![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Physics Woes
I've been studying physics, because I've got an exam tomorrow at 6.30pm (weirdest time ever for an exam y/y?). I love physics, but this...
I've got a page of formulas lying next to me. Stuff like v=lambda*f, and q=n*e. Very, very basic stuff. The sort of stuff that you happily forgot in grade ten the minute they told you you were allowed to use a formulary from now on.
I'm not saying those formulas are hard to memorize. They aren't. But if you have ten or twenty of these little three-letter-combinations memorized, it's very easy to get confused. And that, dear uni, is why God gave us formularies. C'mon, I was allowed to use one in school! I thought uni was supposed to be more about understanding things and getting to the bottom of them than school.
I myself don't call making people memorize twenty three-letter-combinations 'getting to the bottom of things'.
The joke is - if you haven't understood what you're doing, you can't use a formulary. You won't know what to look up. I know this from experience. It's perfectly possible to flunk a physics exam even with a formulary.
Next thing they won't allow calculators anymore, and will give us a list of angles and their sinus values to memorize. I really wouldn't be surprised.
I've got a page of formulas lying next to me. Stuff like v=lambda*f, and q=n*e. Very, very basic stuff. The sort of stuff that you happily forgot in grade ten the minute they told you you were allowed to use a formulary from now on.
I'm not saying those formulas are hard to memorize. They aren't. But if you have ten or twenty of these little three-letter-combinations memorized, it's very easy to get confused. And that, dear uni, is why God gave us formularies. C'mon, I was allowed to use one in school! I thought uni was supposed to be more about understanding things and getting to the bottom of them than school.
I myself don't call making people memorize twenty three-letter-combinations 'getting to the bottom of things'.
The joke is - if you haven't understood what you're doing, you can't use a formulary. You won't know what to look up. I know this from experience. It's perfectly possible to flunk a physics exam even with a formulary.
Next thing they won't allow calculators anymore, and will give us a list of angles and their sinus values to memorize. I really wouldn't be surprised.
no subject
My Differential Equations prof allows us to write up a half-page formula sheet for each exam, which he collects at the end of class. And that's good! Because often it's just the really simple formulas I forget/mix up, and so I don't need to clutter it up with the more complicated ones. And anyone who doesn't know their stuff isn't gonna put the effort into making a formula sheet (and if they do put the effort in, they're going to wind up learning in spite of themselves!).
A lot of it is standardized across departments within a given university, but some professors are willing to bend the rules. ;)
*uses appropriate icon*
no subject
Exactly. Because in Physics, you can't pick convenient values that are easy to handle and will give you a nice, pretty result. Those pesky natural constants make it impossible ;).
German med school is like that, though. You really don't have to use your brain at all. All you gotta do is learn everything by heart, and then you'll be able to answer the exam question. Nobody gives a shit whether you actually understood what they were teaching you. It's driving me insane.
no subject
Oh, gosh. I had this absolute genius of a professor in my first year (General Relativity, I think?) who would come up with these impossibly difficult questions that twisted and turned all over and then gave you an answer of, like, four. Or ten. Or pi. It was amazing. (Crazy things like springs bouncing off each other at relativistic speeds and then passing through walls and hitting pulleys that did more crazy things.)
Of course, we just took his word for it, as none of us ever managed to solve a single problem he gave us. ;)
Nobody gives a shit whether you actually understood what they were teaching you.
I get the impression that it's like that here as well. It makes me so angry! *sigh*
no subject
It's making me angry enough that I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be quitting after next semester. I don't function well like this.
That professor sounds like a lot of fun :D. Which degree are you doing?
no subject
Ouch - don't blame you! I've heard such terrible things about med school instructors that're actually just bullies in disguise, and preferential treatment, and all sorts of things - dunno if those problems are as rampant over in Germany. (I know we've got lawsuits aplenty in the Medicine department.) But just forcing you to memorize by rote? It's excessive, really.
Do you have backup plans in place, just in case it doesn't work out? I'm sure you'll be able to transfer a lot of what you've learned to other programs of study - and your work ethic will surely get you through most things! :)
That professor sounds like a lot of fun :D.
It helped that he was extremely young (a full professorship in his early twenties) and extremely good-looking. ;) We were willing to forgive a lot in that class (including the two-hour final that stretched out to four before he just gave up and graded what we'd managed to finish).
Which degree are you doing?
I'm doing Atmospheric Science, with an interest in research into summer severe weather! *points to icon* The first couple of years simultaneously mirror the Honours Physics and Honours Math degrees (which means that most people freak out and switch degrees after the first term), but now that I'm in my third year we're finally getting into the actual Atmospheric Science! Definitely a good thing. And I geek out about it way too much. :D
no subject
I'm not really blaming myself. It's just that I have a lot more problems with the dull memorizing thing than other people seem to have. It's not just annoying, it actually ruins my day if I sit down and waste ninety minutes on stupidly memorizing things that on a grander scale than whether or not I pass my exams are of no use to me whatsoever. That's what I meant with I don't function well like this.
Do you have backup plans in place
Well, if I really do quit after the 4th semester, then I want to go abroad for anything I do next. It's probably going to be the UK, because Canada and the States are just so insanely expensive. I've thought about a couple of different degrees, but I haven't really settled on a specific one yet.
we've got lawsuits aplenty in the Medicine department
Oh yes, lawsuits and idiotic, narrow-minded people. It's not quite as bad as law school as far as solidarity is concerned, but it's still a cut-throat atmosphere. It's really not a very nice place, med school.
Omg, young good-looking professor with geeky super-problems? &hearts That's brilliant.
I've got a friend who's doing Atmospheric Science! It's a cool subject, although, if I were to pick a degree in the area of Physics/Nature, I'd probably go with Physical Geography. Tectonics, geomorphology, all that awesome sort of stuff :D.
no subject
*crosses fingers*
no subject
hopethink I passed. Could have gone better, though, if I'd had a formulary. Grr.Thanks for the finger crossing!
no subject
Been there, done that.
But usually, the "no-formulary" exams are way easier than the other ones, no transferring or other bad physics stuff. So maybe in your case as well? Thumbs are pressed. :-)
no subject
Hee, yes, me too. Physics stopped being about formulas for me when my LK teacher came walking in in my very first LK class and said: "Now, forget all you learned so far about Physics. It's bullshit. This is where we do the real physics." Lol ;).
Well, the no-formulary exams are easier to study for. But what you're studying is usually a lot more useless. That's why I prefer the ones that are not only about knowing formulas by heart ;).
no subject
no subject
no subject
I hope the exam was okay in the end, despite the idiocy.
(Every time I see your icon I find myself thinking 'oyster'. Then I actually look and realise it isn't. What is it, though?)
no subject
The exam was more or less okay. As I told
Hah, oyster. Not quite ;D. Do you know this painting?
That's what I used as a basis. There's this quote from a Doctor Who episode where the Doctor tries to explain time:
Time isn't what people think it is. It's complicated, very complicated. People assume time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but from a non-subjective, non-linear viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey... stuff.
That's where the caption comes from. My journal layout is based on this painting/quote, too ;).
no subject
no subject