- #1
Zarathustra1
- 28
- 0
In my entire educational history, never have I been so diligent about my classes than I am now with my physics and math courses. Beginning my physics education, I now have a direction in life and, along with it, a reason to study. When I study physics and math, I study it like I'm going to be using it the rest of my life. In the past I've treated almost each and every one of my classes, especially in high school, as if I was only learning it for the sake of passing the tests. As such, I didn't do very well in high school (yet, strangely enough, somehow I managed to ace my liberal education classes last year, my freshmen year of college).
Now, there is a lot of information here I could be acquiring in my studies. I mean a lot. Most of my focus goes into learning the things I need to do well the tests, as that is the first priority, but this information is only a small portion of what I could be learning. I also put some effort into acquiring some of the "less necessary" (with strong emphasis on the quotation marks) information. But there's so much of it! Taking all of my other classes into account, I need to be choosey about what I spend my time on.
A point in case: the last few chapters studied in my Physics I course (which I just took a test on today, and I think I did very well!), which dealt with topics from work, to potential and kinetic energy, to momentum, collisions, and center of mass, there was one small section in one of the chapters that delt with rocket motion (defined in my book as the motion of a system undergoing a kind of "continuous explosion"), that was not included on any of the homework or the tests. In effect, we skipped this section; as to why I have yet to ask the professor about. This, among other things, is an example of the "less necessary" information I spoke of.
My questions are simple: should I take the time to study this sort of information with the possibility that I might need it later on? If so, how much time ought I spend on it? Also, in the case that there is an excess to the point that I can't learn it all, in what way should I distinguish which of it is most important?
This last question, I understand, would be a hundred times easier if I knew what sort of field in physics I was planning to enter. However, I am still trudging my way through basic calculus-based classical mechanics, and my knowledge of physics is currently by far too limited for me to decide what fields I would like to go into.
I can only begin to imagine how vast this science (as well as other sciences) is. Students have asked physics professors about concepts which they have never even heard of. In that, much to my dismay since it is my intention to understand the way this world works, I don't believe it is possible to know everything there is to know about physics. As such, as I mentioned earlier, I must be choosey about what I learn.
Now, there is a lot of information here I could be acquiring in my studies. I mean a lot. Most of my focus goes into learning the things I need to do well the tests, as that is the first priority, but this information is only a small portion of what I could be learning. I also put some effort into acquiring some of the "less necessary" (with strong emphasis on the quotation marks) information. But there's so much of it! Taking all of my other classes into account, I need to be choosey about what I spend my time on.
A point in case: the last few chapters studied in my Physics I course (which I just took a test on today, and I think I did very well!), which dealt with topics from work, to potential and kinetic energy, to momentum, collisions, and center of mass, there was one small section in one of the chapters that delt with rocket motion (defined in my book as the motion of a system undergoing a kind of "continuous explosion"), that was not included on any of the homework or the tests. In effect, we skipped this section; as to why I have yet to ask the professor about. This, among other things, is an example of the "less necessary" information I spoke of.
My questions are simple: should I take the time to study this sort of information with the possibility that I might need it later on? If so, how much time ought I spend on it? Also, in the case that there is an excess to the point that I can't learn it all, in what way should I distinguish which of it is most important?
This last question, I understand, would be a hundred times easier if I knew what sort of field in physics I was planning to enter. However, I am still trudging my way through basic calculus-based classical mechanics, and my knowledge of physics is currently by far too limited for me to decide what fields I would like to go into.
I can only begin to imagine how vast this science (as well as other sciences) is. Students have asked physics professors about concepts which they have never even heard of. In that, much to my dismay since it is my intention to understand the way this world works, I don't believe it is possible to know everything there is to know about physics. As such, as I mentioned earlier, I must be choosey about what I learn.