#lmao that one history prof i had in undergrad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iampikachuhearmeroar · 4 years

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y’know i went through most of high school (years 7-9) being one of those students who barely ever studied, but still got good marks, bc they had a good memory (or whatever); in subjects like english, history & science..... but as soon as years 10-12 came around, i had absolutely no idea how to fucking sit down and study properly (besides the point that I didn’t have a useable desk in my room till 2014- long story). so it made me super anxious and made me have two meltdowns bc my inner monologue was like “everyone knows im too stupid for uni (or tafe).” besides other factors.

these behaviours largely impacted my grades well into uni, as well.... bc i thought that I could pass my 50% graded philosophy papers by writing them at the last minute and then just never study for my english in class tests and exams properly; that were basically the same assessment weighting (45%).... and like I did most of the time- coming out of the philosophy papers with a mark of 65; or the english tests/exams occasionally with a mark of 62 or something. my english essays would be anywhere in between 70-82 done at the last minute at home; so that I felt like that I didn’t really have to try to get good marks in the tests really....bc my at home last minute essays would almost always pull me through those english subjects (bar one or two in second year/in third year/my final year bc the prof didn’t like me/fucked me around, or I just couldn’t work with the way the prof wanted the essays done).

so it’s why i came out of undergrad with what I hoped was a “credit average” degree bc that’s what it said on my uni’s online WAM (weighted average mark) calculator.... but it’s really a pass degree instead..... and then finally it’s what made me burn out so heavily doing my postgrad course.... bc all I know is last minute assignment preps/writing or never bothering to study fully to prepare a well thought-out and planned piece.

like how does one explain that this is the only way they know how to function???? that they literally have zilch idea how to correctly plan out tasks and how to manage time and their workloads with competing deadlines, bc they always ignored one assignment over another one???? like whoopsie 😂😅. like would this suffice as a good explanation at grad program interviews when they ask me about my grades lmao????

#life #about me #shut up ilona #ilona whines about her shitty life to her followers lol #uni #uni life

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realtalk-princeton · 5 years

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@marty Downsides of physics?

Response from Marty McFly:

I feel somewhat underqualified to make statements about the field of physics as a whole (although I obviously have a mountain of totally unsupported opinions on the matter). I’m assuming you’re more interested in the downsides of a physics major, of which I think there are many. There are a lot of different directions in which you could go with that kind of question, so it obviously depends on your circumstances. As with all choices, the decision about what to major in is more about how various majors compare, so it would be useful to know what matters to you, what your likes and dislikes are, what your plans for after graduation are (or what you’re considering), etc. I’ll try to give a broad overview of my opinions on this question that are hopefully useful to anyone considering physics, but feel free to resubmit with more details and I’ll try to think in more detail.

Right up top I just want to make it clear that there are definitely gonna be mixed opinions if you ask different people. I probably have a less common view of the department than most people, but I will try to keep this unbiased. The most common thing people will tell you is that it’s hard. Indeed this is true, but this also depends on the person. I am convinced that physics is easier for me than english or comp lit would’ve been, it’s just about what skill set you have. It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s easier to do 20 hours of work that you want to do than 5 hours of work that you don’t. Now, there are probably going to be a lot of frustrating moments, no matter how motivated you are. Even if you save yourself a lot of the struggling by working in groups, there are going to be times when profs assign shitty problem sets that send you on an hours long search for information. Indeed, this is one of the things that I hate about physics. A lot of the stuff we learn is so fucking hard that it’s out of the question that you’ll be deriving it, so you run into problems where you’re simply lacking necessary information, which is just frustrating and unnecessary. Say what you will about math, but at least you usually know what the problem is asking and you have all the information you need. More broadly though, if you’re interested in getting the stuff down and doing well on tests, you’ll probably have to spend considerable time on it (unless you’re off the charts smart).

There’s also the problem that most of what you learn is not really the stuff that people get excited about in physics. Real physics is very detailed and relies a lot on math and stuff that you don’t want to think about, so it might be a departure from the kind of excitement you can get from youtube videos and pop science. Over long periods, you might see things coming together in a really exciting way, but most of what you learn is pretty benign and you’ll forget after a year unless you go back and review or you’re still using it regularly. We won’t name names, but a certain McFly may have forgotten a very basic derivation that’s EXTREMELY relevant to his work this summer and looked like a dumbass in front of his grad student mentor. In a good class like 208, you’ll use the math to build intuition about one of the most marvelous discoveries in physics (and indeed I recommend that everyone try to take that class if they can), but in a class like 301, where the level of approximation is off the charts and you’re using a less than ideal book (lmao like an ideal gas cause its thermo) and all the problems are from said book, you might skim over some stuff and end up not making good connections. Really the problem is that if you’re a physics major you have to take a lot of classes, but if you do something else you can just focus on the ones that interest you, so that flexibility is nice.

In terms of like mental health, there are definitely gonna be a lot of opinions about that, so I’ll try to tread lightly. I know PUWIP (I think that’s what it’s called) makes a really big effort to offer support (especially for marginalized groups) and I’ve heard nothing but excellent things about them, so there are good resources. It is, however, difficult to feel like a moron/failure on such a regular basis and to constantly feel defeated. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I’ve definitely had a lot of those moments. Heck, there was a semester where every Sunday I’d get started on my problem set for this one class, and I’d end up spending between ten and ninety minutes just lying on the ground and trying to wrap my head around the depths of my incompetence. Looking back it really wasn’t a big deal, but it’s hard in the moment. Btw, if you ever feel like that, plz write in and I will tell you all the things I didn’t do that I should’ve. But anyway. Physics can really make you question your own ability a lot, so it’s important to have a plan for dealing with that. It’s definitely not made easier by the fact that the department is full of very smart folks. I actually feel like there’s a really great culture of being open about hardship in physics, but it can still be hard not to feel inadequate.

