Struggling With Science Courses - Need Advice

gutter
Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:15:49 +0000

Until you have taken a rigorous proofs class, you know NOTHING about true math. Just saying. I’d hold off on putting your premature enthusiasm into a subject you know little about. Try it, but to me you don’t seem like someone for whom it would come easily.

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Like I said, go for it, but trust me on this, freshman; the difficulty of what you’ve seen isn’t even a tenth of what it’s like in upper levels. I’m hardly stupid and my first physics class was difficult, but not even close to what we’re doing now. And I have a 3.7+ GPA and do research, so it’s not like I’m talking out of my butt.



Well, I was being a little facetious when I made my “Math is fun!” comment. But I mean how does anyone know whether or not math is the right field for them before actually taking courses in it? You can only go off of your past experiences, and to me AP Calculus came very, very easily. Is that high level? Not in the grand scheme of things. But what else can I base it off of?

Besides, my mother teaches math, so she’s taken some of that upper level stuff, and honestly it sounds interesting. What more can I go off of? I don’t expect it to be easy.



And not all majors are a calling. Business has a reputation as a ‘money major’ but English, languages, premed, and a whole host of other majors pay off rather handsomely in terms of effort vs salary. You misunderstand what I meant when I said ‘career move’ but your claim that every major is a calling is silly. The reason the sciences are a calling is because the amount of work you put in is very disproportional to what you get paid. Like the priesthood, if you will. In order for every major to be a calling is saying that every major is overworked and underpaid compared to the average major and that, my dear friend, is a statistical impossibility. You are going to have to put in much, much more effort and time for your math and science classes than your philosophy classes.



I think we have different definitions of “calling”. I’d agree with you that it takes significantly less effort to get (let’s throw out some arbitrary numbers), say, a 3.0 while majoring in English than it does to get that 3.0 majoring in nuclear physics, but that’s only if you’re just looking for a degree and not an education. You can delve just as deep into English and literature as you can into Chemistry on a theoretical level, but they obviously require different ambitions and skill sets and aren’t really directly comparable.

So I’d agree that someone who just wants a reasonable GPA and a degree should go to something in the liberal arts if they don’t have the “calling” for science, but if we’re talking about excelling in the field you’ve chosen, other majors require just as much of a calling as the sciences.

In my opinion, anyway.



I just want you to know that college has not yet started for me, so maybe I have a warped sense of how easy college courses should be. But I am pretty sure that from how much effort you are putting in, you should be doing well in your classes.

One setback may be your method of learning. It is not how MUCH you study, but HOW you study. Like someone above said, you may not be doing enough active learning. Highlighting, writing/transfering notes, etc. are ways of studying that involve repetition, which is not the most effective form of studying. Instead of only reading, highlighting, then note-taking, try to understand every single sentence in the book. Look at every picture and ask yourself if you understand what they present. After every paragraph or explanation of a major single concept, stop and retell it to yourself. Use the pretend-you-are-lecturing-to-a-class to really drill the fundamental concepts into your head.

Again, when you are transfering the highlighting to notes, you are passively learning. Instead try to use the outline in the table of contents in the book and write your own summary for each chapter. Include as much detail as possible and include all major concepts in your own words.

Also, I hate to say this, but the honor system may also be a setback your grades. I can pretty much guarantee you that there are some or many classmates who are not following it. They are getting higher grades and thus raising the average.



You provide some very good insights in this post, and I appreciate it. It’s fully possible that whereas in the past I’d learn a science passively and it just “made sense” that now that I’m taking somewhat more advanced courses I really need to be more active in my study to truly grasp it all.

The other students not following the honor system thing I’ve thought of, but I feel like it’s sort of a “well, what can you do?” thing. I’m not one for high moral standards, but even if I had no qualms about cheating (and I do have them) I wouldn’t actually do it out of fear that somehow someone would find out and thus destroy my academic career.