Year One: An English Major

My whole life I've envisioned myself as a high school teacher. So that's exactly what I went to university to become. One of my favorite classes in high school was Writer's Craft. That, then, is what I wanted to teach. So in September 2010 I started at York University as an English Major.

Now, in the English Department they know that a lot of students are only taking English because they don't know what they really want to do. So while cross-discipline credits are required in every degree, they make you take lots of them in English, in the hopes of getting you out of their oversaturrated department.

Well, it worked.

I took a Natural Sciences course called Light and Sound. I found this class fascinating. I was motivated to work hard, and I left the class with an A+! (One of the only ones I had ever gotten). To this day (5 years later) every time I see Professor Wolfe it brightens my day. None of those statements was true for any of my other classes. I didn't like any of my profs. I was barely interested in any of the material. I was not motivated. And as far as my grades go, let's just say that short of failing, they're still bringing down my GPA.

I used to go to my English classes and (cover your eyes Dad) play games on my laptop at the back of the lecture hall. Hey, I didn't say I wondered why I didn't get better grades.

The Light and Sound class, however, was awesome. It was the only class that held me enraptured nearly each and every lecture. I learned about waves, and laws that govern their behaviour. I learned a little about something called blackbody radiation (a law that, along with other things, tells us about how hot the sun is based on its size and brightness). I did two projects that taught me a lot of fascinating things about the original violins and light data storage (like why a blu-ray disc holds more than a DVD). I came out of this class thinking I was pretty knowledgeable, haha.

So, I decided to switch majors. Afterall, the dream was always to be a teacher. It didn't really matter what the subject was.

But, I had a dilemna. My GPA along with my high school grades were way too low for the Faculty of Science and Engineering to accept me. Also, I didn't have enough high school math or physics to take even their first year courses.

Next post I'll talk about the year and a half I spent building up to even taking "uni-level" physics and math classes (and even calling them that is a bit of a stretch).

Studying Physics

Whenever I tell someone for the first time that I'm studying physics I receive one of several reactions. Some people are impressed, some people don't seem impressed at all, and others think I'm wasting my time altogether. Sometimes people look at me like I'm from Kepler-186f (a distant planet that could possibly support life!). Other people give me their sympathy, and others still say something to show that they know "stuff about physics too". It's a strange experience, getting such a spectrum of reactions.

So I decided to write this blog to talk about what it's like to study physics.

Overall, studying physics is pretty challenging. Each year is exponentially more difficult than the last. I have learned that I'm not very strong mathematically. In fact, one of my favorite things to say is "The more physics I do, the dumber I feel."

According to goodreads.com Albert Einstein said "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know." Now, that was Einstein! This is true for me tenfold.

I will get more into that feeling in a later post about upper-year undergraduate physics.

I want to emphasize one thing: I do not consider myself to be smarter than the average bear. I do not want to write this post to show people how "smart I am". I believe that most people could study physics if they worked hard enough (and it does not come easily to me). I am strongly convinced that what appear to be our "strengths" are really just manifestations of our interests. The purpose of this post is to give people a small window into what studying physics is like, since it seems so foreign to many people. I should say, however, that I will probably make some snide remarks about Liberal Art students since every time my classmates and I are studying, we hear Liberal Art Majors at the next table laughing or playing league of legends.

I'll talk about the physics program experience chronologically--starting with my first-year in the English program and why I switched.