#my prof: so if any of you go into calc 3-

[wndrhyuka]

after the exam.

the first part. sfw suggestive. prof!mingyu. not proofread. wc 2.7k

good evening, y/n,

midterm grades were just posted, which i hope you've had the chance to look at. much to my surprise, it did not go well. the class average was just that. average. but your score in particular was lower than i had expected.

as you know, my office hours run from 3-4pm on MWF. we can review any material that might’ve challenged you. i’ll have a copy of the exam on hand if and when you come by.

i’d like to see you succeed in this course before the semester ends, and to better prepare you for any courses to follow this one.

best,

kim mingyu.

"fuck." you sighed aloud to yourself. checking your emails before going to sleep was now a decision you had come to regret.

you sat on your uncomfortable bed in your dorm, legs crossed with your laptop on your thighs. blindingly bright screen displaying text that twisted your stomach. you supposed you deserved this.

before the exam, you promised your professor that you'd "definitely" see him in his office. you mostly said so because you felt confronted, but looking back, you weren't sure why you did that.

no one's office hours worked your your schedule. your mornings throughout the week were filled with back to back lectures and the second you were done with class, you were on the bus to your part-time job at a coffee shop near your university.

you remember chan offering to study with you when you gave him your number, but you figured he also had other exams to cram for and you didn't want to get in the way.

so you studied on your own. youtube videos, practice tests, worksheets, the textbook, your notes, and your returned homework. every single symbol and number seemed to mush together on your paper.

you had seen your score when it was posted, and with all that effort, you earned yourself a 48/100. that score might've made sense if you said fuck it and chose not to try on the exam, but that wasn't what you were trying for at all, and this email in your lap told you that your professor caught onto that too.

you didn't have the guts to respond to him. it reeked of disappointment and you couldn't bear to acknowledge that. you shut your laptop and put it on your desk before going to bed.

the next morning you stood outside your calc lecture, waiting for the students inside to finish up.

"hey," you hear someone approach you. it was chan. he stands beside you against the wall of the corridor.

"hey." you can't help the smile that grows on your lips.

"so... did you check your score for the midterm?"

your shoulders drop and you roll your eyes, "wish i didn't."

"i probably got a lower score than you." he replies.

"what'd you get?" your voice reeked of doubt.

"64."

you scoff and turn away from him, arms crossed against your chest, "you're such an ass."

"what?!" he laughs, leaning closer to you when you move away, "there's no way you got less than me. i couldn't answer half of those questions."

"keep rubbing it in, chan. it feels great," you can't help but laugh at your failure, though laughing about it did cheer you up, especially with chan.

"you gonna tell me your score?" chan continues to tease you as students flood the hallways, leaving their lectures.

"never." you wince and hide your face in your hands.

"oh, come onnn. i wanna know." he nudges your shoulder with his.

you shake your head behind your hands, hiding your giddy smile and feeling the heat emitting from your cheeks on your palms. probably from the embarrassment, or maybe because you liked chan.

"class is starting, you two." you hear a stern voice ahead of you.

dropping your hands, you lift your head to see who it was.

your professor. he eyes you both through his glasses, holding his bag in hand before entering the classroom and letting the door close behind him.

when the door shuts, you're left in the silence of the now empty hallway rendered speechless as you and chan turned to each other, sharing confused expressions.

looking back through the slim window of the door, you could see your professor setting his bag down on the desk in the corner, pulling out a stack of papers.

you sigh, somehow feeling defeated. "did we do something wrong?" you whisper to chan. the first time you'd been scolded was understandable, but you weren't sure you deserved his abruptness this time.

chan looks at his phone and checks the time. "we still have 5 minutes 'til he's supposed to start class." he scoffs as puts his phone back in his pocket, "c'mon."

he walks forward and opens the door to the class. you head inside, walking between the rows of students to find your usual seat. chan takes a seat next to you while you unpack.

"morning, everyone." mingyu speaks at the front of the class, “i posted the grades to your midterm yesterday afternoon. if you haven't seen them yet, you can look in your online gradebook." moody groans and whispers cast a blanket over the students as he makes his way toward his desk, picking up a large stack of papers.

"i'll pass them back now." he begins walking around the class, calling out names, finding the student, then returning their test. “i made some notes on your work. please read them. it might help you understand any mistakes you made.”

"chan." he calls. chan raises his hand.

when he places the exam on chan's desk, you peek over at it. as expected, "64/100" was written largely in red pen on the first page. chan scooted it over to you, allowing you to look at it.

your lips straightened into a line as you picked it up, already feeling dissatisfied with yourself. you flipped through the pages to find the questions you knew you got wrong. when you analyzed his work, it all made sense. he made it seem so much simpler than you thought it was.

"y/n." you hear you professor call from behind you. turning around in your chair, you raise your hand and see him make his way over.

as he drew nearer, you felt your heart beating faster in your chest. maybe you were anxious because you stood him up last week. or maybe it was because he had been curt with you and chan. even if neither were the case, there was still one fundamental cause for your unease. you found him incredibly attractive.

he looms over your left shoulder and sets your exam down, large build positioned behind you so closely that you felt the heat of his body on your back. the warm and woodsy scent of him filling your nose and threatening an upward curl at the corner of your lips. you bite down on them and attempt to shake your head out of the gutter while focusing on your breathing.

after handing back your exam, he bends down from his upright stance, "see me after class, please."

your breathing comes to an abrupt stop as the pressure of your teeth in your bottom lip increases tenfold. his voice was smooth as velvet. speaking just above a whisper, you felt chills run down your spine as his words reached your ears. the aroma falling from him wouldn’t help either. his cologne was intoxicating at this proximity. it made you dizzy, and you felt your eyelids become heavy for a moment.

before you can even exhale to respond, he walks away and returns to the front of the class. you turn toward chan to see if he caught that, but he was sitting with eyes glued to his phone in his lap. you thought about telling him what happened until you were interrupted.

"alright. let's get started." his voice commands the attention of the room. chan puts his phone away.

you look toward your professor who begins writing on the board. everyone around you picks up their pencils and begins taking note of his work, but you were frozen.

your mind was occupied. you were looking at the board but nothing was registering. focusing on the lesson seemed impossible after hearing his voice in your ear like that. you felt terrified, flustered, and some third emotion that you couldn't quite name, though it seemed to be the strongest.

the hour long lecture carries out, and you couldn't concentrate for one second. chan noticed your pencil clutched in your hand, but the page of your notebook empty.

"y/n," he whispers.

you jolt, waking from your trance, and face him.

"are you okay?" he quietly asks.

you smile and nod, chuckling awkwardly before slowly turning your head down towards your notebook. you rest the tip of your pencil against your notebook, but write nothing as your subconscious resumed its hold on you.

you sat there for the remainder of the period with your back straight, but your eyes slightly downward towards your notebook, more than distracted with several thoughts running through your head.

what would he say? would he shame your score? would he confront you about standing him up? did he ask anyone else to stay back? would he be passive aggressive like he had been with you and chan? the questions clouded every corner of your brain.

you were awoken again by the sudden rustling of papers and backpacks zipping around you, including chan's.

"y/n, are you sure you're okay?" he asks again, "you didn't write anything down."

"oh, yeah. i just..." you stare blankly at him. he stares back with concern in his brow. "i didn't feel like it today, i guess." you blurt.

"alright," he stands and swings his bag around his shoulder, "i have to head to my next class, but i'll see you here monday?"

"yeah!" you beam, trying not to cause worry.

"later," he smiles. adjusting his bag, he then makes his way to the door.

"wait, chan!" you exclaim.

he stops and turns around quickly with a quirked brow.

"could you, um, send me a picture of your notes, please?" you ask sheepishly.

he giggles, "sure thing. i'll text you tonight." he says with a cheeky smile before leaving.

after he's gone, you sigh deeply. looking around, you notice everyone had left the class. your professor remained at the board, erasing the board clean.

you put your things away and pick up your bag, cautiously walking up to him.

as you moved closer, you could spot what your eyes always used to fall on. his body. the muscles that never failed to peek through the cotton button ups he wore. biceps flexed while he swiped the eraser across the board. back muscles engaged as the words on the board disappeared.

"y/n." he utters, still facing the board.

your eyes widen, realizing you'd been standing behind him silently for a bit. he puts the eraser down, board now clear.

"thanks for seeing me." he looks downward to meet your gaze. "i just have a few things to ask you." he walks over to his desk to lean against it, looking all too familiar to the last time you were stuck with him after lecture.

you don't move in closer, only turning on your heels to face him. "yes?" your voice emits a much higher pitched reply than you wanted.

