During my first year at UNC, I accumulated five key pieces of advice that might be of interest it you!
Get the right textbooks
I did not initially realize just how important it is to use textbooks besides the assigned standbys. Textbooks should be helpful resources, so if yours isn’t working for you I recommend giving another one a try! Many helpful textbooks that your program doesn’t use may be available on interlibrary loan.
Here are a few things I found helpful:
- Nouredine Zettili’s Quantum Mechanics (Advanced undergraduate + graduate quantum)
- Andrew Zangwill’s Modern Electrodynamics (A good supplement/replacement for Jackson)
- Prof. Jacob Linder at NTNU has a fantastic series of lectures from Goldstein’s Classical Mechanics. He follows the book very closely, but gives more color commentary that can help when you get stuck.
Don’t shy away from worked solutions
Practice is the most reliable way of getting better at anything — including physics. That said, when time is scarce, it is important to set priorities and seek timely, targeted feedback. Chugging through 6 pages of integrals to solve part e of that one problem in Jackson’s Electrodynamics may be good practice for solving integrals, but is it the best way to learn physics? I tend to think not. Instead, I would advocate for the thoughtful and restrained use of worked solutions which are readily available for most text books in use.
In my opinion “thoughtful and restrained” means that you should try to start each problem by outlining the solution without help. What are the components that need to be solved for? How will I approach each part? Once that’s complete start working through each component, but don’t stay stuck for more than, say, 45 minutes. There are so many better things to be doing with your time! When you do need to turn to solutions to get un-stuck on one part, I recommend using them as little as possible. Once you’ve figured out the trick put the solutions away and continue the problem.
I also think that checking your answers as you work is a healthy use of worked solutions. Finding mistakes and learning how to fix them is a key part of learning, but it may take weeks to get your graded homework back. I learn more when I get the feedback right away.
Please don’t cheat or break any rules! Ask your professors what is and is not allowed in each of their classes, and follow their directions.
Work smarter, not harder
To be a graduate student in physics, one must possess a certain fastidious drive to get everything right. It’s important to keep this in check. Some work is worth doing, and some is not. I advise you to think carefully about how you spend your time — I wish I had been better at this. Professors tend to make it seem as though finishing their homework assignment is THE most important thing in the world. That’s their job, of course, but that assignment may not be the most important thing for you. After all, you are probably in grad school to become an expert in your field. A strong background in electrodynamics may certainly be important, but spending an hour solving that system of 12 equations probably isn’t. Plug it into Mathematica!
Some good reasons to skip homework problems, or less helpful parts thereofDon’t push teaching to the back burner
You may loving teaching, but have no time for it, or you may hate teaching and have no time for it, but regardless, I think you should try to make time to improve your teaching.
Click Here To Read Why:Devote an hour per day to something fun
Seriously. It’s hard, I know, but it really really matters! I try to get outside for a run, bike ride, or other physical activity every day. This is my way of clearing my head, and I find that “sacrificing” that one hour actually makes the others more productive. It doesn’t have to be exercise, but find your thing and stick to it!
Corrections? Clarifications? Did I miss something? Contact me.