A New Academic Year (2023-2024) | My Challenges

Hi reader, you may or may not know me -- chances are that you probably don't know me. But anyway, let me introduce myself. I'm Otto but I go by Toby and 2B/2BO on the internet: I'm a senior undergraduate student that's reading Physics and, I'm here to share my miserable experience with schooling this past academic year as well as how I plan to formulate a strategy and tackle school this academic year. 

Just a quick note to who anyone who's going to continue reading past this sentence, I am renown for rambling and going on unnecessary tangents in all of my writings: therefore, I'd ask you to be patient and understanding of how I write -- I'm just neurodivergent, that's all. 

But I'll try my best to keep things as concise as possible, I hope you enjoy the rest of this ramble! 

So, I had my first day of classes yesterday, which was 28th of August, 2023 -- 'twas a Monday for those of you obsessed with knowing what day of the week it was. My good friend asked me to ride along with her since it was her first day at the university, so me being the absolutely good samaritan I am and definitely not the kind of person looking to just hitch a ride, I tagged along. 

On the way, we avoided getting hit by several lorries, alien invasions, as well as another potential World War. When we arrived on campus, I found out that my good friend had to pay for her parking spot at a garage that's all the way across Atlantic Ocean: so naturally, we went there to park her car and then we spent 5 days getting back to the Capitalist Empire, almost went to the depths to meet our deceased Titanic friends as well as the Logitech controlled submarine walked 10 minutes back to where our respective colleges were and parted ways for the day. 

My first class was Statistical Mechanics (a.k.a. Statistical Thermodynamics or just simply Thermodynamics depending on which university you attend), it's being taught on the 4th floor of the Physics building this semester. When I entered the room, there was no one there except for the Professor.

 He introduced himself and so did I, he seemed to emanate a pretty vibrant and "chill" energy right away: I took this opportunity to tell him that I wouldn't be able to make it to the first hour exam (mid-term exam) of that course. I explained why -- it's because my sister's wedding is literally on that day and, I also told him that I'd be unable to attend class during the last week of October as that's when I'm travelling to New Mexico for a conference. Well, he took it well and told me to email him within a week about it. The 2nd person to enter the class became a victim of a joke unfortunately -- I feel sorry for her. The Professor introduced himself to her before asking for her name: once he got her name, he turned to me and said ... OH WAIT, NEVERMIND I CAN'T ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THIS PART OUT LOUD, LOL. IT'LL REVEAL MY REAL NAME. LOOK, IF I KNOW YOU PERSONALLY, PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT THIS LATER ON, LOL. 

Anyway, slowly all the remaining students arrived and so did my buddy who somehow found me sitting at the very front, lol. As class officially started, the Professor began talking about the syllabus, he eventually went to the excused assignments, attendance, and exams part and told the class out loud,

"Yeah, someone earlier asked me if missing an exam for their sister's wedding would be justified. Well, it can be but are you sure your sister is ABSOLUTELY sure about their marriage." 

I tried my best not to laugh out loud. I can already tell that this Professor's humour is going to keep us motivated during the worst periods of this semester. It's just brilliant!  

Anyway, after that class ended, the rest of the day was sort of not too interesting: I attended my Quantum Mechanics class afterwards, where we were handed a Maths assessment (which wasn't going to be graded). The assessment made me realise that I need to brush through my PDEs and ODEs properly, not just that but I forgot how to do basic algebra and matrix algebra -- I was set for a rude awakening. The last class of the day was Science Writing, a class where you learn how to properly write a job/graduate school application, research/journal article paper, and grants -- basically, the most important writing class I'll ever take in my entire life. And that, ladies, gentlemen and more, are all the classes I'm taking this semester. 

Now you may be asking,

"Otto, you said you were going to talk about how miserable your previous academic year was. Why are you starting the blog post with a recollection of your first day of the current academic year?" 

Well, that's because it's the most recent and thus, it's fresher in my memory: relay fresher memories first and the rotten ones later, I say!

I'll get to it now though:  

This past academic year was a disaster, I tried double majoring in Mathematics and Physics -- which in my retrospective, was a huge mistake. I'm so glad I'm just focusing on one major now (even though I suck nothing but teats at it), I don't hate my life anymore, my schedule is 10x more peaceful and, I don't anticipate having mental breakdowns or frequent burnouts at any point this semester -- FINGERS FLIPPING CROSSED, OF COURSE! 

My first semester of the academic year 2022-2023 consisted of the following classes: 

FALL 2022

Introduction to Physics: Waves - essentially a whole semester dedicated to the phenomena of mechanical and electromagnetic waves as well as light. This class had us do differential equations literally every single day of the semester -- never for even once were we free from not using Calculus.

Introduction to Programming in Physics - the easiest class of the whole academic year, all you did was submit projects and homeworks for this class. 