"did you get my email last night?" he asks, folding his arms against his chest.

"i did, yes."

"and you didn't reply?" he asks soberly.

shit.

"oh. well, i m-meant to. i should've. it was just... it was really late and-"

he chuckles outwardly at you, halting your nervous blabbering before it inevitably got worse. you turn your chin away from him, confused at his behavior.

"i'm just teasing you," he huffs after his laugh, "that's actually why i wanted to see you today."

you resist rolling your eyes and instead wear a smile. "i'm sorry, professor. i did intend to reply."

"don't worry about it. although, you might be worried about other things." he looks down and raises the knuckle of his finger up to his glasses and straightens them on to sit higher on his nose bridge, "your exam." you wanted to scream when he said the words. "was that the score you wanted?"

you chuckled so you wouldn't cry, "no, sir, not at all. i-i'm not sure what happened with me." you avoid his eyes.

"an issue with you?" he tilts his head slightly. "what makes you say that?"

"i don't know," you sigh, "i guess i was just extremely unprepared for this test."

"mm," he hums. "is that the score you think you deserved?"

you furrow your brows at that. "since when are exams graded on what the student deserves?" you scoff, "i don't think that really matters..."

"i do." he quickly comments. it almost sounded like he was challenging your sentiment, but you had nothing to say in return.

"let me ask you this, y/n. did you ever plan on coming to my office hours the week before the exam? you did ask me when they were."

there it was.

it felt like he had you in the jaws of a trap. though, you expected him to mention this at some point.

"i did want to see you, professor, but your hours didn't work with my schedule." you explained rather urgently.

his eyes dart down for a moment to think, "what about the TA's?"

"his don't work for me either." you answered, nervously chewing on the inside of your cheek watching his face react to your excuses.

he sat there silently for a moment, rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb, appearing in deep thought. you didn't know what to do with yourself.

"the learning assistants for calc have limited hours too. i have back to back classes in the morning and i have work in the afternoons." you offer more excuses to fill the uneasy silence.

he meets your eyes again. "when do you get off?"

"sorry?"

"of work. when do you leave work?" he doubles down on his question.

"it depends?" you reply hesitantly. "if i'm lucky, i'll be done around 5pm. but i don't usually have much luck."

"i see," he murmurs as he looks into your eyes for a moment. "one more question for you."

you perk up to make yourself open to his question.

he straightens his posture against his desk and uncrosses his arms. "if you were presented with an opportunity to get the exam score you deserve, would you take it?"

your head tilts back slightly. "o-of course," you respond. you understood what he was saying but you couldn't help the confusion his statement brought. "i just wouldn't be sure why i deserved to be offered that opportunity, i guess." you chuckle.

"so that's a yes?" he presses.

"...yes." you pause. his ambiguity made you nervous to agree.

he got off his desk and was now standing in front of you. your eyes followed his as they rose far above your line of sight. "i know you're a smart girl, y/n. you just can't access the help you need. so i'd like to offer my help."

"that's very kind of you, professor, but i can't make it to your office hours or-"

"i want to reschedule them to a time that'll work for you." he cuts you off.

your words were caught in your throat again.

"you said you get off at 5?" he continues.

"i..." his assuredness threw you off. "it depends, sir." you spoke slowly. you wanted to answer him properly but you were too confounded with his overly polite suggestion. "sometimes i leave around 7, but i have no control over when my shift ends." just thinking about it all while he was so close to you made you stressed.

"if you were able to communicate with me exactly when your shift ends, i'd be happy to work around your availability to help you with this class."

"what do you... mean?" with mingyu looming over you, it was difficult to process what he was saying. even more so because his cologne was engulfing you in its cloud yet again.

"tell me when you're done with work and i can arrange to meet with you. does that sound good?"

"y-yes, but... how will i tell you?" you mumble, eyes blinking heavier than before.

"you're no good at responding to emails, are you?" he smiles playfully, "how about i give you my number instead."

[posallys]

h\Hey Taylor! I always see you post about university and such, and I was just wondering what all you do? I know you're studying biology, but you talk about some other things too. I was also wondering if you had any tips? I'm also studying biology but I'm a few years behind you. All the best!

Okay so this semester I'm taking orgo, ecology, advanced micro (which is just 6 hours of lab and no lecture), and cognitive neuroscience, as well as doing independent research with the worms I was working with over the summer <3 I'm also the TA for one of the intro biology classes at my school, and I'm a tutor, so I tutor all of the intro bio, intro chem, calc 1 and a little 2, pretty much all of the psych classes I've taken, stats, and a few of the lit classes I've taken. That's about 9 hours a week, and it's a service through the uni so they just book an appointment and tell me which class they need :) I'm also the main tutor for both of our intro bio classes (intro molecular and organismal), so I do a twice-weekly remedial "lecture" for an hour. i am. so fucking busy lol OH AND ALSO the chair of the psych dept just asked me to be on their hiring committee because they're trying to get a neuropsych person in, and he was talking to my research supervisor abt how she stole me from the psych dept, and wanted my input on the new hire so they don't keep loosing every single person with an interest in neuro to the bio dept since my school doesn't have a real neuro major.

as for tips...vocab is your best friend. even if you don't know what's going on, look at the prefixes, suffixes, etc because they'll tell you!!! learn them!! for example, anything with -ase at the end is most likely an enzyme....and enzymes are proteins that help catalyze biochemical reactions. so if you see the word "lactase" and you had no clue what that was, you know off the bat it's probably an enzyme (-ase), and if you can see that 'lact' is the root of lactose....well, you can logic your way to the fact that lactase helps you break down lactose! know your vocab I literally cannot stress it enough. also ESPECIALLY for chem when you get passed gen chem. the words are there to tell you what the thing is....they're not random. they actually mean something.

literally go to lecture. even when you don't want to. get up and go. and don't be on your phone. don't try to take notes on your laptop, either. do it, bare minimum, with an iPad, but if you still get distracted by notifications then use a notebook. who cares if you're the only one...you'll also be the only one who can draw diagrams, models, chemical structures, etc. plus writing literally activates parts of your brain involved with memory retention while typing does not. don't use the laptop!!!

oh i also mean this in the nicest way possible, but don't do bio if you're not super into it. because you'll hate it and all of the effort you have to put in is going to make it feel like hell. and if you find yourself hating labs....i hate to break it to you but you probably shouldn't do bio because most of the jobs on the market involve bench work in some way, shape, or form, and if you can't sit through a 3 or 4 hour teaching lab you're probably going to want to die when you have to get a real job after you graduate. in my schedule right now I have 16 hours of lab a week, and I love every single minute of it.

ask for help! i can say this as a TA but genuinely everyone wants to see you do well. go bug your TAs and your profs and yeah you might feel like you're being annoying but who cares! you learn by asking questions so if you have them, ask them. i think all of my profs are so fucking sick of seeing my face, and yet I'm still in the dept way too often bugging them while they're in between classes and meetings lol

along the same lines...literally everything is about connections. go talk to your profs. even if it's not with questions. "oh, hey, I thought this part of the lecture was cool, could you maybe tell me some more about it?" things like that. after all if you want to go to grad school of whatever kind, they're the ones that are ultimately going to help you get their. they're how you get research opportunities, rec letters, maybe they even pull some strings to get you in classes that are full/you don't have prereqs for, etc if they like you enough! some of my profs ask me for input on their classes too. like my micro prof, who's my academic advisor. i had him for regular micro last semester, and I saw him while doing research over the summer and he had 3 or 4 ideas for our advanced micro lab class this semester. he asked me what I liked best....guess which project we're doing.

learn how to read papers. it's hard. you're gonna want to scream and cry and rip your hair out. you're not going to understand 90%+ of what they're saying when you start. highlight words you don't know and look them up. ask profs (yes. again. talk their ears off when they have time to listen to you) for tips because it really depends on the field, what you want to get out of the paper (i.e. are you looking for methodology to model, are you doing a follow up to their conclusions, do you need their results as background). I'm reading three papers right now and I understand nothing! it sucks it's hard as an undergrad. I want to yell but. I'm taking notes and trying to break the info down into smaller pieces and. i think it's working :)

okay i'm just rambling but!! hope this helps :)

[biochemsitry]

So I was wondering if anyone can explain this to me. I doubt anyone can but it's at least an interesting story I think. (Disclaimer: if you aren't a math person, this might be pretty confusing, but I will try to explain stuff.)

I'm sitting in my 300 level calc 1 class. We're learning about instantaneous velocity and limits and the like, not super hard stuff. This is the fourth class period we've had so it hasn't gotten to the hard stuff yet.

