*angry rant* (or valiant rant)

Color_of_Cyan

Hello I am new around here. Physics really is the whole enchilada for you guys isn't it?


Well... Oh my God. I think I have just finally realized that no one is supposed to take ANY physics subject lightly. By that I mean get ready to literally be a slave to only your studying and to only have physics and math problems as your ONLY hobby, and to literally GIVE YOUR SOUL to it. This is what I am about to do now.


Give all the time in the world THAT YOU SO PRECIOUSLY HAVE to math / physics / engineering. Give them a few hours each every day, no matter if you have more work to do on one subject than another.


I have just bombed yet another physics midterm (second one) and this isn't even my first time taking the class. This is mechanics too and I have declared myself an EE major. I've had almost no experience with physics before college (which is proabably another reason for this).


Before anybody says "oh then maybe physics is probably not for you, not your cup of tea, etc.," Saying that really does'nt help me at all.

Don't get me wrong, it really is satisfying and fun to get to solve physics problems. For me though, I am a little slow at doing them (math also), and it takes a lot of time (time being something I have stretched myself on), and I get extremely panicked whenever I get stuck on a problem or can't get the right answer, or fall behind in class.


If tl;dr then basically I am going to give school my 100% attention now.

Pengwuino

Have fun in the loony bin.

PhDorBust

Hey man, don't feel bad, the world needs ditch diggers just as much as it needs physicists, probably more. Gods and clods, you understand?

Color_of_Cyan

[QUOTE=Pengwuino;3154559]Have fun in the loony bin.[/QUOT
Thank you sir. What do you mean by that and why do you say that though?

Thanks also. what you describe sounds true yet tragic. I'm not prepared to simply give up though.

lawsofform

If you want to do well in any subject you need to spend several hours a day doing it. That's why you go to school, right?

pergradus

You need to figure out where you're struggling. The mathematics used in physics I is pretty basic. If you're having trouble solving equations, you need to start re-reading your calculus text book.

If you are having trouble setting up the equations properly, then that's a completely different thing. The first step should always be to write down EVERYTHING you know, and decide what it is you need to figure out. Take a whole page of paper to solve a problem if you need, don't try to take shortcuts. Draw pictures and draw them neatly. Make sure you include any constraints, such as the net force must equal zero, or that energy and momentum must be conserved.

And yes, you have to practice. Don't skip your homework or show up to midterms after sitting in class and never doing the work outside class.

Femme_physics

Pergradus has great advices, I'd take 'em.

Color_of_Cyan-- You seem to describe the problem most people have with the physics-math complex. It's slow and time-consuming. Don't worry, it's supposed to be this way. Yes, physics students tend to succeed by making this subject their god. It tends to help when you become fanatic and worship-loving to the subject you're studying. Especially when it gets more and more messy and complex and there are lots of elements to untangle-- since you're so fanatic you tend to want to overwork, oversolve, overdo, and that tends to overpay, and assures good grades. It's a "good obsession" to have. If you don't have that obsession-- don't worry, you might acquire it in time (it doesn't always comes naturally), or you can get around without it as well-- it'll just be a "tad" tougher.

Rebooter

This is going to sound unfriendly, but it's not meant to be.

If you are "slow with math", I have no clue why you are trying to be an electrical engineer (or an engineer in the first place).

Did a guidance counselor tell you they make decent money? Because that is a dirty, dirty lie.

Femme_physics

Aherm... there's no such thing as "slow with math" IMHO. In fact, it's recommended you be "slow with math" so you get the right answer, rather than be "fast at math" and get the wrong answer. Of course, you could be "fast at math" and get the right answer, but that's a matter of time and practice. We tend to form a critical opinion of ourselves early on like that, and that's bad. I believe the best physicists and mathematicians know that being good at this game just means not backing up. Everybody got the brain power (minus Sarah Palin...) to figure out calculus and the hardest of physics if they just take it step by step.

Rebooter

I assume he meant that his acquisition of mathematical knowledge is "slow"

Absolute, grade A, nonsense.
Who on earth put this idea in your head? I assure you it's not only false, but demonstrably false.

