering questions, and who isnât so good at answering questions, and you have a lil circle of people you can go ask stuff, it becomes a lot easier.
On a side note, sometimes the best people to ask your questions to are you TAs/tutors. Theyâre usually PhD students and so theyâve done this stuff a lot more recently, and remember more recently being a student, so they can be a good person to ask and often have more time and are more chill than lecturers and easier to approach if youâre intimidated by Chair-Royal-Professor-Sir-MBE because you donât want to look âstupidâ, then try asking the TAs.
This has become quite a long post... so Iâll stop here for now, but I will have more general adjusting to uni posts coming up throughout the summer, so stay tuned.
My DMs & Asks are always open if you have any questions about studying physics or studying at Edinburgh or studying Physics at Edinburgh ;)