By the way, I go to a tiny private university. I'm one of 5 students in this class. My uni is, um, known for not being great with math-- we literally have two math profs in total. Two. I think we have 3 math majors in total, and all three are in this class. The fourth is math ed. I'm biochem.

Back to what happened today. Our prof, let's call her Dr. H, is explaining limits (for non-math or science ppl, it involved lots of graphs and functions and letters). The freshman math ed major, let's call him J, is very confused and raises his hand. "What does f(x) mean?" he asks.

Dr. H pauses, unsure of how to answer. The other 4 students, including me, try to explain f(x) to J. Dr. H ends up drawing a graph on the whiteboard to explain that f(x) often, at least at the level we're at and with the stuff we're talking about, is the same as y. f(x)=x is the same as y=x. f(x)=3x-1 is the same as y=3x-1.

J seems to be satisfied with this explanation, so Dr. H continues the lecture. A few minutes later, she gives an example problem with both f(x) and g(x). J is now more confused than ever.

"Wait, what's g(x)?" he asks.

"g(x) is the same as y in this situation," Dr. H answers.

"But I thought f(x) was y."

At this point, we're all looking at J in disbelief. For people who don't know, g(x), f(x), h(x), etc. in graphing are all representative of y on a graph, at least typically, and at least in contexts like this.

Dr. H pauses, then says, "I think we need to have a conversation about functions after class."

Now, don't get me wrong. Functions can be hard. If you're not a math person, it's easy to go without knowing what they are. I'm not trying to put anyone down for not knowing what they are. My mom never got past algebra 1 and either never learned them or has completely forgotten about them. But then again, my 16yo brother with severe discalcula (math dyslexia, basically) knows at least about functions and he's barely even done pre-algebra...

But this kid made it into calculus apparently without any knowledge of functions, which (I think???) are usually taught at the algebra 1 level (so about 8th-9th grade, or 13-15yo, at least in the US. It's usually younger in other countries though, at least from what I gather?). It's not something you'd learn at age 14 and never use again until college-- most maths from algebra 1 and up use functions pretty much all the time. But this freshie is, like, 17-18, and a math ed major, who must have either klepped out of lower math courses, or had gotten a high enough score on the ACT/SAT to be able to go directly into calc 1. This guy's smart-- he seems to be really good at math other than functions. I just have absolutely no idea how he made it into calc without knowing about functions. Just... how?????

(In case anyone's wondering, we absolutely did NOT try to make J feel bad. None of us students even said anything about it afterwards at all. We just don't do that. Dr. H was very kind in how she handled the situation, too. Never make a person feel bad for not knowing something. I'm not making fun of him by posting this, either; I'm just very confused lol. I doubt he'll see this, and if he does, I doubt he'll know it's me talking about him. He's a smart guy, and I'm not blaming him for his lack of knowledge on functions. I'm mostly just wondering how his HS teachers neglected to teach him about such a basic and important part of math.)

[xi-off]

did i ttell yyall bout that time i accidentally took a quantum physics class . u should hear it. it says more abt me than my mbti ever will

my first deadly yet obvious mistake was letting my cousin* help me put my schedule together. in my defense it was my first semester ever at uni and i was taking any and all help i could get. "ur doin premed u might as well take this chem class in case u need it for ur major later" he says. "ok" i say.

*this is the one notorious for building bombs in his kitchen sink. yes he was 2 semesters from getting his bachelors in chemical engineering b4 deciding it was boring and then swapping to computer science for funsies. why do you ask

so yeah the class is named some benign thing like "intro to chemistry principles" with a large footnote that its only required for a handful of STEM degrees, but it therefore covers any and every intro chem credit u will ever need. so im like awesomesauce. might as well since this uni is notorious for idiot credit transfer policies 👍

first week or two is also fairly benign. prof mentions the class is gonna b pretty intense due to the material itself being pretty intense, this isnt really an intro course so hopefully u took ap chem, and im like sure its a 4 credit class. i didnt take ap chem in high school bc our chem teacher Sucked (2/15 ap chem kids my year got a 3 and everyone else failed) so im a little nervous but prepared to hate myself the rest of the semester. pretty cool. chugging along. i dont actually have to teach myself as much basic chem as i thought bc most of its pretty intuitive but im waiting for the other shoe to drop

add/drop deadline passes. my schedule is now set in stone

everything was still fine for a bit. but as per The Rules, somewhere around the 2nd of 4 midterms stuff starts going off the rails and im like. bestie WHAT is happening.u want me modeling WHAT in this janky software from the 90s that responds if and only if it feels like it? wtf is a pi orbital? wtf is hilbert space??? (pause) ARE WE DOING QUANTUM MECHANICS in my INTRO TO CHEM CLASS

(also side note im taking 17 credit hours this semester. the other classes included calc 2 which sucks fat nuts despite the fact im taking it for the second time…its been like 2 years bc i took it in high school… and japanese 101 which ended up being worse than the ACCIDENTAL QUANTUM PHYSICS class in many ways)

so yeah i cried a lot. i got like a 60 on my final and scraped out with a B-. somehow even with Also A B- in my calc class my gpa didnt drop below my scholarship minimum of 3.5 until i failed illustration 101 later. and then i got really disabled. and then covid happened. and now ive been on academic probation for like . hang on doing math. 3 years. and also havent been able to get that resolved to take classes that entire time. and i need to go get that figured out so i can apply to another school UUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH f my gay baka life

tldr: stay in school to draw yuri on ur notes or jesus from bible will put u on academic probation for 3 years

[spaciebabie]

i rlly was freaked out abt this school year n i got ta my first two classes n everything was fine lmao.

we started integrating in calc 2 taday n all of the sudden the numbers n math flew back into my brain omg i forgot how much i love doing this

[meowzfordayz]

Oiiii~ I'm here, again, leaving some good vibes for this upcoming back to school ✨✨

Remember to eat and sleep well too!

P.s Rengoku teacher to encourage you to set your heart ablaze and never give up 🔥❣

P.p.s I wouldn't mind going back to Uni if I had a teacher like him 😇

YOU HAVE ME DROOLING OVER KYO HERE... 🤤😭😍

Tyvm for those good vibes !! 😁 M, W, F begin at 10am for me; and Tu, Th begin at 1pm; so not too shabby of a schedule! 🤪

BRUH THE ONLY ATTRACTIVE TEACHER(s) I'VE HAD WERE FOR 8TH GRADE ENGLISH AND 9TH GRADE PRE-CALC. 🙃 Aka I was too young to actually ~drool over them anyway. 😆 I had cute TAs for Intro to Kinesiology my freshman yr of college, but I'm too busy w/ classes, hw, and work to really make any romantic moves. 😂

Not to mention: I'm dating the most wonderful partner 💞, buuut we both simp over anime men (I simp, they encourage) 😌, so if Kyo was actually my prof/TA/classmate, then I'm certain my partner would support my 3/10 flirtation ability. 💀

[cat-26]

grad school anon here: Thank you so much for the detailed response!! I seriously appreciate it :) It is super helpful to see your journey with determining your grad school laid out.

Like, I've never really thought about big/small lab stuff before. My school is pretty small, and the only research I've been involved in has been on teams of 2-4 students w/ the professor, and I never thought about how the dynamic might change if there were more people. Also, it is super helpful to hear an engineering perspective (as an engineer myself!).

My uni is a primary undergraduate institution, so we dont have any grad students (at least not in engineering). The nice thing is that I was able to get involved in research last semester, but my options were pretty limited to begin with (only 3 research opportunities for my major). The research I'm doing is pretty computational, and while I think it is a valuable experience, I now know that computational is not for me.

Funnily enough, going into college I thought that I'd want to major in aerospace engineering (or at least go on to do it in grad school), however I ended up choosing mechanical engineering because not many schools have aerospace engineering as an undergraduate major.

Right now, I'm applying for REUs (research experiences for undergraduates sponsored by the natioanal science foundation in the us). Ive recently become interested in bioengineering, so now I'm applying to opportunities that seem interesting in bioengineering, but I havent taken a single biology course in college (lol). There's some big boi universities that I'm eyeing up for their research but idk if I'll get in because I've only really taken mechanical engineering courses

Anyways, thanks again for the response! I really appreciate it, and I thought I'd give you sort of my side of things too (might be interesting, might not). Also, I might message you some questions if I have more and feel up to it :)

--------------

Kind of funny side note: The spouse of the prof I am currently doing research with is planning some research that seems more my style, but I feel that it would be super awkward to be like "I'm ditching you to do more interesting research with your spouse - see ya!"

