Are physicists looked down upon if

[verty]

I think there's also a psychological side to this matter. If someone is struggling and you pound them about how important grades are, they will only start to feel inferior, like they can't do it. They will become despondent and reluctant to try hard.

And presumably telling people who are stuggling that grades are very important is only likely to make them try harder, not try smarter. If their grades are low, they probably don't know how to improve, so trying harder will only bring negative results.

Perhaps if that person steps back and focuses on the material and the concepts, they will get back into shape so their grades can improve. More haste, less speed.

 

[marcusl]

That's right, verty. Penzoate, starting college is a big step, and poor grades the first semester of physics aren't fatal or even unusual. Your high school classes may not have prepared you properly, you may be facing a higher level of competition, or you may need to change your style to match your surroundings (different teaching style, different learning style...).

The most important thing is to analyze why you didn't do better: did you have social distractions, too heavy a load, not enough studying, gaps in your physics/math background? Your teacher and section leader can help you here. Then work on changing or improving those things. Fill in gaps with extra help in math or physics concepts, and tutoring (many departments and grad students will offer help to undergrads). Don't panic, and don't worry about image or consider other majors unless you've made changes and you're still getting C's sophomore year.

 

[fizziks]

2.5 in your physics courses = bad
2.5 overall = ain't so bad that'll you'll be denied to every school you apply

Seriously, why should physics committees look at that D you got in history and a general ed class and not your As in quantum mechanics or thermodynamics...

Most american schools require you to take 70+ credit hours of general ed classes that has jack **** to do with your major coursework out of the 120ish required to graduate. In fact, most public US schools you don't actually start working on your major until the 3rd year. I didn't start doing my major upper level courses until my 3rd year. I go to one of the top 15 public US schools.

 

[Maxwell]

I think a lot of people are missing the fact that the original poster is just in his first year.

Don't worry about it man, just do your best from now on. You can most certainly raise your GPA to a very respectful range - that's for sure. Just don't get too worried and work hard at it, and you will be fine. A 2.5 at the end of freshman year is not the end of the world. You're just getting used to college.

Good luck.

 

[Noone1982]

What kills me, I transferred with a 3.5 GPA with a good amount of credits. Now all those good grades don't get counted toward my new GPA :(

My GPA is entirely built upon Emag 1 and 2, Quantum Mechanics, etc, etc! D'oh!

 

[kdinser]

The biggest problem is learning how to study effectivly for these kinds of classes, here is what I found works best for me. I wish I had found this out my first trip through college or my first couple semesters back, but...

Your mileage may vary.

1. Do the assigned homework as soon as possible after it's assigned. Use notes/books/internet to their best advantage.

2. Any problems that you had trouble with (took more then a 30 mins to an hour to figure out or solve) do again right away. Just toss your previous work aside and try to do the problem again; if it takes you any more then half the time to solve it again (use book, notes, internet), you are probably lacking knowledge in some area, such as math or the material. If it's taking you more then an hour for a problem, go and see the professor or TA right away or move on to the next problem until you can meet with one of them. If all the problems are giving you trouble, again, go see your professor or TA and or move on to another subject until you can because you are obviously missing something vital and working on problems that you lack the skill or knowledge to solve is a waste of time. If you find that you have extra time left over after doing your other homework, by all means, go back and work on the problems that you couldn’t solve right away. This is an important time management skill that took me a long time to master, don't waste to much time beating your head against something you don't understand, get help before you waste 5 to 8 hours of valuable study time.

3. Wait 2 or 3 days and do the homework again. This works great if you do it right before attempting a new batch of homework for the 1st time. This time, try and rely less on the book and other resources, but don’t waste too much time trying to remember a formula or derivation. Unless the work was very simple, it should take you about 1/3 of the time to do it the second time around.

4. If time permits, do the homework completely over a 3rd time. This 3rd time, it should only take you about 20 mins if it took you 2 hours or so the first time and you should hardly have to look at another resource.

5. Finally, reread the material one last time before the exam to make sure your not missing anything. The stuff from the problems should just kind of leap out at you by this point and shouldn’t consume very much time.