Experimental Physics I: Mechanics - I am not the biggest fan of labs but, I truly enjoyed this one especially since the professor teaching this course was amazing and the TA helped me out through lots of struggles. 

Complex Variables - this was basically a whole semester on the analysis and uses of complex numbers, variables, and functions. This class was made harder than it should have been, the instructor teaching this course was an Aussie (so I thought it was going to be a kickarse semester). I was dead wrong about this class being fun, he made everything seem more confusing than it should have been. I'm luck to even have passed this class!

Partial Differential Equations - The lecturer was amazing for this class but, my own habits got the best of me and, I ended up dropping this class. I retook this in Spring 2022 and passed it though. 

SPRING 2022

Modern Physics - This is basically a survey course: it introduces Physics students to topics that they're going to take a whole semester on later on. The topics covered were Thermodynamics, Quantum Mechanics, and Special Relativity. This was a very easy class but again, my habits got the best of me and, I managed to barely pass this class. 

Experimental Physics III: Optics - I F***ING HATE THIS CLASS, OMG!!!! It's not just me, almost everyone I know or am aware of hates this class with a passion. This is literally the most confusing and unclear lab class I've taken in my entire life: the instructor for my lab was helpful but even despite their helpfulness, things were still unclear 60% of the time. I admit that I also had terrible habits pummeling me from every single corner, so it's not just the class but also my terrible habits. 

Partial Differential Equations - This time around I managed to do decent in this class despite it being terribly hard and sometimes difficult to process. The textbook the instructor used this semester was mediocre in comparison to the conventional Strauss book used by most PDE classes. Regardless, the instructor was extremely nice -- I wish I could take more classes with them. 

Introduction to Mathematical Proofs - This is my academic demon. Yes, I skipped class. Yes, I tried to do the HWs on my own without consulting anyone or the professor. Yes, I should have gone to office hours more. Yes, I should have put in more time to study for this class. But no, I never did any of that. I ended up dropping this class: as a result, I decided to drop the Math major too. 

So what went wrong in both of those semesters? 

I'll tell you. Undiagnosed mental health disorders that results in me being very disorganised and out-of-loop with my day to day life. My time management skills are terrible and, my ability to focus on most things isn't as good as I'd like for it to be. I'm currently set to be screened for ADHD and have been diagnosed with GAD previously; I've also been diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder recently, at least up until I'm completely tested for neurodivergence, I suppose.

Having untreated and undiagnosed neurodivergence can be a huge disaster; even if you're interested in something and wish to pursue it academically, everyone's brains aren't the same so they don't end up being able to focus on it as would be ideal in a class structure. My brain has a hard-time adjusting to academic curricula in general, even if I'm heavily interested in -- I found research to be far easier but again, even in the research end, there are deadlines. And if I'm to keep myself on top of things, I'll need to make sure I can function well enough to be used to finishing tasks before the deadlines. 

Another contributing factor to this would be my addiction to social media and the internet: I don't think anything else has worsened my condition more than the advent of social media within the past decade. It has made me extremely undisciplined and has given my mind a refuge to seek instant rewards -- which is baffling and sad at the same time. 

I mean sure socialisation is important and all but, these short-term instant gratifications won't make feel content or relieved for long -- I'll need to grasp onto something that gratifies me without making me feel like I'm setup for a heavy mental crash.

Overall, it feels like my brain has degenerated further and further within the past 5 years. 

But there's no point in crying over spilled milk, we must do what we must do to get by. I'm hoping that I have a consistent mental and health care routine, as well as more variety with my activities: I'm trying to stay less at home and find more ways to be active somehow. Apart from that, I've started journaling recently (been doing so for 22 days at the time of this post), which has been helping me release a lot of my subconscious and buried thoughts. 

This semester I hope to stick a study regimen as well: 

My idea is to read the textbook, take notes on it, then go to class and listen to the lecture and be able to ask questions when appropriate. 

(You may be saying that this is how most classes operate anyway, so what's new about it here? Well, it's CONVINCING myself to do it that's the hard part, not anything else. Most instructions and directions are processed PASSIVELY by me. They take a good chunk of time to be converted into ACTIVITY).

Take notes from lecture, come home and combine both notes into one notebook that'll help me review for any homework problems and exams. I also plan to warm up every day with a maths problem that's suitable for the level of Physics I'm taking this semester. 

My biggest fears are burning out this semester, getting terrible grades, not asking the professor anything, not collaborating on anyone with the HW problems, or getting sidetracked by other events (such as my sister's wedding). Either way, that's my plan going forward, I've designed my schedule to be such that I get a break day after each day of classes. 

That's my rambling for now, I'll be sure to see you all in a future blog post should I find enough time to write one. Feel free to comment on this, if you relate with it feel free to share your story; if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them on the comments as well.

Good day!