I'm glad my long answer was helpful!! And yes, don' t hesitate to message me with any other questions, I'll be happy to answer (or try to!)

And yes, your side is also interesting! I've heard a lot about REUs, I hope you get that!!! Bioengineering sounds so cool (it scares me, bioengineers are too powerful. You can go say hello to @\beacon-lamp, she's a biomedical engineer!) Fun fact about me: I wanted to be a vet so I started as a biology major, and switched to engineering when I realized I hadn't taken any bio classes and didn't need any more than calc II or physics I (and I really wanted to take more of those. Great decision on my part).

You can email professors from grad schools once you're a bit close to graduation to start asking about their labs, I doubt not having done research in specific fields doesn't hurt. (You can even ask what would make them more likely to hire you! Like, my prof tells prospective students to take CS classes since we do a lot of that)

Also, asking your prof to move to their spouse's lab would be so funny hahaha (now, will the prof be like "my spouse is awesome, go and be happy" or will they be like "hmm maybe stay in my lab.."?) But more seriously, I don't think any professor would be offended if you want to get experience on another kind of research

[tbhstudying]

hello have u taken multivariable calculus/calc 3? if so do you have any tips or advice LOL i'm taking it right now and that and college apps are making me want to stab my eyes out with a fork

i actually haven’t taken multivariable calc bc i don’t have to do it for my major, but here are some of my tips for surviving math classes + hard classes

practice problems: these will be your best friend and are the best way to put the concepts that you learned into practice. the best problems will be the ones that your professor assigned to you because those will likely mimic the format of the problems on the exams, but if you can’t find any, your textbook and the internet should have some to practice. also, the more you solve practice problems, the better you’ll be at identifying certain patterns in problems and what they’re asking you to do.

office hours: go to all of the office hours and help sessions. even if you don’t have questions, it might be worth going with a friend who has questions because then, you’ll get an explanation of a concept that you might not have thought of before. also, by going to these sessions, the prof and TAs will recognize you, see that you’re actually putting in real effort, and be more friendly with you.

tutoring: don’t be afraid to ask for help, and if you really need it, don’t be afraid to ask the department for a tutor. depending on the school you’re in, you might be able to get department funding for a free tutor or you might have to pay them yourself. ideally, you don’t have to pay anything, but tutors really do help a lot for classes that are hard.

active recall and review: go over the material multiple times in order to place it into your long-term memory. then, check your memory again to see if you have it truly in your memory. there are a lot of different methods like the excel sheet method, flashcards, brainstorm recall, etc, but pick the one that works for you and continue reviewing old material even when you cover new material.

[acadimia]

After making a grand total of 11 cheatsheets since starting university less than a year ago (I know, my uni is weird), I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for making the most effective cheatsheet for your needs! They're a hassle to make, but depending on how you make yours, it could either be an incredibly useful resource or just an extra sheet of paper on your desk.

(By "cheatsheet", I mean a typically printer paper-sized memory aid, usually handwritten, that is allowed to be brought into an exam.)

1. You don’t need to write small, nor do you need to write a lot.

Some people go out of their way to buy 0.1mm pens to cram everything they can onto a cheatsheet. But okay, hear me out: unless you plan on using your cheatsheet to study (more on this later), what is the point of writing as much as you can? It is super difficult to find the exact piece of information that you need in the stressful environment of an exam, especially when you’ve written in the equivalent of size 4 font and your page is cluttered with information you definitely know . And honestly, for most exams, it’s a waste of time trying to look at your cheatsheet. Just put down whatever you’ll definitely need; the rest will only slow you down or overwhelm you.

2. Use colours, or at least find some way to keep it organized.

Once again, you need to spend as little time as possible looking at your cheatsheet in an exam. If the exam allows cheatsheets, the class probably has something else to up the difficulty level of exams. In my experience, it’s usually either application questions or a time crunch, sometimes both. So, make your cheatsheet efficient. Colour-code it so you know what to look for in order to find any given piece of information. Find some sort of format, so that you also know where exactly to look.

3. Don’t wait until last minute to make it. If it comes to that point, just put down the major points and sleep.

There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t do this. Just trust me, my lowest exam marks are from exams where I made a cheatsheet the night before. You shouldn’t be staying up the night before your exam. Copying the textbook onto a sheet of printer paper isn’t effective studying. Most importantly, your cheatsheet becomes so much more effective when you’ve actually done practice exams with it. Or else, how would you know how well it actually functions and what else you should add?

4. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Please don’t spend too much time on your cheatsheet. Obviously, interpret this advice based on practice exams and the scope of whatever course you're taking, but don't get to a point where you're relying on your "perfect" cheatsheet to pass the exam. Instead, spend your time studying the material and question formats so that you almost don't need your cheatsheet. No matter how informative or detailed your cheatsheet is, it won't matter if you don't have time to use it during the exam, or if you haven't done enough practice so you don't know how to format the cheatsheet's information.

5. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.

I think this goes without saying for practically anything, really. Just do you. If the prof says you’re allowed a single piece of printer paper, front and back, it doesn’t mean that you need to fill that. Nor does it mean that you should be intimidated when you walk into the exam and see that you’re the only person who hasn’t filled up your cheatsheet completely. Do whatever you need to succeed. If spending a few extra hours cramming information onto your cheatsheet won’t help you, then don’t do that. If it will, then don’t let me and my opinions stop you.

1. For the stuff that you actually don’t know and isn’t worthwhile to memorize

This is pretty obvious, but you should prioritize the stuff that you actually don’t know and is too difficult to memorize. For example, the 20 amino acids for Biology. 

2. Diagram compilation

Personally, I think that the most useful thing you can do with your cheatsheet is to add diagrams and charts. They are the easiest thing to find on your cheatsheet. Also, diagrams are able to sum up a whole list of details, so you don’t need to worry about missing something. It is always useful to refer to your diagrams for inspiration!

3. Checklist

What are the three points you need to include to describe a histogram? What steps does the prof want you to do to show autosomal dominance? If you are someone who often loses marks because of missing details or the way you format your answers, your cheatsheet can function as a checklist. Write down exactly what you need to address to get full marks on certain types of questions.

4. Personalized formula sheet

If you are anything like me (ie. I am so afraid of Math that I chose not to major in Biochemistry just so I don't have to do Calc III), then writing out some formulas in the way that you like them written might be useful, even if you are given a formula sheet. It's a comfort thing.

5. Study guide

As a heads up, this is the only situation where I would condone writing as much as possible on your formula sheet. If you're the type of person who studies by copying out your notes (ie. you memorize things by writing them out), then you might as well kill two birds with one stone and just copy your notes onto your cheatsheet. But, then again, your cheatsheet will probably be less functional during the exam, so do this at your own discretion.

Here are two of my own cheatsheets, to illustrate some of my points. The first one is for Biology, the second one is for Statistics. 

I don’t keep a consistent colour code, but generally, red is for categories or units, blue is for definitions or important terms, and blue underline is for things I commonly forget or refer to (ie. the 4 factors affecting membrane fluidity). The units follow the order that we learned them in class. Although I tend to write small and there is a lot more information than strictly necessary, I can easily find anything I’m looking for.

Here’s the bottom line: do whatever is the most useful for you!! These are just a few things that have worked for me and some people around me, but do whatever will help you succeed.

Happy studying, everyone!

[savrenim]

I’ve seen a lot of really good takes on “so coronavirus has shown that suddenly when abled people are threatened that universities are able to make accommodations” and those are good takes and I don’t want to shift the discussion away from that on those posts but as someone who is inside a department which is currently scrambling to figure out how the rest of our semester is going to work, like, it’s kind of....not.

1. We did not already have the infrastructure. There’s been a huge scramble of ordering materials, trying to figure out how to share laptops and webcams and tablets etc etc etc, and teaching is going to be a MESS because professors do not have the proper tools and have been trying to cobble together the proper tools over the course of a week. Classes are going to lag and be difficult and are not going to be of uniform quality because we don’t have what we need to do this, and it’s pretty much going to be by a professor-by-professor basis what this quality will be like. Which is really unfair to the students.

2. Even with a tablet showing notes, it’s way harder to read than a blackboard. The prof teaching the course I’m TAing for and I did a test run, and we can make it work with writing on a tablet and it appearing on the screen like it��s a blackboard! Except, ya know, handwriting on tablets is Hard until you get used to it and oops it was pretty hard to decode. I’ve taken my notes on tablets for years and have very careful handwriting so recitations will be fine, but lectures might be unreadable for some folks. so, um, here’s to hoping the students are used to the prof’s handwriting because otherwise it’s going to be rough staring at a screen of half-gibberish.  

