Best ways to study physics, maths and STEM
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!
Hope these help, comment any tips I’ve missed or drop me a message and I can add them!
