Thinking of making a University diary/blog on here

[Lol]

So I've been at uni for around 2 weeks now and I feel I need a place to vent all of the thoughts in my head with the added bonus of getting some feedback from likeminded people who may offer insights to the situations that I go through.
Plus, in the distant future I might come back to this website and read over the posts and reminisce of my University days (If the site is still up and running, that is)

 

[Sixup]

Go ahead. I'm back in school too, so I'd be interested in following along and/or tossing in some ideas.

 

[QuietFire]

What if everyone decided to make a diary on here?

I am not sure one would want to share very sad and unfortunate personal experiences on this forum, but if it isn't sad and unfortunate and personal, I am not sure how it would be interesting either.

 

[Sixup]

What if everyone decided to make a diary on here?

I am not sure one would want to share very sad and unfortunate personal experiences on this forum, but if it isn't sad and unfortunate and personal, I am not sure how it would be interesting either.

Good idea. Let's implement that one day.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Diary Entry 07/10/2015

• Students vandalized all of the toilets on campus again.
• Students studying science and engineering complain that math 101 is too hard.
• Students complain that being given the entire semester to complete and assignment is not enough time.
• Students blame lecturer that they did not start writing said assignment until two nights prior the due date.
• Student attempts to assault lecturer due to failing said assignment when deciding to write it at the last moment.
• Students claim that failing courses is due to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

• Students studying science and engineering complain that math 101 is too hard.

Which subject is 101?

My school didn't have a 101. We went from 8 right to 113 or something

(113 was super fun, by the way. Non-Euclidean geometry is a hoot)

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Which subject is 101?

My school didn't have a 101. We went from 8 right to 113 or something

(113 was super fun, by the way. Non-Euclidean geometry is a hoot)

The simplest and first science and engineering math course at the university. It is unbelievably easy. Unfortunately a large portion of students are failing for some strange reason. The lecturer who has taught the course for the last 15 years is getting fired because of the students' complaints. Mind you, I have seen the material, the course has been getting easier over the last number of years as well.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

So like basic Calc?

That sounds like some shit. It's not even that tough to begin with.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

So like basic Calc?

That sounds like some shit. It's not even that tough to begin with.

Algebra, vectors, dot products, cross products, basic derivatives and basic integrals...

 

[matchka609]

Diary Entry 07/10/2015

• Students vandalized all of the toilets on campus again.
• Students studying science and engineering complain that math 101 is too hard.
• Students complain that being given the entire semester to complete and assignment is not enough time.
• Students blame lecturer that they did not start writing said assignment until two nights prior the due date.
• Student attempts to assault lecturer due to failing said assignment when deciding to write it at the last moment.
• Students claim that failing courses is due to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc.

Based on your diary entry, I can say you are not an INTP. INTPs start working on an assignment the night before it is due

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[bleo]

• Sitting in an early morning Fluid Dynamics Tutorial. I was late. I cant be arsed, let me just copy everything and deal with things later. I know some of these concepts I guess.
• the person next to me is competent. crunching papers. he'll grow up to be a good engineer. But everyone started small. We were once babies, with mothers. I wondered how we'd look like. How he would cry like if he were to magically transform into a baby in this tutorial. Man that was weird... back to Tutorial.
• I used to be very switched on with my course. Then I got sidetracked with existential crisis. Now everyone's on with their assignments and barely started. I'm screwed. Deal with this later.
• wow, Ive remained focused throughout my lecture. His accent is british, I wondered how he looked like in a tea conversation. I visually saw him drinking tea vividly in my mind, on the spot. That was wierd. Back to tuning into the Lectures.

Just 30% of the things I caught myself thinking in the span of two hours. Tell me I'm not the only one harbouring these kinds of randomness in thought. Please. Anyway, most of it is kinda useless.

 

[Sixup]

Just 30% of the things I caught myself thinking in the span of two hours. Tell me I'm not the only one harbouring these kinds of randomness in thought. Please. Anyway, most of it is kinda useless.

How old are you bleo?

 

[bleo]

How old are you bleo?

22 years old and still short of maturity, at times.