3. Interacting with the students is way harder, as is trying to keep them engaged. We’ve been told to mute them and look at typed notifications in the chat, and, like, sometimes unmute people for questions, but there’s no eye contact. If we miss a notification, we’ve missed a student’s question. And the pressure of typing something into the chat is a lot different than raising their hand in class. We’ve been shown so many statistics of, like, “someone watching a video for more than ten minutes without engagement starts their attention wandering” and yet besides trying to get them to type things into a chat we don’t really have a fix for that.

4. Web lecture presentations take longer than classroom presentations exactly because there need to be more attempts to engage students, writing things takes longer, the lag in getting the technology set up or the moments when wifi goes down/slow on any end, etc and also because it’s expected that it will be harder/slower for the students to parse through (ie bits and pieces harder to hear or understand). We’ve been staring at our syllabus and kind of wondering if we’re even going to get through half of what we’re supposed to get through. And we’re not allowed to meet more or assign the students more videos to watch because that’s unfair to them to ask that of them timing-wise, so what we don’t get to they don’t get to learn.

5. Grading and final exams are all up in the air. Homework, which was a fair part of the grade, can no longer be collected and graded because it’s policy in some classes that undergraduates can’t see final exam solutions, and lots of the graders are undergraduate graders, but if they access assignments they get access to all assignments. So homework is going to just....stop mattering? Finals being scanned and turned in is super suboptimal for everyone. We have no way of stopping cheating other than keeping them incredibly carefully timed and maybe trying to force kids to have webcams on? but that’ll work for our class because we have twenty students, not 100+. As well as some students might not have access to scanners and we don’t have fixes for that what with trying to keep time limits. And this is all even worse for Calc classes whose whole purpose is kind of to teach basic skills that they really really don’t want to be open-note finals. I’m not sure if ours is open note or if just the kids who want to cheat will succeed at cheating and we have nothing to stop them.

which mostly just leads to.....

6. This is probably going to partially work, and will be a stopgap measure for just ending the semester now especially for seniors who need to graduate, but we actively don’t have the resources to finish the semester that these kids paid for. They will be getting less material, delivered in a far shittier manner, with very slapdash assignments and grading, from people who have not been trained to deliver the material in this manner and who will be figuring it out as they go along, who have a huge range in quality of technological tools to transmit the info. Abled people are not getting massive perfectly placed accommodations that were previously said to be impossible. They are getting served a far, far shittier version of the education that we promised them because it’s kind of the only thing we can do, with the hopes that this just screws them over as little as possible.

Which isn’t to say that correct, full accommodations aren’t possible and shouldn’t be possible, but just, like.... my little brother goes to UC Berkeley and classes are usually big enough (1000+ students) that the lectures are just streamed anyways. He spent most of last year and this year not attending a single class, although going to the smaller group recitations. His semester is getting changed almost nothing by this, because the infrastructure was already there. But for colleges and universities that do not have things set up, the rest of the semester is going to be a shitshow. This is definitely an example of “oops when the abled people are affected too, an effort is made”, I am not arguing that whatsoever. But we were not prepared for this, we were not trained for this, and it seems to not be acknowledged in any of the conversations around this all so far but this effort is going to be a shitshow for everyone because schools were not concentrating on having robust accessibility features, not “and now things are perfectly accessible because the abled people need it too.”

[late-nite-student-ramblings]

Reflection of my first year-  Highschool vs University.

So you’ve probably heard it from all of your teachers in high school, I know I did. 

“They’re not going to be this ___ in college” the blank usually being something along the lines of “on your ass/ lenient/ understanding/tolerant/etc”. So I’m here to approve/disprove some common ideas passed on and maybe ease your mind. Or make you more worried, however you want to see it. 

Keep in mind these are from a public university student’s POV so I can’t speak for everyone.  

1) “It’s going to be tougher in college” 

Well yes and no. That’s how schooling works, every year you move up the material gets harder so that you can advance in your knowledge. It’d be kind of useless if we just kept learning the same level of material year after year. However, I think what they meant to say was that it got exponentially harder in college and I don’t think this is the case, especially not for the first year. 

2) “These people earned their degrees so they’re going to demand respect and you’ll have to call them Dr./Mrs./Mr/ whatever” 

Not true, some of my best professors went by their first name. One actually would forget to respond if you called him “professor” because he always went by his first name. Being on a first-name basis is usually something the professor covers in the first class so if they tell you which to call them great! Call them that. If they don’t, maybe ask or stick with “professor” until it’s made clear. 

3) “No one’s going to hold your hand/No one’s going to remind you./They’ll just refer you to the syllabus”

Wrong, at least for the first year. The syllabus is a thing that most professors use and it would do you well to print them out and look at it from time to time so you aren’t completely lost. That being said, all of my professors did help us out in some way, some more than others. My maths profs would send out emails telling us the hw every week and, a week before finals, sent out emails every other day reminding us about the final’s time/location, English prof would remind us a week in advance and have in-class workshops before papers were due. Our criminal justice AI (Assistant Instructor) wrote up and gave us the rubric she’d be using to grade our book reviews. 

When teaching lower-level classes, professors know they’re going to be teaching mostly first-years and understand it does no good to just throw you in the fire. 

4) “You’ll have to learn to be responsible”

100%. This is very vague but it is true, not only in academics but in your personal life too. Time management is the biggest factor. College is a lot less condensed than high-school meaning more free time. Even when I took 17.5 credit hours I still had plenty of time on my hands. The challenge is how to handle that time. It’s going to be so tempting to go to forget about the assignments because it’s not due every day or the paper is due next month. Use your first year to learn about your study habits and what works best for you to learn the material. And I don’t recommend doing all your hw the day before, even if you can. While it is important to get your work done it’s also important that you aren’t falling apart at the seams from stress. Be responsible for yourself. 

5) “They won’t stand tardiness, the doors will be locked and sucks to suck”

Depends on the professor but usually not. I’ve seen people walk out of class 20 min early, I’ve been 10 min late for class a couple of times. Went to office hours got notes I missed. Most profs don’t mind as long as you aren’t disrupting the class. I’ve even seen a kid run into an exam 30 min late, poor kid overslept. I have had the occasional stickler for being on time but after a while its shown not to be worth policing students like that.

Don’t make a habit of it though. They get it, life happens, people oversleep, busses are late, and what have you. But understand that there are some things that punctuality is vital, meetings with a professor,  exams (unless you think you can do the exam in half the time, you’re paying for it), interviews, labs (you usually need all the time you can get with those).

Edit: 6) “Don’t take an 8am you’ll hate yourself”

I’ve heard this more from advice online but I’m still going to put it here anyway. 8ams aren’t that bad. When you wake up in hs for an 8am you’re also waking up to do nothing but sit and listen for the next 8 hours nonstop. This is extremely different than waking up for an hour maybe two hours worth of sitting in a lecture at a time and more later. I had somewhere to be by 8am every day of the week and it's honestly something you get used to. Any starting class time is early if your sleep schedule’s fucked. My advice? Adjust and regulate your sleep schedule. Find out how much sleep you need to be a useful, productive,  decent human being and count backward.

7) “All the classes are so big/the professors won’t know you”

True but it depends. I’ve had both large (150+) and small classes (20 ish) and it is entirely possible the professor will not know you in either situation. 

With professors knowing you, that is usually up to you. I ask a lot of questions both in and out of class. I can guarantee that if you go to office hours consistently they will eventually learn your face. I ended up going to almost every one of my calc 1 profs office hours (meaning I saw him around an hour a day 4 days a week). Emailed him a thank you at the end of the semester and he actually referenced back to a small conversation we had towards the beginning of the year. So if you want the prof to notice you, ask every question you have, even if its a clarification question. if you have too many write them down and go to office hours. 

Feel free to add your own experience or ask about a rumor you’ve heard! Happy to clarify anything in the post or just have a chat.

All the best,

-E

[killemdillem]

hi! i’m going to a&m this fall and majoring in bio and was wondering if you have any advice or any ideas on what things to join? i’m so nervous also i’m rooming at dunn hall- is it nice? sorry i’m just really scared to start college thank u!

Hi anon! First off, congrats on your acceptance. Glad to have you be a part of the Aggie family :)

Oof, so they may end up being a bit of a long post and I apologize in advance. First of all, if you’re pre-med then I would suggest you switch to biomedical sciences. It’s the major that is intended for pre-med majors. If you’re interested in nursing, I would suggest switching to allied health. If you decide to continue with biology, then here we go.

