Ben’s Guide to Surviving a Hard Class

03/05/2020 12:06 AM

Hey y’all, Bens back with another blog. Now going into college, I’m sure a lot of you will have challenging classes. I for one had a super challenging class this past fall. I had to take physics 1 and 2 as part of my major. Thankfully, I took AP physics in high school and my score on the exam passed me out of physics 1 so I didn’t have to take it but I still had to take the second installment of the course. Now I get biology and chemistry pretty well but for some reason, physics has always been a trouble starter for me. So I made sure to prepare myself for the hard semester ahead. I made sure that I would always make it to class and actively listen and take notes. That I feel was the most important thing. Most professors give lectures, also write the exams, so what the professor goes over in class is most likely to be on the upcoming exam. The homework was kind of different and at may times difficult, yet I formed a physics group with some of my friends in the class. We would literally meet up weekly and have an entire table to ourselves in the library and we would crank out about 4 hours of physics work. Working and studying in groups is very helpful because if I don’t know how to do something, they usually will and vice versa. Our combined knowledge was able to tackle any magnetic and electrical problem masteringphysics.com could throw at us. The final studying strategy I had that got me the grade I wanted was getting help. If my weekly group was busy or we weren’t meeting up, the professor and library both have hours to go to for help. The library offers free tutoring and physics 2 is one of the many courses they have someone there to help with. All you have to do is look up on their website when they will be there. And not only does the professor have set hours weekly to go to him with any questions, but if none of those times work out for you, most professors will accommodate if you email them and schedule a different time. I would meet with my professor about once every other week and he knew me by name and how to best teach me individually since I had seen him so many times. All of these things combined to make the class much more doable and I ended up passing. Hope I helped!