What you are doing:

1. Building familiarity with the material itself.

2. Learning the thinking processes that are usually central to solving those kinds of problems without burdening yourself with a totally new problem. For example, it’s easy to know that you did something wrong, either the first time or second time, if your are doing the same problem over and getting a different result.

3. Building confidence in the material. If you can walk into a test knowing that you can solve every homework problem in 5 to 30 mins (depending on the material), you will be much less likely to be surprised by a problem on the test or horrified by the length of the test.

I've noticed that in the last year of using this technique that I've gone from getting 3.0 to 3.3's in my math/problem solving classes to 3.7's to 4.0's. Even when I see a problem I've never encountered before, I'm usually able to blaze through the other problems so quickly that I don't run out of time reasoning it out. In the past, the problems that were similar to the homework would take up so much time that I didn't have time to think about the couple problems that were really trying to test my understanding of the material. It meant I could pass, I just couldn’t do as well as I wanted.

BTW, I'm not spending more time studying then I did before, I'm just getting a lot more out of my time.

 

[mathwonk]

hear hear! study habits are key. i often spend almost every office hour alone until just before a test.

 

[berkeman]

Great stuff, kdinser. I'd also add doing the last few problems in each texbook problem set (usually the hardest ones), as long as the answers are in the back of the book so you can check them (like the odd ones in many books). Great idea about going back and blazing through the homework assignments, though. I hadn't heard of that one.

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

I found this useful...

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/chapman.htm

 

[Beeza]

hear hear! study habits are key. i often spend almost every office hour alone until just before a test.

That just made me think of an interesting question. Mathwonk, as a professor, do you enjoy it when students stop by to ask questions? Even if they are the most basic questions? I've stopped by some of my professors offices before when stumped on the homework, I and feel like I'm being a bother.

 

[chroot]

This whole thread seems to be permeated with all kinds of defense mechanisms. Apparently people have a lot of bad feelings about their GPAs.

Mathwonk is a professor who constantly berates students for being stupid, or not trying hard enough, or not being serious enough. Yet, he was also the proud recipient of a boot in the ass for failing out of his freshman year. That's pretty telling, psychologically, and I'm sure that his dismissal has led him to detest students who basically remind him of himself. In this very thread he's demeaning students who don't come to his office hours regularly, but I'm rather sure that he wasn't spending much time in his professors' offices when he was sailing along with that 1.2 GPA. Sad, but true. It's also led him to this notion that "grades don't matter," much like a child will stop caring about his score in a game he can't play well.

We also have cyrusabdollahi, who presumably has good grades, and thinks anyone who doesn't also have good grades is lazy, or stupid, or, more likely, both, and does not deserve to even find gainful employment.

Both are defense mechanisms -- people trying to rationalize themselves as being intelligent and worthy. Mathwonk rationalizes this by believing that his math skills are what matter, and his poor grades were meaningless. Cyrus uses his good grades (and likely job potential) for the same purpose.

Between all of these polar defense mechanism is the truth: Grades matter. Grades matter a lot, at least if you're in the middle 90% of the population. If you happen to be one of the one-in-a-million genius types, feel free to skip class, call your teachers names, and spit on their tests. For everyone else, if you want to be recognized, have an easy time getting a job, and generally make life a smoother ride, try to get good grades. You don't have to lock yourself in your dorm room, afraid that if you don't get a 4.0 that no one will hire you. Just get decent grades, recognize that they're important, but not so important that they define who you are, or cast in stone your future opportunities.

- Warren

 

[JasonRox]

That just made me think of an interesting question. Mathwonk, as a professor, do you enjoy it when students stop by to ask questions? Even if they are the most basic questions? I've stopped by some of my professors offices before when stumped on the homework, I and feel like I'm being a bother.

I find that they don't care at all.

The only way they would care is if you show no effort at all. If they're explaining ideas to you, and you're just sitting there waiting for the answer and not listening, they will hate it. In fact, they might even just give you the answer straight up and you won't learn much that way.