First I’d all, make sure you don’t take Gen chem, calc, and bio 1 all in the same semester. That was the biggest mistake I made and my GPA suffered for that. choose 2 out of those 3 but please do NOT take all of those together. It’s a very heavy workload and I would not suggest that for anyone, especially when someone is getting used to being away from home. Do NOT putting off studying for an exam to just a day before. This is nothing like the tests you took in high school. Your grade will reflect the fact that you just started studying last night. Majoring in biology is a lot of memorization first the biology classes and a lot of application for gen chem, so be prepared for that. I would suggest starting to study about a week in advance. Also, Chegg will save your ass once in chem lab. It helps with all of the Sapling quizzes you will take. Quizlet will also be your friend. Do not put off stuff until the last minute if your not roosted to pull an all nighter.

Biology 214 with Bernardo may seem easy, but he’s a difficult prof. Do not put off studying for the course. He’s gotten better from what I’ve heard, but his quizzes are still very detail oriented.

I would suggest you join biology student association of medical student association if that’s the route you plan on taking. There are also fun organization such as APO, which I wasn’t a part of but I had a lot of friends in it and they had a great time.

I lived in Krueger hall my freshman year. I don’t really know much about Dunn hall, so I’m sorry about that. It’s nice to live on campus because you can take naps in between classes but if possible, I’d honestly suggest getting an apartment. It’s really inconvenient sharing a room with another person. It’s also annoying that you have no actual sink or kitchen. It’s definitely doable and honestly highly recommended for freshmen to live in the dorms the first year, but imma be honest... it’s much nicer to have your own apartment. There’s plenty of buses that will take you to and from campus to your apartment if you’re worried about not having a car.

Make sure you take advantage of the student rec center and the dining hall. Getting used to dining hall food was probably one of the more difficult parts of my freshman year. Nothing seems to be as good as homemade food but it’s fine. You can always look like “quick dorm recipes” if you’re not feeling anything in the dining halls.

Make sure you have plenty of shorts and comfy sneakers because you will be waking A LOT! I’d say you will average about 5 miles a day, so be prepared! Sunscreen and hats are also highly recommended.

Since you will most likely be there a week early for Giggem/Howdy week, use that time to figure out where your classes will be. You’ll get lost a lot and that’s totally fine. It’s a really big campus with a lot of buildings. You can either download the A&M app with has a map that you can use to guide you from building to building or simply use google maps. Most of your classes will be in Heldenfels and HECC, both of which are really close to each other. You may have a class or two in the Academic building, but that’s close too. You’ll have some classes on West campus once you take higher level courses.

Let’s see... I could honestly keep going on and on about this but I’ll shut up for now lol. If you want professor recommendations or if you’re interested in a minor, let me know! You’re welcome to continue messaging me through anon or you can just shoot me a private message too. I’m so sorry this ended up being a whole novel, but I tried to make sure I addressed everything you asked and I hope you don’t end up making the mistakes I did! Let me know if there’s anything else :)

I hope you have a great freshman year! ❤️

[pennyfynotes]

8.2.18 // 4:30pm // school subjects and AP exams oh my

so i recently (ok not so recently i’m sorry super busy rn) got an ask from an anon about subject specific tips and ap exams. this is the masterpost i told you to look out for ;). there are no ap exams in college, but some of the stuff is still applicable. i did my best to be as comprehensive as possible and dump everything in one place. hope this is helpful! xoxo, m ps. guess where the actual tips are?    if you said “under the cut” then you’re right bc i’m predicable af

tips by subject:

languages (i took spanish): 1. flashcards are your friend. i don’t care if they’re digital (would recommend quizlet or studyblue) or paper, but they help immensely with either vocab or things like remembering literature.

2. charts are also your friend. conjugations giving you a hard time? write out a chart of the different tenses and the conjugations for each subject. put down some of the irregulars too.

3. acronyms/pnemonics are also also your friend. a lot of these already exist, you just have to go find them. i’m pretty sure i still remember what “wedding” stands for for the spanish subjunctive.

4. it’s ok to start over. it’s easy to start a sentence based on what you’d say in english. you’re doing fine until *bam* you hit that word/phrase you really need but you have no clue how to say it. whether it’s an oral or written exam, take a few seconds to think about it and, if you can’t figure it out, just back track. restart the sentence and rework it. better to do that than to lose all your time thinking of one word you may or may not know.

5. skirt around things. if you can’t remember how to say fridge but you really need to say it for something, just say “machine that keeps food cold” or something. it might sound silly,  but it gets the point across and removes the road block.

6. make a list. no, not a to do list. if there’s phrases you find yourself reaching for all the time, but you can never remember, make a list of them and their translations. it might be because its a phrase/part of a sentence structure you use a lot in your native language or whatever. make that list and drill just those few phrases into your head. it’s helpful

english/language arts: 1. proofread. i guarantee you’ll find a mistake, a sentence that makes no sense, or one that just sounds cringy. thank me later.

2. have a damn thesis. its ok if you just need to write and spit words/ideas out for a while to figure it out. but figure it out.

3. conclusion ~= introduction. for those of you who didn’t get the tilde, it means not. yes, they both tie your points to your thesis but they are not to same. do not just reword the same information in the conclusion. push your ideas just a little further. i usually like the push them a little bit outside the realm of what i talked about in my paper. for example, if i focused on the first 5 chapters of the book in the rest of my paper, i’ll expand the ideas to the rest of the book. or if i’m talking about female characters and focus on just one or two, i’ll use the conclusion to potentially connect it to another.

4. have favorites. pick a few fav transitions, sentence structures, and fancy vocab words. basically build a toolbox. this way you won’t have to think as hard when you want to “spice up” your work.

5. summaries only go so far. once you get to higher level english classes, there will be a lot of analysis of specific imagery, or wording, or dialogue. reading cliff notes is only going to give you the plot and none of this. if you don’t have time to read and you’ve been assigned a pretty standard english novel/play/whatever, take the time to look up some famous quotes or symbols. they’ll probably come up in discussion and this will help you look less unprepared.

6. have on question/comment ready. if your teacher/prof is into discussions and grades on participation, it’s handy to write down one (or a few) things. it’s easy to forget what you were going to say while you follow the discussion and it sucks to get docked points for not saying anything. even if it’s just a thoughtful question, jot it down.

history: 1. lol prob my weakest subject, just go see the apush (ap us history) section bc i don’t have much more for you than that.

science: 1. back to basics. i say it all the time, i’ll say it again. really understand basic concepts. they will come back. i’m serious.

2. pattern recognition. science problems are often times about recognizing patterns. once you identify the type of problem it is, even if you’ve never seen the exact one/something similar before, solving it becomes way easier.

3. make a recipe book. tied to the last one, but once you recognize a type of problem, you need steps to solve it. go through any practice problems you’re given to determine all the “types” of problems. once you’ve categorized them, make yourself a step-by-step guide on how to solve.

4. flashcards. you’ll have to know polyatomic ions or random biology facts. see languages tip #1 for more.

5. note your errors in lab. if you do something wrong, don’t just try to brush it under the table and forget about it. not that it’s a big deal, because its not, so don’t freak out. they’re just great opportunities to note sources of error. i mean obviously dont write in your lab report that you weren’t paying attention and mixed the wrong chemicals, but something like “we may not have waited sufficient time for the product to dry” can explain why you got 800% yield.

6. have a toolkit. kinda like a recipe book, but just a collection of straight facts that come up often. knowing common molecular weights and chemical properties (is ammonia acidic or basic?) will make things go faster. like i said earlier, polyatomic ions are also great.

7. brush up on some simple arithmetic. similar to the tool kit, this will just make things go faster. being able to quickly add things and calculate easy percentages (ex: 30%) will make things like hw and exams go faster. i’m of the opinion it’s always good to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide w/o a calculator (on paper, not all in your head)

bonus: math #5 and #7

math: 1. see science #1

2. see science #2

3. see science #3

4. see science #4. see a pattern here? you might wonder why you need to flashcard math, but it’s good for learning equations or the names of certain techniques. if the prof asks you to solve something using X technique and you don’t know what that is, that’s gonna pose a problem. also good for the unit circle (don’t get me started)

5. figure out your speed. this is applicable to most everything, but i find it most relevant for math. is it better for you to speed through the whole exam and then do it all again/check it over 2x? or for you to take it slow so you know you got everything right the first time? personally i use the first approach, but i’m a fast taker and prefer to have time to process between repeating problems instead of staring at it forever once and never looking again.

6. science #7. a lot of teachers will expect you to be able to do this.

