This article will cover 3 sections.

• Introduction
• Why I chose Physics
• My 1st Year Experience

General Tips:

• Textbooks
• Attending Class
• Note-Taking
• Grades vs. Curiosity
• Socialization

Introduction

I recently finished my first year of undergraduate physics. It was definitely challenging, when learning such a foundational subject it’s quite a roller coaster ride. Within my journey so far, I feel like I’ve gathered a decent amount of advice that may be beneficial for those either struggling through a similar learning feat or that are about to begin a very technical STEM degree. In this article I hope to give a short summary of my first year experiences, and a very brief description of some tactics I found useful.

Why I chose physics

When you gaze into the night sky, into the grandiosity of the universe, and acknowledge your relative insignificants to the entirety of existence, it creates this odd paradoxical kindling of purpose within. That feeling, that silent reminder of the wonders that exist completely beyond your wildest imaginations, that’s fuel for a lifetime. I get that feeling everytime I look at the stars, and even recently as I’ve started to become more in tune with nature. And what do we call the field where we study the foundations of all this beautiful existence? It’s physics. The beautifully conceptual, yet mathematically regourous subject of phyiscs. It holds the underpinnings of most of your everyday wonders. So I ended up deciding to study it.

The thing about studying physics is, not only does it give you desireable problem solving skills and a teancious ability to learn, but it enlightens you to a deeper understanding and appreciation for the way our world and universe truly works. Within this understanding and appreciation I believe that the true beauty of the human curiosity can flourish while simultaneously nurturing and developing the rest of the world.

My Experience (Expectations vs. Reality)

I entered my first year of university starry eyed, with the expectations of finally exploring the specticals of the universe, and simultaneously meeting friends for life. To say the least, I had overly romanticised expectations. I had a hard time finding people that I truly felt a vibe with. I ended up only regularly speaking to one person in my major. In all honesty, I felt much more disconnected that I’d like to admit. Which is unerving when you think that this period of your life is meant to be a blossoming of life long friendships and memories. Part of that is my fault and part of that is the fact that some physics enviornments are filled with people that normally isolate themselves socially speaking. Which means there’s a bit of social resistence regarding simple conversation. But most of that is my fault, I burnt myself out trying to do a bunch of activities during the first couple of weeks of school and then kind of gave up. Luckily I took up rock climbing at the beggining of the school year and primarily relied on that as my social life for the rest of my academic year.

On the other hand regarding academics I found out how bad at teaching most professors are. I started university with the expectation that your teachers should be amazing if you’re paying thousands of dollars to attend their classes, but that turned out not to be the case. Part of this is a lack of good educational training on behalf of society and the innefficiencies in the ways that we share information, but most professors seem to not cover subjects in a thourough manner and avoid their meta-connections to other subjects. And for someone who’s trying to learn physics, the subject defining our understanding regarding the foundation of nature and our surrounding reality, I was really disappointed. This lead me to realize the power and importance of self-education and how much you’re limiting yourself if you’re only trying to learn off of lectures or course notes. The problem with only learning through lectures is that you still have to maneuver the teachers train of thought in a live setting which is much less concise, accurate, and condensed than a really good textbook, article, or online video. That’s where self learning comes in. In my opinion, self learning is the only way to thoughroughly grasp topics, especially in complex, all incompasing subjects such as physics. Don’t get me wrong, lectures aren’t all a complete waste of time, but I think they should be used more as a supplementary enhancement to your learning (an alternate perspective or way of understanding a subject), instead of your main resource.

General tips

Find a good textbook

We have an unbelievably vast human knowledge-bank at our fingertips at all times. That means that you can find the majority of the resources you need to fulfill your curiosity. It’s obvious, but use this to your advantage anytime you’re learning or studying something. Don’t be simply complacent with the resources that you are given. Go out and seek the best, most interesting, and concise resources that will work for you.

I started to realize in my second semester that the best tactic for this is to start your searching as soon as you get your course curriculumn & assigned textbook. Alternatively, you can look at previous course outlines that most universities will have posted on department websites. This is what I do:

1. Find a free pdf of the assigned textbook online
2. I’ll read the first section covered in the course as soon as possible to evaluate the quality of the textbook (meaning readability). In math courses this would be whether it breaks things down instead of skipping a bunch of steps in proofs and examples. In physics this would mean interesting visualizations, relatively easy to understand explanations, and hopefully cues to real-life applications of concepts.
3. At the same time I’ll do a bit of research into the best textbooks for that specific subject and level. This usually consist of browsing Quora & Reddit forumns where people have shared their experiences with different textbooks and which one they found to be the best.
4. I’ll once again find a pdf of these suggested textbooks and browse some of the same subjects covered in the beggining of the course to evaluate the textbooks quality.
5. After starting the course, I’ll toy with switching in-between the textbooks that I read (the one assigned vs. the best alternative I find on the internet) for the first couple of chapters/topics. Then at some point in the course I’ll usually primarily start using one textbook because it’s easier to understand and more enjoyable to read.