 

[jtbell]

A 2.5 at the end of freshman year is not the end of the world. You're just getting used to college.

I agree. Heck, we've had some students goof off through sophomore year, then see the light, bust their guts during the remaining two years and do very well in their upper-level courses. Their overall GPA's weren't great, but the trend was obvious in their transcripts, and we took care to point out the turnaround in our letters of recommendation for them. As far as we know, they've turned out well.

(Most of our students don't go to grad school in physics, though... mostly engineering.)

 

[leon1127]

I go to school because I want to learn. Do you too?

 

[Kurdt]

I tend to agree with Chroot's assessment of the whole deal. Grades obviously help you enormously for job interviews and the like and are thus more important as a prospective employer will rarely give you a chance to show your ability. I am unfortunate to be in a situation where I have no ability to study at all but managed to get through my degree with a good grade. I regret the fact that I never studied as hard as my fellow students because although I have the grades and the degree my actual knowledge is not what it should be (as some people will know from the schoolboy errors I ocassionally make in the forums). I am now going through all my textbooks and doing all the exercises like Berkeman said he had done to raise my overall levels of knowledge.

If physics is something you really want to do then don't make the mistakes lots of people in this thread have done (including me) and start getting into good habits sooner rather than later.

 

[Cyrus]

I'm sorry, but I'm forced to ask this...how the hell do you people get "Good Grades" by not studying the material? Teachers giving you the answer when you go to their office hours? Professors accepting late assigments? What kind of school do you go to? Mickey Mouse Univ? Over here, you have to work hard to earn your A's. If you go to their office hours, they give you guidance, not solutions. Reading through these posts makes me glad I don't go to some of your schools. Sorry.

 

[leright]

I'm sorry, but I'm forced to ask this...how the hell do you people get "Good Grades" by not studying the material? Teachers giving you the answer when you go to their office hours? Professors accepting late assigments? What kind of school do you go to? Mickey Mouse Univ? Over here, you have to work hard to earn your A's. If you go to their office hours, they give you guidance, not solutions. Reading through these posts makes me glad I don't go to some of your schools. Sorry.

Maybe they are just smart, I dunno. I have to work very hard for my grades.

 

[mathwonk]

yes i enjoy questions. the thing i appreciate about my students is effort and curiosity, much more than ability. ability is a gift, what we do with it is our stewardship of that gift and shows our character. character of course is something that must be built up, and many were like me and had little of it as young students.

I recall office hours being a mixture of pleasure and frustration, once e.g. spending 3-4 hours in an office "hour" helping a student understand the difference between an integral and an antiderivative.

the pleasure comes when a student who has never understood the idea behind the fundamental theorem, finally at 7:30 at night after 2 hours or more, says "oh so the integral of a step function must be differentiable everywhere except right at the edge of the step, and the slope of the integral is just the height of the step!"

you beam with joy, but then the frustration comes the next week when the student drops the course because they just do not have 2-3 hours every night to understand a one hour lecture.

the many students who withdraw because the impending grade is not what they desire, are a strain on your energy and resources. The most difficult task is to help someone understand who is not trying to understand.

I am not the professor for everyone. When I have the energy and patience I will try to encourage a true seeker after knowledge. Other times I hope just my knowledge and experience will be of some value.

 

[Kurdt]

90% of the grade for our modules was from the exam. So you can get away with 3 weeks of revision (or vision) and spend the rest of the time slacking if you wish. Saying that, I've always been able to just study for a week or two for an exam and spend the rest of the time off. In the UK most grades are based primarily on the exam. When I was in college doing A-levels I had only 33% attendance for most lectures yet I achieved the highest grade in all three science subjects and even achieved 100% on two biology papers. Like I said above I do regret this now because I don't retain as much knowledge of what I have done and its only recently that I've started to catch up.

I am a slightly unusual case though as I later discovered I have Asperger Syndrome. This means I have excellent rote memory.

 

[berkeman]

The most difficult task is to help someone understand who is not trying to understand.