7. go over the material a couple times. also applicable to everything. i find it’s easier to remember things when i know that concepts are connected. you might have learned X 3 weeks before Y, but if you go back over, you might realize they’re closely related. this will help you if you’re not sure on a test because you can reason through things using the connections you’ve drawn

tips by ap course (obv look at the subject above bc i will be giving *really specific stuff* here that i’ve gathered from experience. they’re also ordered by when i took them, sorry it’s not super logical but i didn’t want to forget one)

general ap course/exam tips: 1. practice exams. you need to be familiar with what will/will not show up. you don’t always need to simulate and real testing situation, but i’d recommend doing at least 1-2 that way. also *know how many questions they’re are you so can pace yourself!!!!*

2. college board is pretty good about giving topic breakdowns. use those. go through and figure out what topics you’re solid on and which need more work. the above tip is to help decipher what the topics actually mean bc it can be confusing.

3. give the free response a quick flip through. do the ones you’re confident on first.

4. make sure you know the policies/what you can bring. don’t want to forget something. also once our test administrator tried to stop us 10 minutes early, but we were on top of our shit and all gave her a death glare bc we knew when we were supposed to finish.

ap chemistry: 1. polyatomic ions and molecular weights. know them

2. chapter/section reviews (in addition to class notes) and how-to guides. my teacher made us make them and let’s just say your girl did *really* well (and i’m damn proud of that one)

3. do a quick skim of the free response. applicable to most exams but, the year i took it, they’d just remade and re-curved the exam and put *way* too many free response. like no one finished them. if that’s still the case, make sure you do the one’s you’re confident on. also, i did not get to like 3 questions and still got a 5. they may have fixed this idk. (sorry this is redundant but i wanted to give this ap chem exam specific info)

ap environmental science: 1. there is a lot of damn information here. i would use chapter outlines and pick out key terms, policies, and events etc. treat this like a history class.

2. for the exam, use common sense. most of the time, the most environmentally friendly answer is the right one. if you just have a general gist of the course and its topics, but don’t know a lot of details, go with your intuition and you should be fine. i didn’t have a lot of time to study for this one and this method worked for me.

ap calc bc: 1. memorize standard derivatives. power rule, sin and cos, chain rule. that’s important.

2. similarly, memorize standard integrals.

3. don’t forget +c for indefinite integrals. just don’t.

4. similarly, if it’s definite, don’t forget to evaluate at the end! super easy thing to do, but also super easy way to lose points if you forget.

5. if the integral looks complicated, that probably means there’s a “trick” involved. u substitution, integration by parts, trig substitution. something like that.

6. memorize some standard series’, operations, and types (arithmetic, geometric etc)

7. if you’re looking at a word problem, understand what is dependent on your variable and what isn’t (in other words, what’s a constant). for example, if it says the water flows into the barrel at 50 mL/s and flows out at 1/5 times the volume, that translate to F = 50 - (1/5)V. don’t make things more complicated by trying to write everything in terms of V (in this example). also, your equation might just be a constant term or just a variable term doesn’t have to be both.

8. know what your derivative is with respect to/what it really means. aka if your problem is talking about flow and volume, how are they related to each other? flow is the change in volume *with respect to time*. so if i differentiate volume with respect to time, i get flow. if i integrate flow with respect to time, i get volume. this also helps you make sense of word problems.

*disclaimer*: it is been 5 years since i took this class and i have taken quite a few math classes after. i apologize if i introduce anything that is a little irrelevant.

ap spanish language: 1. flashcard. like seriously. there’s gonna be vocab involved.

2. understand what’s asked. for the persuasive email. *be persuasive*

3. toolkit. i mentioned this before but this was probably the most useful for this class. our teacher gave us a bunch of fancier words to use instead of causar (to cause) because that was a word we’d need a lot. the one that still sticks with me 4 years later is fomentar. have a few alternatives for these kinds of super common words, a good greeting and closing for your email, and a set of good transitions. *make sure you know how to use them properly*

4. write stuff down during listening. you can either answer questions during the first listen, then take notes the second to catch stuff you missed or vice versa.

5. it’s ok to backtrack in the speaking. don’t let yourself get stuck and just not say anything. it’ll freak you out for the rest of the exam and will rob you from showing off what you know. also take notes of things you want to mention based off cultural knowledge of the situation related to the dialogue.

6. don’t zone out. with everything going on and all the stress, it’s easy to zone out (esp during the conversation). don’t do it or you’ll have a hard time responding and freak yourself out (again)

7. don’t lose your place in the convo! they give you a sheet that shows you how many times the other “person” will talk. i lost track and said goodbye one segment early. it was bad ok. all these conversation tips are from personal experience.

ap statistics: 1. know the different kinds of tests inside and out. know the differences and the conditions. if you’ve got that, you’re like 75% the way there.

2. be familiar with sample vs population. it’s a bit confusing, but take the time to understand.

3. ok sorry i really don’t remember anything else. this exam really isn’t that difficult (in my opinion), you’ll be ok.

ap physics c: 1. free body diagrams. understand how to draw them *and draw them*. they will carry you through mechanics. draw gravitational force, normal if there’s a surface, and then any other given forces.

2. basic equations. you get an equation sheet, but knowing the equations means you know the concepts and the relations between them. big ones are f=ma and the equations relating position (x), velocity (v), and acceleration (a). also friction f=uN.

3. *normal isn’t always the opposite direction of gravity!!!!* gravity is straight down. normal is perpendicular to the surface.

4. vector components. please don’t just add vectors. break them down into components and then add or you are so fucked.

5. get familiar with triangles. this will help with the whole component thing.

6. kirchoffs rules are so helpful. know them.

7. understand the relations between voltage/potential and current in terms of the properties of circuit elements. that means the equations for resistors, capacitors, and inductors.

8. know how to add in parallel and series. it’s important. also! if the circuit is drawn “weird” a good way to know series vs parallel is that parallel elements share two nodes and that series circuits only share 1.

9. sorry i kinda blocked out E+M bc i didn’t know what i was doing (or so i thought). i still got a 4 tho so that curve is generous.

ap us history: 1. chapter outlines. pretty self explanatory.

2. make a timeline. put important events, sentiments, policies, and presidents. if you can associate these things together into time periods it will be easier. most of the time, any one question (esp long response or whatever they’re called) will only focus on 1 time period.

3. sentiments are important. if you know nothing else, know these bc they will help guide you through questions by reasoning even if you know nothing else.

4. gilder lehrman (or similar us history summaries). these are tailor specifically to apush bc they are organized by period (i think that’s what they were called?). i actually fell asleep listening to these bc i didn’t have time to study. they were mildly helpful, but every little bit helps right?

ap psychology: 1. chapter outlines/flashcards. this course is based heavily on key terms and less so on larger concepts.

2. ok sorry i took this online i remember literally nothing except how annoying my teacher was and that the exam was easy. if you know terminology i think you should do fine.

ap biology: 1. there is a lot. go through all the topics and make sure you’re solid. start with the big picture, then think about narrowing down.

2. know how charts work. things like pedigrees, punnet squares, and evolution trees (that’s def not the right term). some of the exam will just be interpretation of this.

3. i am so sorry i remember nothing else.

ap spanish literature: 1. flashcards. title, author, time period, short summary, key elements (a line, character, symbol). this is *so helpful*

2. think about the works in relation to each other. you might be asked to compare them. even if they ask you to compare something on the reading list with something new, you’ll be familiar with the points you might talk about.

3. know the lit terms. more flashcards. associate them with a particular work if you can/need to.

4. don’t freak on the listening. a lot of the recordings are old and shitty quality. take a deep breath and try your best. know that the rest of the test takers (excepting maybe natives) are experiencing the same thing.

5. use that tool box. see general spanish and ap spanish lang.

this is so freaking long and i think the moral of the story is that i blocked out my senior year ap exams. i hope this was helpful and, if you have more questions, or want more stuff like this, let me know!

[cancerbiophd]

Okay so I went thru the link & “liked” all the ones that sounded up my alley (aka a lot lol). I have another Q for you since you were so helpful (& warm, kind, & welcoming) to my first Q. I’m taking Calculus I this Spring. I took Stats for Natural Science last year & loved it. I took AP Trig in high school & got credit for that which is how I was able to sign up for Calc I right away. AP Trig was 7 yrs ago tho & I remember nothing. I’m afraid the prof will think I’m stupid - help?

I’m glad you found some of the posts helpful! they’re pretty awesome resources. 

I would recommend brushing up on your Trig before classes start:

The internet is fantastic for this kind of quick review, such as the Trigonometry section of Khan Academy. You may find that you actually remember more than you think after seeing some of the topics!