In this case it's important to qualify where the OP is going to college. Doing poorly in calc-based physics at MIT probably qualifies you for most, if not all, engineering jobs out there... and you'd probably be damn good at them (some exceptions, but not many).

But implying that it's just a matter of effort to become GOOD at these subjects is complete hogwash. Even looking at the effectiveness of studying for a simple test like the GRE (simple to score perfect scores on I mean), +1 standard deviation increase above an initial score, given a near INFINITE time of studying (and tutoring even) are so astoundingly rare that the instances of them can be realistically attributed to the intelligent slacker factor.

Even the LSAT, which has no math at all, shows the same phenomenon.
+10 points from initial scores appears to be a maximum increase with study... and there are many many many people that have studied for years and cannot break past median.

Dembadon

Do you have any data for this, or is it just your opinion?

Rebooter

For the 2nd part I'd qualify that as my experience being educated at such an institution. Being a "good" engineer these days is equivalent in many ways to being "cheap to employ". I cannot hope to convince you my idea of a good engineer, is an objectively good one.

However, I have plenty of employment data demonstrating that median MITers, even with 3.0s (not out of their 5.0, but 3.0 on the 4.0 scale when converted) are still landing great jobs at Microsoft, Apple and the rest of the big boys... with a lot of upward mobility being seen in follow up surveys.

PE firms, HFs, Consulting and other places, where most state school grads have no shot of even getting interviews, hire heavily as well, even among those with a moderate or average GPA.
MIT has all of this on their website as does Stanford.

All of my friends from college that were engineers (of any type) are gainfully employed, almost universally at jobs paying well above market. Some of these kids were, looking at the median GPA of the entire college, below expectations. In fact, one of my good friends is already director of his dept (at a Microsoft, Apple, IBM). He was bottom 40% in the class.

Femme_physics

Well, Rebooter, growing up I always thought I naturally suck at math... so in my early twenties I went with biology and stuck with it till the age of 22. At 23, I began realizing the importance of math and physics and developed and unnatural love affair and obsession with it. I now like solving problems, I especially like understanding the core of it, understanding more of it (new ideas often blow my mind, and I get extremely enthused), and immersing myself in it. My grades are also reflecting my love accurately well, may I add. :) I feel like there are no limits to what I can reach. (I moved from biology to physics)

So, based on my experience, it's a matter of willpower, and core grasp to the importance of it, and loooooooove. It's also a matter of "knowing how to study math/physics", and not letting desperation beat you. Rather, keep plugging along. That's just what I believe. Authoritatively claiming my ideas are "class A hogwash" is... heh, nice, but we're really getting to the realm of psychology here where empirical evidents tend to be...not so empirical. I did start my post with IMHO, mind you, and never claimed anything authoritatively.

Well, that may just mean he has hole/s to cover and should look over precalculus material.

Rebooter

You misunderstand, whether or not the OP can/will change and do well in Physics is not judged by a single class.
People can gain and lose interest in something, not try and do poorly and do well when they try hard.

What you need to pay attention to in life, but also in career choices, is when you try really hard to do something and continue to do poorly (not one class you understand, some profs just like messing with people).

I wanted to be clear about your last point, because it is so false, yet is the banner cry of modern, liberal society.

CheckMate

That's ridiculous. Why would I do that ? Using 100% of your time to study is like using 100% of your time to train physically. There is a reason why rest is such a powerful tool. Personally, I don't really spend much time. Understand the concept, do some work, and review. However, procrastination can make these three steps a pain in the butt.

zpconn

It really sounds to me like you are missing critical background material for the class. Are you absolutely sure you understand the basic mathematical prerequisites?

holomorphic

Whether a person is qualified is a different question from whether a person has gone to a name-brand school. I don't think anyone doing poorly in any calc-based physics course is qualified for an engineering job of a particularly high level.

I will add that I know at least one idiot who went to MIT and got As in his physics courses. It's true, he's gainfully employed, but as I indicated above--this doesn't change the fact that he is probably less competent than a large number of hard-working engineering students who went to less well-known schools.

Studying to do significantly better on the GRE has nothing to do with studying to become good at calc-based physics.