Well said.

 

[JasonRox]

Well said.

I agree too.

But when that happens, I tell them I'm busy. BYE!

 

[Quaoar]

It seems like as long as you have a 3.0, your resume probably won't get tossed into the trash immediately. Even though there may not be a big difference between a 2.9 GPA and a 3.0 GPA ability-wise, many employers will see that 2 and eliminate you on the spot. Anything less than 2 is almost as bad as not going to college at all.

Of course, GPA will matter very little 5 years down the road when you have a good amount of work experience behind you. Other things like undergraduate research can help make up for a sub-par GPA.

I'll have to agree with chroot here and say that I don't really like it when people cling to one of the extremes and say that grades are everything or that grades are nothing. Obviously, if someone is doing well in physics after graduating with a poor GPA, they have other qualities that make people look past the low numbers.

I'm not at all comfortable with GPA elitism. Getting a good GPA is certainly an accomplishment, but it is not the only thing that can allow you to become a successful scientist. I know quite a few people who are happy to brag right to your face about their high GPA and readily mock those who didn't earn good grades. I don't know if it's a defense mechanism or pure malice, but its certainly something that has to stop.

 

[Cyrus]

I don't know if it's a defense mechanism or pure malice, but its certainly something that has to stop.

Why? It's called I work hard, and I get good grades. If you don't, then you are not working hard enough. Why should I care if it hurts your feelings?

Welcome to the real world, where people don't give a damn about excuses because you did not do your best. Either do your best and be proud or keep it shut (Don't take this as a personal attack Quaoar, I am just speaking out loud here to make a point, and don't mean it as an attack on you ).

That being said, I also recognize that after school grades won't matter, but right now, he is in school so everyone spare me the BS about grades won't be important. Yeah, later on in life they wont, but for now THEY DO.

Chroot, when your right, your right. I do think they are both lazy and stupid. And more importantly, so will the real world. How many admissions offices and companies are on the edge of their seat to see an applicant with a 2.5GPA? I sure as hell would not want to work or attend at that dump.

 

[^_^physicist]

Every university is different. That is the key. Each school has a slightly different method of drilling knowledge into you, and each student has to reach an understanding of this material in a different way. A college such as Evergreen State has the students only take 1 integrated class for an entire term worth between 12-18 credits a piece. The students do not get grades from this course; instead they get an evalutation at the end of the term. And yet Evergreen State has received many high regards from employers and national scales.

Let me repeat that: There are no grades at this school and employers that hire from this pool of students are quite happy with the training their workers have recieved. Kind of blows the whole "Grades are everything" out of the water.

How about the school I am very fond of: Reed College. This School gives grades to students; however, the students must go through a long and formal process to see the grades. Instead the students receive a detailed evalutation at the end of the term. And Reed is one of the best schools in the US. Again grades are dumbed down by the school.

See and that's the thing, grades are not what really matters: what matters is accountiblity on the part of the student to know the material. If an employer is going to just throw your resume in the trash because you had a 2.9 GPA and you really wanted that job, I would be calling them up and pestering them until you had an interview set up. Grades are an artifical doorway into having people look at you; however, your accountiblity is really what folks look for, and that what they are looking for in a resume.

Of course I could be wrong, but consitering this is what had been taught to me by an interview coach, it can't be that far gone.

 

[Quaoar]

Chroot, when your right, your right. I do think they are both lazy and stupid. And more importantly, so will the real world. How many admissions offices and companies are on the edge of their seat to see an applicant with a 2.5GPA? I sure as hell would not want to work or attend at that dump.

This really depends on circumstances. I had a friend in college who had a GPA around 2.8. He chose to focus on the research he did with a professor while he was in college, instead of focusing on classwork. Now he's on his way to becoming a successful researcher because of that experience. When GPA is all you've got, you have to make it look good. A mid 2's GPA with nothing else is not going to help very much when looking for a job. If that low GPA is a result of shifting priorities to meet research demands, that's a different story.

