Getting Started in Physics: Advice for a 30-Year-Old

[tkav1980]

This may be long winded but please bear with me if you will.

I went to school for Physics. Long enough ago that my education is irrelevant, or at least to me it seems that way. To pay my way through school i worked in restaurants, and i was verry good at my job. So when i graduated college in 2002 i stayed in the industry mostly because i could not, or due to the fact that i was immature, had any desire to continue school. I am currently relatively high in the food chain in the restaurant world. Here comes the problem.

I have two real passions, and am only what you could consider knowledgeable in one. Physics(passion), and bodybuilding(passion and knowledge). Well on the eve of my 30th birthday i am thinking about what i have done wiht my life and what i really like to do. It boils down to reading about the universe and how it works, granted at an elementary level, and moving heavy stuff.

Now i have decided that to be happy i NEED to study physics. I don't know where to start. Coming out of high school the decision was easy, get a part time job and go to school. In the real world that isn't so easy. I didnt do well in college, even failed a course due to attendance, even though my grades were in the 90% range. I would assume that the best option would be to start from scratch.

But even now basic algebra is almost foreign to me. I am not really sure how to start from scratch, and would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

 

[aber_leider]

Hi there, i got a friend more or less in your situation, he attended college for about a year, physics, and then he quit. He got a career as a salesman and did pretty well, but almost ten years later he realized the he needed to study physics. Money ain't the problem for him anymore, but time is. Also the idea of starting from scratch is holding him. He has been thinking about it for a while, and i don't really thimk that he will make it.

So, my advice is: Make your mind to the idea that you WILL have to start from scratch and will need a lot of discipline for that (even more than if you were doing it for the first time, cause this time you are very likely to get frustrated by thing you used to know but have forgotten). Maybe you are planning to study part time and have already made your mind for that, but it will require a lot of discipline nevertheless, and it will be necessary for a longer amount of time. (you don't want to stuy for a year and then drop it)

One the discipline point has been stressed, you can put it to test before going back to school by building some skills that you will need but are likely to have forgotten: get any College Algebra textbook and read through it from cover to cover, work on, at least, 80% of the problems. This might take several months (maybe less if you can afford to spend at least four hours every day on that) but it will pay off: first you will absolutely need to know this stuff already, second you will know if you like this kind of activity and have the patience to endure it, cause going back to school means that you will have to spend a lot of time reading through a book exactly in this way besides attending classes.

Hope this will help.