You can also see if your university offers any free tutoring (I know my alma mater had a tutoring/learning community specifically for math). If you’re unsure of where to find these kinds of resources, an email to your professor (or the class’s TA, if applicable) asking for their advice would be a good place to start! I think the professor/TA would appreciate how proactive you are. 

And then during the Calc class:

It’s ok to ask questions during lectures or to go to the professor’s office hours for help. You’re there to learn, and most professors are there to help you learn! And the professor will not think you are stupid. A student who genuinely wants to learn by asking lots of questions is 10000x better than the silent ones who refuse to be proactive in their education. Honestly. I know some professors/TAs who legitimately feel sad because no one visits their office hours, so you really won’t be bothering them!!

You can also pair up with a study buddy in the class and your interaction with them can range from doing all your practice problems and studying together, to just checking your answers--whatever you two are comfortable with. It also helps to have someone take notes for you should you miss class (and vice versa). 

I hope that helps, or gives you an idea how best to go about reviewing Trig! Good luck this semester! You’re going to do great

[radphysicist]

hi! i just finished my first year of college as an engineering major and i have 3 math classes left before im “done” with math. its a continuation of calc 3, linear algebra, and differential equations. but, my grades have been steadily dropping in my math classes over the last 3 quarters, and im starting to feel like my foundation in math is very shaky. its also impacting me in physics, which sucks cause i love physics. do you have any advice on how i should approach these next math classes?

Hi there! I apologize for taking so long to get back to you anon.

First, I’d recommend checking out @the-real-numbers  “#math help” tag for some really stellar advice posts, especially for people who don’t *think* they’re great at math (Btw, Real, I know we’ve exchanged like… 10 words to each other, but I will regularly send anybody who asks me for math help to your blog, b/c it’s pretty rad)!

Here are some of my recommendations mixed in with some advice I’ve received from my (academic superstar) friend @thatphysicsguy:

- Go to office hours, tutoring, review sessions, etc. : This one is super important! Just because you’re struggling, it does not mean you’re incapable of learning something. Take advantage of the resources you payed for. Office hours are particularly important b/c not only can your prof. help you work out the specific problems you’re struggling with and tailor their one-on-one teaching to fill in *your* gaps of understanding, but some professors will grade more favorably or be more lenient with you when they see you’re trying your best.

- Read the textbooks: This one may not work for everybody, but I found that a lot of students tend to think that, because it’s a math class, reading the textbooks is not necessary. However, the books often give you great insight on the conceptual aspects of the math you’re learning which makes it easier to work through the applications.

-Practice, practice, practice! : This is honestly the biggest one. You can watch your professor work through problems in class and read about them in your book, but until you work through them yourself, you probably don’t have it down. A lot of my professors recommend I work through problems until I’m able to do them at a decent pace and without outside resources (especially with things like proofs). It might be useful to go back to the example problems in the book or from class at the end of a section and see if you can do them on your own! 

- Review : You can’t expect to remember something that you go over once, maybe do a hw or 2 on and then leave alone until 3 chapters later when you have an exam coming up. You have to review what you learn. That’s how you form a strong foundation in any subject. This will also save you from cramming come test time. Plus, you may be “done” with math after these classes, but some of this stuff you will still be using as you move forward with your degree in  engineering. Do your best to learn the material!

That’s all I have for now. I know watching your grades go down in a subject can be very disheartening, but I believe in you! You’re certainly capable of kicking some ass in your upcoming math classes, even if it requires some extra work. Good luck, my friend! c:

[patrocles-you-bitch]

Alright, so it’s been a while, but a lot of shit has happened and the one person I rlly want to talk to isn’t available so… enjoy..? This is really just a way for me to get things out/ have a place to think, feel free to ignore.

Backstory to understand the sitch:

1. I have an Indian mom, who’s always been very on me about my grades, this leading me to place the entirety of my self worth onto my grades and reaching 90s avg all through my school (except Gr 12, which I’ll get to). She’s also very emotional, and prone to getting in these furious moods when she’s really mad at us (not always unprompted but sometimes more traumatizing and unnecessary than anything else)

2. I wanted to get into the life sciences program this year, which I did, but not to my top choice. Even so, I have absolutely no idea what my end goal is, my mom is very very annoyed at this.

3. I’m an immigrant, a brown, gay, immigrant.

4. Last year (Gr 11) I broke thanks to the pandemic. Mental health went to shit, became even worse and led me to self harm and such. Parents found out, got therapy, mom backed off the pressure this year so I wouldn’t be as stressed.

Okay now to the thing:

I’m currently in burnt out gifted kid syndrome. But I’ve also become very lazy, if I’m being honest. And I know this, I know I’m wasting my potential but I found myself left without ANY motivation this year. Up until 12, I had equated my worth to my marks, as had my parents- but then I was trying to learn how to be mentally stable and stop that. I didn’t realize just how horrible that would be for me.

I used to be good at math, like, really good. It was my thing, numbers fascinated me and I loved working with them. Then advanced functions hit hard, and I was left with an 82 for the final avg and a 78 in Chem. I retook Chem in nightschool second Sem and ended with a 90, but now my calc mark is at a 66. I know I could’ve done so much better on my calc, if I tried more, if I dropped the extra course I def didn’t need, but my thoughts just went back to “oh but that course helps keep you mentally stable” or “mh matters more and you’re doing your best”. I wasn’t doing my best. My program is literally very science and maths based, and if I can’t get through gr12 math how the fuck am I supposed to do uni?

My mom had the same question. A couple week ago I had a panic attack during my calc test. Leading me to failing the test and needing a makeup (which I might write tmrw). I didn’t tell anyone in my family, cause even tho I knew they’d see the report card, I just couldn’t let them see how much of a failure I’d become. Not yet anyways. Unfortunately, my mom found out about the test because she saw an email I had sent my teacher about it. This ensues the chaos, the regrets, disappointments, screaming, and anger.

She says that she’s mad at herself for not continuing to push me, for letting me take my life into my own hands because now I’ve gone and ruined it, have shorty marks and have let my life go to rot. That if I can’t even do tests and stuff in high school, or get through them without panic attacks, then how am I supposed to face life? Because profs won’t go “oh nooo you had a panic attack? You’re depressed? Sure I’ll give you a makeup test” And then she told me that I wasn’t ready for uni, I don’t even have a proper endgame, and should take a gap year. So that I can collect my thoughts, retake the math courses, and then do it again.

I have literally been working years to get to uni, and now I’m doubting my ability to do anything. There are 2 main perspectives I have for this.

1. I know how horrible time year has been, I can very clearly see every single mistake I’ve made and know what I could’ve done to fix them. I’ve learned a lot, honestly, and I want to do better, I know I can. I’m aware of what’s taken my focus away and I know where to put more energy. This has honest to gods been a very rough learning experience, one i intend to grow from and am happy I got to experience. And I know that I really really want to try in university, I want to experience it and succeed and excel. Make my family proud, as it were.

2. I don’t know if I’m ready. I can see every single mistake and am terrified of repeating the same mistakes, but on higher stakes. My mom said that I’m just like my uncle, or that she sees the resemblance anyways, and that not who I am or who I want to be. There’s a literal example in the family and I don’t want to turn into him. I refuse. I didn’t even see how they were related and now I do, and I hate it , because I really did take my eye off the ball. It’s too late to fix things this year, but I want to try and continue learning and refreshing my math in the summer, so that I’m better prepared. Make myself a real schedule for it and follow through. But still (if my mom allows) be able to see my friends before everyone leaves.

A part of me thinks that she’s right. Knows it, more like. That I would never have succeeded as well if it weren’t for the pressure cooker she put me in. But also, if I’m being honest, I want to push back against that. Because I wouldn’t be in the same cooker at uni. I would be so much farther away and no consequence would seem real. Meaning there’s more of a chance I would’ve made the same mistakes I made now, but in a larger scale. I have the experience of being my cut free now, my brain automatically didn’t know how to handle it and went loose too. It’s basically psychology , I know what happened to my brain. And I’m still happy that I was left alone this year because that means that I got to see, and understand what this really feels like. I think that this would help me succeed next year. That, or I’m full of crap. I don’t know. What I do know is that my moms is tired and disappointed in me, rightfully so, and she doesn’t know what to do with me know. She wants me to give her my life plan (career wise) and tell her why I acc want to study science, and if I think I’m ready for uni. But then wtv I try to say, she’ll say that I’m just saying that to make them happy, and she’s sick of the bullshit. So, I don’t know how I can try to make her understand, try to build her faith and trust in me, I’m the fact that I can do it, can succeed in uni. I don’t know, I’m just kind of sorry about my existence.