The main point is that its not fair to call people "stupid" without considering the full spectrum of possibility. My opinion is that the reason for low GPAs as an undergraduate are mostly due to misplaced priorities. I would wager that the first 2 years of physics are accessible to anyone who makes a substantial effort. Entering junior year, intelligence can start to be a barrier for some people, but even then hard work usually triumphs.

 

[Cyrus]

If he does research, good for him. That is still no excuse for the low GPA. If he wants to do research, cut down on the classes so he can pass them. It is perfectly fair for me to call them stupid, because having too much on your plate and doing bad is...stupid.

 

[Quaoar]

If he does research, good for him. That is still no excuse for the low GPA. If he wants to do research, cut down on the classes so he can pass them. It is perfectly fair for me to call them stupid, because having too much on your plate and doing bad is...stupid.

Reducing class load is certainly one way to improve your GPA. However, that assumes that he wanted a good GPA. Perhaps he wanted to learn about a broad range of topics and didn't want to cut back on his class load. Perhaps his grade in a QM course he was required to take wasn't very high, but maybe he took a condensed matter elective that interested him and was related to his research. Calling him "stupid" is a little extreme considering you don't know the guy or his circumstances.

 

[CPL.Luke]

a 2.8 is well within the passing range. And if he does good research that means that he not only knows the material, but he knows the material above and beyond the level that most of the people who get A's do. Grad school's and employers will recognize this. I've had a number of friends in high school who were very smart but had gpa's in the 2's, these people understood the material and got very high scores on the ap tests and the SAT's, they also were working outside of school on various extra curriculars or they were working for money. Admissions boards recognized the intelligence of these people and they were accepted into very good schools.

personally in high school I had a 1. something and was in the bottom 2% in a class of 400. I dropped out of school and got a GED, because I knew all the material I scored in the top 3%, I went to a community college for a semester and then waived my GED and midterm report in front of the admissions committee at UMASS and was accepted. (granted my grades now are a lot better than they were in high school, somewhere in the 3's)

So the grades don't really matter if your smart and you have other things going for you, and your willing to kick down the doors of admissions committee's and potential employers. But otherwise they do matter, and you need a minimum of a 3.0

 

[chroot]

^_^physicist,

If the school does not give grades, it can mean only one thing: they kick out the students who don't meet their expectations. Prospective employers know students from those schools are well-prepared simply because they survived to graduation. I also don't really see the distinction between "evaluations" and grades. Sure, evaluations are much more meaningful, take much more time to compile, and probably help the student more than a "B" slapped on their entire semester's worth of work -- but evaluations and grades still serve the exact same purpose. Schools must evaluate their students in some fashion -- they cannot just graduate everyone who walks in.

So, everyone seems to be converging on the same conclusion here:

If you're a one-in-a-million genius, are the professor's son, or have other "things going for you," grades may not be all that important. To everyone else -- those who must fight for admission, compete for employment, and pay their own bills -- grades are very important. They're not a matter of life and death, though, and you can usually find a way to fix your old mistakes.

- Warren

 

[Cyrus]

a 2.8 is well within the passing range. And if he does good research that means that he not only knows the material, but he knows the material above and beyond the level that most of the people who get A's do. Grad school's and employers will recognize this. I've had a number of friends in high school who were very smart but had gpa's in the 2's, these people understood the material and got very high scores on the ap tests and the SAT's, they also were working outside of school on various extra curriculars or they were working for money. Admissions boards recognized the intelligence of these people and they were accepted into very good schools.

personally in high school I had a 1. something and was in the bottom 2% in a class of 400. I dropped out of school and got a GED, because I knew all the material I scored in the top 3%, I went to a community college for a semester and then waived my GED and midterm report in front of the admissions committee at UMASS and was accepted. (granted my grades now are a lot better than they were in high school, somewhere in the 3's)

So the grades don't really matter if your smart and you have other things going for you, and your willing to kick down the doors of admissions committee's and potential employers. But otherwise they do matter, and you need a minimum of a 3.0

Sighhhhhhhhhhhh...again. Why are you comparing high school GPA to that of college?...