Posted by alexandra_k on October 13, 2014, at 16:58:24
In reply to Re: books, posted by alexandra_k on October 11, 2014, at 20:56:10
i went back to physics today. i realised that a lot of my angst about the lecturer for it... and the lecturer for the same part of chemistry last semester... is coming from my really struggling with the content. i have come to this realisation because the chemistry guy in the online stuff makes a bunch of mistakes, too. and, because i have a better grip on the content, they don't bother me so much. they don't bother me at all, really. they actually help me a little because i think 'yes, everybody needs to be careful - heads up!'.
i'm not sure what to do. we did the ideal gas laws today. so... converting from c to k. getting moles out of grams of whatever. rearranging the gas equation... is all expected now. and of course it is far too much far too fast for me to get my head around. little bits were cool, though. i didn't know an inverse relationship was parabola shaped... i didn't realise that a parabola didn't ever touch the sides... it was cool looking at the graph... i noticed most people in class looked... destroyed. and only about 1/4 were there...
partly it is time of year. partly it is a lot of content far too quickly. partly it is... i don't know.
i have come to realise that the whole online learning thing really is much better for me. i don't see how it can't be much better for everyone. you can pause things for where you need to have a think / memorise something before moving forward. you can take however long you need to do the problems along the way. you don't have to get bored waiting for other people to do them. you don't have the pressure of needing to hurry up and still not being able to work fast enough... it is perfect, really.
lectures are motivating in a way, too. i mean... i have been doing the problems in the back of the textbook... but doing them from the recorded lectures there is a sense of other people doing them with me. more motivating somehow. i think the biggest thing is listening to someone who knows how to do it... slowing down and thinking through their reasoning as they solve it. learning how to think like they do. then eventually... being able to say what they say at the same time they say it as they work through the problems... carbon attached to FOUR DIFFERENT THINGS. with just the right emphasis. it really does help. you get a problem and it seems overwhelming and then you do... what the lecturer would do. and you get it done.
anyway... even if i put a bunch of time into physics i don't think it would help me. i put a lot of time into chemistry last semester... thermodynamics. ph stuff. then the ph stuff wasn't tested, really... but i put a lot of time into thermodynamics and the gas stuff and i didn't get any marks for any of it. so... i feel.... truly overwhelmed. like there simply isn't any point at working on it at all because no good will come of it. demoralised... well and truly. i'm not entirely sure what is to be done...
i suppose the logical thing... is for me to work hard on mechanics and waves... electricity. make sure i can do that stuff pretty well... hope that that will be enough to scrape me a pass... some kind of B would make me... happy. i'd be happy for a B for physics. at this stage... i simply can't do... much of any of it.
organic makes me feel happy... i have a really good feeling about organic... only because i'm going to get through much of the content over the summer. i wouldn't have a hope otherwise. but: to be fair: i need to think that i'll be in a class with kids who have done 3 years of chemistry. a bunch of them will have done scholarship chemistry, and cambridge curriculum. apparently little bits are new to everyone... spectroscopy... but i most certainly don't have the background that they do... it has taken me a couple days of work to work through chapter 1 of the text... meant to be revision... but it depends on how tricky the questions are, really... i think things are ticking along... it is funny, though how he has a lot of 'this should be revision from general chemistry' before he puts up a bunch of problems that nobody in his class seems to be able to do... far too much too fast for real time. unless... you know most of it already. i didn't realise just how cumulative science was...
so... i don't think it is cheating at all for me to put in time over the summer. some kids put in a lot of time during their school years... i slacked off, mostly. so i'm paying my dues now. can think of it that way. i can do it faster than they (maybe get a couple years done in a couple months) because i don't have all the other b*llsh*t they had to put up with. pesky siblings, puberty, pressure to be cool, other people working at different paces etc etc etc. and of course mostly because i can focus more on stuff that is directly relevant... i don't need to worry about learning my table of elements by heart (for example) and it is just that kind of crap that stupid high school teachers like to make the kids do (which is of course a huge part of why i couldn't tolerate science at high school)...
i do wish i was better at physics... but i don't suppose one can be good at everything. sniff. i'm not particularly good at weightlifting, either. there is a bunch of sh*t that i can't do... i wish i was better at physics. really. but, really, it is too hard for me. with the math... i need it to go so very very very (very very) much slower than it does... and it simply won't. and so... there it is.
i should have discovered the lectures for it faster. the recorded ones. worked through them at my own pace. ideally... i'd only be doing the one class... and i could spend the 2 or 3 hours listening to the 50 minute lecture... working through the examples as best i could on my own and then with the lecturer commentary and then again on my own... with the commentary... on my own... until i could freaking well do them. but i didn't... too much in the way of other classes... so...
i really do need to go into next year knowing most of it. otherwise... i don't really have a chance.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141012/msgs/1072201.html