I can’t really say much about independent work, but it’s hard to say anything about it anyway. It fluctuates so much by prof/project and you just have to decide for yourself if that’s something you enjoy. That can be a hard thing to figure out, but if you’re considering physics then spend the summer after freshman year in an interesting lab and see what it’s like.

Aside from this, there are some minor considerations like the fact that physics is AB so you’d have to fulfill those distribution requirements and whatever, but I don’t have any insight about that kind of stuff. Honestly there are probably points I’ve missed in this, so sorry in advance if this isn’t what you were looking for.

If you’re not interested in reading all of the above, I guess my main message is that I recommend against physics as a major. It will almost certainly make your experience at princeton less pleasant than it would’ve been otherwise and for what? You’ll learn some cool stuff, but you could’ve learned most of the broad points on your own or taken those classes anyway. It’s not like it’ll do you a lot of good for post college plans. You’ll probably be more qualified than most to apply to physics grad school (although it’s not clear why you’d want to do that either), but math majors get into physics all the time, so you’re not really closing that door. Hell, I think Ed Witten studied History or something in undergrad. Of course, if you’re psyched about physics research, then you’ve probably found the right major. But if you want to end up in software, finance, consulting, clownery, you probably would’ve been better prepared having spent your time elsewhere. It’s true that physics is an acceptable major for a wide range of jobs because the skills tend to be applicable, but I can assure you that COS skills are more applicable if you’re applying for a job in software engineering.

Obviously, when it comes down to a case by case basis, I think there are a lot of good reasons to major in physics (or else I wouldn’t do it lol), but this is my advice for a general interlocutor. Also, I’ve said it before, but don’t take what I say too seriously.

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fluffairy · 5 years

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things learned in my first semester of grad school

(I just finished my first semester of my MA in Renaissance Art at an East Coast university, for reference)

•don’t let the anxiety get the better of you. i know that is VERY easy to say and much harder to follow through on, but like... don’t let it completely derail you. i had days where i wallowed in bed thinking that everyone hated me, that i’d never be successful, that i didn’t belong there. and guess what? almost none of that was actually true. so let yourself have your hour, or your day, to wallow, but get up the next morning and start working again.

•related: you are NOT your fuckin productivity!!!!! you, as a graduate student, are also a person and are worth more than just the work that you can adequately produce on any given day

•sometimes you’re not going to make friends right off the bat. sometimes it’s going to take multiple months before you feel comfortable with someone. sometimes you’re gonna think they hate you for a little while, before you start getting coffee and lunch together multiple times a week and talking about some things that matter and then you’re going to wonder when your friendship truly began since it developed so organically

•...and sometimes you’ll make a good friend that feels like a kindred spirit a month before you move away from a place for good. and that’s okay too!!

•don’t always keep yourself so guarded. allow yourself to show who you are to the people around you (if you trust them.)

•at times it will feel like an absurdly specific master’s degree is silly and a weird thing to spend so much time pursuing, but ultimately no education is ever wasted!!!!

•related: never lose your love for what you are studying and doing because that’s what’s going to get you through the tough days and that’s what’s going to keep you going. even when you feel like everything is falling apart, at least your unending love for Michelangelo will carry you through

•if a housemate is doing things you don’t like or being messy or spending excessive amounts of time in the bathroom that 4 girls share... maybe fuckin tell them instead of being so passive yet angry??

•lmao i’m never living in a place where i can’t get around by walking/ public transport (or where i don’t own a car) again !!!!!!

•try to make time for pleasure reading bc that is the purest distillation of who i am, who i was before grad school, and who i always will be and it’s good to remember the parts of you that aren’t just in grad-student mode

•watching Netflix to relax at night is fine but maybe don’t rewatch specific episodes of New Girl and Broad City over and over and over again

•I always thought history classes in college were boring or something to run away from (a la the two history classes that i was supposed to take in undergrad [including a Renaissance one that i was going to take before i ever realized that i loved the Ren lmao heyyooo] then promptly dropped for various reasons) but sometimes the prof that you think is going to be a hardass is actually a sweetheart and the prof that you think is a sweetheart actually doesn’t have an empathetic bone in her body. go figure.

•related: don’t judge a book by its cover. in both the most literal and most loose sense of the phrase.

in relation to things i learned specifically:

•hagiography = the biography of a saint

•Italy wasn’t Italy until the various states and territories that we now consider “Italy” were unified in 1860 (lmao I should’ve known this so much earlier than now)

•Venice is ALWAYS the exception when discussing broader trends in the Renaissance bc Venice is ALWAYS weird and out of the ordinary

•doing research in Italian is very difficult but is also not the worst thing in the world

•reading Renaissance Italian is hard but reading cursive in a 500 year old manuscript is harder

•the entire detailed history of the various stages of the creation of my Problematic Favorite Hot Mess Of A Museum, the Galleria degli Uffizi <3

so look!!! I learned a lot and grew a lot in the last 5 months. I’m so glad I’m done with this semester and this tricky yet brief time in such a strange city, and that I’m moving on to a new phase of the degree next month. I’m scared to have to write my thesis and take more classes and be expected to do more hands-on archival work and research, but I’m sort of excited for the challenge. I know there will be days when I will struggle and cry and wonder why I’m doing this, but I also know that this degree will ultimately be very worth it, and beneath it all, Renaissance art is one of my favorite things in this world and I know that my unending adoration of the work of geniuses like Michelangelo and Leonardo will ultimately get me through!!!!!!

#grad

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