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[3/08] Exam 1 Reflections

[1] Real Talk⚓︎

A lot of you are probably upset about the first exam, and that's perfectly okay! In the past, I've had plenty of students who did poorly on Exam 1, then put real effort into changing their approach and finished strong with an A or B.

 

I genuinely believe that the most valuable lesson in college is developing a high threshold for failure. In other words, getting comfortable with the process of:

  1. Failing at some task,
  2. Putting mindful effort into changing your approach,
  3. Trying again,
  4. Failing a little less,
  5. And repeating that over and over again.

It sounds counterintuitive, but you can't just "choose" to be good at something. The only thing you can actually do is set past failures aside, sit down, and try again. I want nothing more than for you to have trust and confidence in this process because it will work — not just for this class, but everything in life.

 

Take my story as an example: I just looked at my undergrad transcript, and I had a total of 2 F's and 6 C's (and honestly, that's nowhere near the worst of my blunders). I'm not going to pretend it didn't bother me — I had my fair share of tears, grief, and thoughts of changing my entire career path. But after a few days (or weeks, sometimes), I decided to show up and try again. I never stopped making mistakes, but if you keep going, you tend to stumble in the right direction. Now, I get to work my dream job at an awesome physics lab! Overall, grades should never be your metric for "success" — instead, focus on cleaning up your corner of the world, finding ways to provide value to others, and pursuing your passions. If you do that for long enough, I pinky promise things will work out for you. (1)

 

But like I mentioned, before you can pick yourself up, it's okay to let yourself grieve a little. When I feel like shit, here are some nice things which help me realign my mindset and start again:

 

(As a side note, I believe my job as a teacher is only 5% related to teaching physics — the rest is helping you understand the above and develop a good mindset towards learning and growth. Every student I've ever worked with has had more potential than they realized; they just needed support, structure, and time to grow into it.)

 

 

[2] Studying⚓︎

With all that being said, I'm more than happy to work with you outside of class to review any course material! I have my availability at the bottom of the main page — TLDR I'm free all of Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Tuesday. I typically prefer in-person, but Zoom is perfectly okay if you're more comfortable with that.

Take care of yourselves this week. Get some rest, eat something decent, and keep going.

 

 

[3] This Week's Recitation⚓︎

Here's some good prep material: Week 7: Rotation

 

[4] my car⚓︎

Here's Kita, she believes in you! (1)

  1. Just kidding no she doesn't, she's too stupid and evil :(

^ "Can you lock the fuck in?"