alright, gonna cut right to the chase. I'm a 9th grader in high school (It's my first year of my Highschool career) and my school requires me to take physics as a science class. It's so hard and my grades have been dropping low. I study and study but I feel as if they're all fruitless. Can you give me some advice? Thank you.
Hey! Ah. Yes. Well. Let me be honest here.
...luckily there’s a few people on here who have lived and suffered through (and found relative joy in) physics with a few resources/ snippets of advice:
Studying for AP Physics by @collegemania
Classical Mechanics by @rudescience and @theneuroscienceside
Tips for Success in Physics by @hexaneandheels
Answered Physics (Q&A) by @colllegeruled
Physics resources and links by @ashleigh-studies
Succeed in Physics by @anateamy
Studying for AP physics by @collegemania (working link by @studyblrsubjects
this answer by @rosallindfranklin
Let’s be frank though, we’ve all felt that crippling (frustrating) sense of futility when we’ve studied very hard for something and it just hasn’t clicked. Your efforts do not always pay off. You may do 100+ revision questions and examples and read the entire textbook and still have no idea what you’re supposed to do!
In that situation, I’d suggest the following:
Ask for help. First point of call is always your teacher. Remember, they’re paid to help you. Seriously. There is no shame. Everyone has to work for a wage.
Ask for specific examples - practical examples. I always find ‘real life’ examples/ applications of a theory help me understand the concept better.
Study smart. Avoid the temptation to copy and ‘read’ and highlight the textbook. You may feel this temptation much more strongly if you’re not doing well (the whole idea being, hell if I don’t understand this I obviously need to ‘read’ more). Use revision questions as starting points. Identify the concepts you do not understand with particularity. Then work on specific revision questions etc. If you can, use past exam/ test questions. remember school is really just a game.
Set realistic expectations. You don’t have to be the top student in this subject - you just have to pass. You don’t have to be Newton’s reincarnate.
Put it into perspective - how important is this one subject to you? Overall? Is this a field you want to enter in years to come? Is this a door you want to keep open?
It’s early on. It doesn’t feel like it because you’ve only just started the rollercoaster that is high school. But you will get through it, there will be ups and downs and tears in between, but you’ll get out to the other side and things will have changed.
Don’t let this one set back make you believe that you can’t do anything.
Here’s the secret. You don’t need to be perfect at everything. You may never need to use physics again. You might. You might not.
Where you start is not where you finish. You may not enjoy/ may not ‘be good at’ physics now - but if you want to, you can be.
If you don’t, that is completely ok!
The great thing is that as you get older you get more opportunities to choose, to ‘specialise’ aka cut shit out of your life.
Take it from a college graduate who hasn’t had to look at anything physics related for 9 years.