 

[Sixup]

22 years old and still short of maturity, at times.

I had similar existential crisis around that time. 26 now and I think I'm mostly out of it.

So I guess my point is, it will probably pass.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

Hey I'd like to contribute to this!

I'm just about done with my bachelors and will be headed to grad school next fall. I've always been a sporadic INTPf poster so whenever I do check in, I'll share my thoughts and experiences. I'll try to remember to at least post at the beginnings and ends of semesters.

To those coming up in undergrad physics: try to jump into research as early as possible and find a good mentor professor. I guess its kind of the same way in grad school as well but definitely do it in undergrad too. And then go to conferences as much as you can affordably (hopefully free through your institution) and meet lots of scientists and job offerers; the job offerers seem to be more common at engineering conferences.

My last semester I have five classes: Math Methods, Diff EQ (Don't ask me how I got this far without it), Thermodynamics, French II (which sucks because I haven't taken French I for a year and a half), and some other elective I have no idea of yet.
I finished all my core physics classes earlier than most people do because my uni is small and tends to cancel classes a lot when they don't fill up. Still managed to do fairly well in them anyway, though if I'd gone through the math sequence first before the upper level E&Ms, Classicals, and Quantums, I would've had a much easier time.

Also definitely do as much math as you can first. A good rule would be to be a least a year ahead in math courses of wherever you are in physics. A Math PhD friend of mine told me that when it was already too late and now I'm playing catch up (I was probably a year behind in math). A positive spin on that though, is that I think I actually do better learning and practicing it on my own for the most part.

I could have gotten a 4.0 or close to it if I'd really wanted to but I knew when I started that I probably wouldn't. Some of you might know, I'm also a part-time writer and was writing a novel for the majority of my undergrad, while at the same time had a 30-35 hr a week job (which I quit in January 2014) which kept me quite busy. Oh, and a SO. Its ok to fall in love with someone since you can't really control when that happens anyway, and if you're serious about each other, you should consider them as much as you consider yourself and plan things out early.




And ride elephants as often as possible

 

[Sixup]

I'm gonna piggyback off of your university diary/blog...cry about it.


But...I must say...

I am really absolutely enjoying college at the moment. It probably helps that I don't have to work, and I'm not paying for it (directly--though I sort of paid with years of my life, although they were good years). But yeah, it's pretty fun. Maybe it's too early and the jadedness just hasn't kicked in yet. Meh. I hope that doesn't happen.

Only class I have that I don't like is psychology. Fuck psychology. Pointless. It's not hard. Just boring. Great, we get to learn about a bunch of rich dead white guys and one girl who made some theories with barely any scientific backing. Yes I realize the contradiction of saying that and being here in MBTI land.

I've sort of not liked my intro programming class I'm in, because we started the first 6 weeks using this shitty 3D graphical language called Alice. Such a pain in the ass, you have to locate where the code that you need is, then drag and drop it onto the writing area. Then when something goes wrong you can't just read it, you have to try to see based on the effects on the sprites. Oh and by the way, the program is buggy as shit and crashes constantly, hope you saved after every goddamn change lol. Annoying as fuck.

We are switching to Java now, so it will be better. But I still have to finish this pain in the ass project for Alice. Almost there.

 

[Inquisitor]

I'm gonna piggyback off of your university diary/blog...cry about it.


But...I must say...

I am really absolutely enjoying college at the moment. It probably helps that I don't have to work, and I'm not paying for it (directly--though I sort of paid with years of my life, although they were good years). But yeah, it's pretty fun. Maybe it's too early and the jadedness just hasn't kicked in yet. Meh. I hope that doesn't happen.

Only class I have that I don't like is psychology. Fuck psychology. Pointless. It's not hard. Just boring. Great, we get to learn about a bunch of rich dead white guys and one girl who made some theories with barely any scientific backing. Yes I realize the contradiction of saying that and being here in MBTI land.