Even if you’re a solo student not attached to a university this can be a great place to start if you aren’t sure what resources to use. Check what some of the best universities in that subject are assigning along with internet suggestions and start there.

“But textbooks are boring”

I would agree to an extent. Textbooks are hard, and require a signficant amount of focus to get through. You have to take your time, be consistent, develop note-taking habits, and digest slowly. Lectures & videos are knowledge sprints, textbooks are marathons. I’ve found that if you’re interested enough in a subject you come to the realization that a good textbook is your best friend. No textbook is the same, and you have to learn how to evaluate one that fits your learning style. With time hopefully you’ll learn to enjoy the time you spend with a textbook.

Don’t go to class if the lectures suck… unless you lack study discipline

One thing that I quickely started to learn in my first year classes is that some course are just not worth going to. If your professor has horrible lectures, and sucks at explaining things that you can learn so much easier online, then just don’t go to lecture. You’ll have to spend extra time learning it by yourself regardless, might as well save some time and misery. The only catch to this is if you lack the discipline to actually self study. If you fall into this category I would do 2 things:

1. Either build your study discipline
2. Or go to class, but instead of paying attention to a crappy lecture use that time to study the material. It’s all about accountability, and if you don’t have the discipline to show up in your own time, then use class time as your discipline.

Adopt a condensing note-taking system

One of the best things I did all year was create short and condensed notes for specific classes. I call these my “accumulation notes” because they are my accumulation of the key formulas, concepts, or theorems of specific topics in my courses. I did this for my Linear algebra, Calculus, and Earth Science courses this last semester. For math, I would either create one page per topic with important formulas and problem solving steps/proofs or incorporate my notes within my solutions to practice questions (highlighting proofs at the start of solving a problem). Both of these methods make it much more convenient when you’re revising for a test, exam, future course, or even just self interest. Lastly, for my Earth Science course I would go through each of my professors slides (instead of the textbook because she was incredibly thourough) and would create a quarter one pager on all the important concepts & processes. I take notes on a tablet (Samsung Tab S7, I really recommend their lineup), so I can copy-paste important diagrams and charts quite conveninetly in these condensed notes as well.

Step back & be curious

One of the main mistakes we make as students is allowing an obsession of grades to crowd out curiosity. Which is ironic because without curiosity the process of studying and deep learning is absolutely miserable. Curiosity adds personal insentive and play into the learning process, without it learning becomes mundain and a time burden.

The main ways that I’ve begun to incorporate my curisoity into my studies is by taking an experimental and application view of the topic.

• For my physics classes I’ve started to look into easy experiments I can watch or do myself that give me a tangible view and feel for how a phenomenon or natural law actually works. In theory labs are supposed to achieve this, but personally I find that they aren’t engaging or even of quality to really emerse yourself in.
• For math classes I like to look into proofs of theorems, and most importantly the applications of different topics. For subjects such as linear algebra & calculus 3Blue1Brown and other youtube resources are incredible in showing you a unique mathematical perspective and the ability to conceptualize the simple logic hidden in often abstract mathematical rules and laws.

In my opinion, when learning complex topics you should take a 50:50 time ration approach between theory and application/experimentation. Or else, all you have is a blueprint for deep knowledge without ever creating a tangible structure. You’re a mechanic that has never worked on a car, or a doctor that has never treated a patient. This is particularly important fo knowledge that is mandatorily chronological (i.e. math & physics), you should be learning and applying along the way to develop a thourough and wholistic understanding.

Find your source of socialization

I cannot recommend joining clubs and groups enough to people. Especially in university, no matter how “busy” you are join AT LEAST 1 club. If there isn’t already a club for something you enjoy doing there’s bound to be a club for an activity you’re curious about. My favorite are clubs that get you out and moving with other people such as an outdoors or sports clubs. If you try as many interesting activities you can manage during university you’re bound to find cool people.

One last thing to leave you with

*** Regularly start conversations with people around you, regardless if you know them or they’re strangers. The vast majority of possible friendships won’t happen without an invitation. If you allow yourself to be fully present and approach people with open curiosity, you’ll find that the pros of meeting awesome people and having great conversations far outweigh the cons of rejecton or disinterest from others.