I've sort of not liked my intro programming class I'm in, because we started the first 6 weeks using this shitty 3D graphical language called Alice. Such a pain in the ass, you have to locate where the code that you need is, then drag and drop it onto the writing area. Then when something goes wrong you can't just read it, you have to try to see based on the effects on the sprites. Oh and by the way, the program is buggy as shit and crashes constantly, hope you saved after every goddamn change lol. Annoying as fuck.

We are switching to Java now, so it will be better. But I still have to finish this pain in the ass project for Alice. Almost there.

I f*ckin hate that sh*t. I had to use MIT's version called "Scratch". You'll like Java more, but realize that it hides a ton of stuff from you about what goes on under the hood. Taking C/Unix programming now and there you have to actually manipulate individual bytes in memory to be able to do anything.

 

[Sixup]

I f*ckin hate that sh*t. I had to use MIT's version called "Scratch". You'll like Java more, but realize that it hides a ton of stuff from you about what goes on under the hood. Taking C/Unix programming now and there you have to actually manipulate individual bytes in memory to be able to do anything.

That sounds interesting and possibly somewhat painful. I'm going to start playing with C a bit too. Taking some online CS courses on the side that use it. Probably not the best idea to do a bunch of different stuff at the same time, but I want to get more sources to supplement.

 

[Inquisitor]

That sounds interesting and possibly somewhat painful. I'm going to start playing with C a bit too. Taking some online CS courses on the side that use it. Probably not the best idea to do a bunch of different stuff at the same time, but I want to get more sources to supplement.

One thing that I learned the hard way: Do not ever study more than one programming language at a time. I'm doing that right now, and basically I'm not keeping up in one of them. You have to expend extra energy to keep things distinct in your mind. If you're taking Java, learn that sh*t in depth. Save the C for later. I recommend Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java. Very comprehensive introduction. Loads of exercises.

 

[Lol]

The 5 weeks I've been at university have been a total train wreck. The course I am studying (Electrical and electronic engineering) is not what I expected it to be like and I'm sitting in lectures thinking wtf is going on. I thought engineering would be more science related but it's nothing like the electrical module I took in my physics class back in high school. The main reason I chose EEE was because I found that module quite interesting with electric and magnetic fields, but the course is majority electronics.
Right now I'm thinking about dropping out and taking a gap year and reapplying to university for the 16/17 academic year. I'll probably get a part time job in retail and resit a few exams that I didn't do well in.

And I'm planning on doing a physics degree next time.

edit:Even the social life has been pretty poor. First couple of weeks it was fun as I was trying to make an effort to be social but ever since I've become disillusioned with my course I've stopped trying as I can't see myself staying here for a long time.

 

[Sixup]

What exactly are you disillusioned about?

You were interested in electric and magnetic fields so you've gone into EE, ok, so don't you think you'll eventually get into those topics?

 

[Lol]

What exactly are you disillusioned about?

You were interested in electric and magnetic fields so you've gone into EE, ok, so don't you think you'll eventually get into those topics?

Out of the 9 modules I'm doing this year fields is one of them. The majority of the course is electronics, maths and programming/matlab. Maths has been my favourite part of the course so far while I haven't found the rest of the course particularly interesting.

 

[Frankie]

Alrighty....
I'm studying Biosystems Engineering with biomedical specialisation. I chose it because I was drawn to it for some reason I can't explain even now, and as a backup plan if I decide not to go to medical school (pretty much decided now). I like how the curriculum is a jack of all trades kinda thing. I've contemplated quitting more than once when the going got tough, but I think I'll finish it.

@lol
Maths was also my favourite among the first year courses I took. I don't 'know if it's a general thing, that first year courses usually fall short of students' expectations. I would advise that you just get through it and see what upper level courses have to offer, then you can decide to pull the plug. I'd also suggest that you try out some design teams (if your school has them) and see if anything sparks your interest.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

I get my bachelors in physics in 2 months. Heading to grad school in astrophysics/cosmology. Will likely do theory.

Very soon I will update this thread with my experiences throughout undergrad and the grad school process (Long post) It has been challenging, rewarding and exciting all at the same time. I've applied directly to 10 schools. Ive already been accepted at one place, will likely get into at least 3 more based on interviews with those schools, and waiting to hear back from the other 6.