Physics degree horror stories

I chat with my friend James about some of our memories from undergraduate. Including hard tests, crazy assignments, bad grades, and exam induced memory loss. We both completed physics majors.
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Twitter: / tobyhendy

[@impactguide]

This was great! It's so relatable haha :D I did a math course one ODE/PDE's once where around 80% failed the midterm exam. The course was taught by an intimidatingly clever Russian math/theoretical physics professor. After going through the exam on the blackboard and almost tauntingly showing one elegant and clear solution after another, he slowly said in this fantastic Russian accent: "Now, let me tell you a little story that every Russian physics/maths student will know... During the Russian Civil war there was a Russian student of mathematics by the name of [I forgot his true name, but let's just say Luzin], who was captured by soldiers of the White Army and about to be executed. Luzin called out and said 'I am not a soldier, nor am I a spy! I am just a student of mathematics who wishes to return to my family!' The soldiers told him: 'We will take you to see the General. He graduated from Moscow university in mathematics with honours. He will decide what we will do with you!' When Luzin met the General, the General said: "If you truly are who you say you are, solve for me this problem, and you are free to go. But fail to do so, and I will shoot you myself!". And Luzin, being the brilliant student he was, easily solved the Generals problem and he was released with the Generals blessing, and lived on to prove many important theorems." And then the professor turned to face the entire auditorium of about 100 students and said "Now... Judging from the results on my midterm exam, being faced with a similar situation or problem, YOU, on the other hand, would ALL be shot!" And the entire auditorium was just completely silent and everybody just sat there with a look of WTF-did-I-just-witness on their face, haha. The funny thing is though that while in the moment it's horrible and you wonder how you are ever going to make it through the course, but looking back, the most difficult exams and assignments are the ones that made me feel the happiest studying physics. It made you feel you really accomplished something!

[@eliaskristen4755]

Perfect uploadtime, physic horror stories a few hours before my first physics exam :^)

[@tibees]

Hope it went ok!

[@gmcenroe]

I'll tell you a horror story for Physics degree. Trying to find a non-academic job after you are done!

[@ElliLovett]

I stopped counting the times i spend 10 hours on a theoretical physics problem and ended up frustrated and crying and wanting to quit... But i could never quit i really love physics... The pain is worth it

[@jimbeasley5319]

Sounds familiar, even 45 years later. But there was always someone who aced everything.

[@owntor1]

Ever had an exam scaled (curved) down? For example 94% = C. This can also be demoralizing.

[@aj76257]

What kind of monster would do that?

[@tibees]

I don't think i've had this happen to me but it's always a fear!

[@lukastefanovic5378]

Jim A well I dont see how that is unfair it means test was extremly easy since you got 94% and got a C which is averagge grade. That means alot of students got higher than 94 percent so it was easy test

[@fernank017]

In Canada most universities are not allowed to curve grades (by standardizing them to a curve). Usually if the class average is below a 60~66% they give everyone a boost (scaling up) until the class average is at a 60%. They are not allowed to take away marks because the average is high, however what they do is they would increase the difficulty of the next test/exam to kill the class average. Alternatively, if the class average is low, they would also consider giving additional assignments or even making the next test/exam easier. I believe in some countries however, they do standardize their grades so a 94% could be a C if the average is about a 95%.

[@Democritum]

I studied physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. With the amount of horror stories I have I can make some mythos like Lovecraft :D. Physics there was hard, like, navy seals training hard. Here are some stories just from the top of my head. - Calculus on one and multiple real variables where done in the first year. 20% or less of the students passed per year. For the final exam they allowed to bring books, notes, whatever we want. I will always remember the words of the teacher: “You can bring a cart full of books. It is going to make no difference”. - Continuing with Calculus one year they decided to post the marks of all the people enrolled in the lectures not only the ones doing the exam. They filled a whole wall. - In Mechanics they took away 0.5 points out of 2 (if I remember correctly, it was a looong time ago) in one exercise because I solved a limit using l’Hopital. The teacher told me that I should have used Taylor ‘cause it’s more elegant and that l’Hopital is for kids. I kind of agree, but, come on! XD. - Special relativity was specially tough. One year the teacher got creative with the marks. He posted on the wall a kids drawn of the sea with a boat and the sun. Over the draw were the names of the students. People under sea level did not pass the exam, people over the sea pass, the name in the sun passed with honors. This particular teacher always wear unpaired socks as a joke about quantum entanglement. - In Classical Mechanics course the teacher covered in detail the whole Goldstein in half a semester. Well, except for fields, that was the other half of the semester. Our brains almost exploded. And I can go on... Those were the good times. I have so many fond memories and I enjoyed so much my time there. I also teached there while doing the PhD. Things got real in the PhD. First day of PhD they throw a big book on my table. The cover says C++. “You have a month to learn” they say. I had a week...

[@jvczte5045]

I like the option section maths physics calculus law

[@JohKemStYl3]

At the start of my first theoretical physics lecture the professor said look at the person in front of you. Behind you. The person on the left and on the right. Only one of these people will be in this room next semester. Everyone was laughing thinking it was a nice joke to scare people. We startet with 360 people and ended our bachelor with 28. At the end of my masters we were 12 people left doing theoretical physics. I had a lecture with one other student and there were more people coming in to evaluate the lecture at the end of the semester as people in the lecture. They were shocked and the evaluation could not be done because it would not be anonymous with only two students.

[@utkarshthakur2007]

Most of your horror stories are math related! I'll give you one from a subject called VLSI in my 4th year of engineering. For some reason I just could not wrap my head around it. In my mid term I scored 2/30 and then vowed to do better. Then in my end term I got 22/30. Now my young mind did not grasp the fact that I was one of the worst performers and the paper was easy, nor did I grasp that this was a trap. Emboldened, I turned up for the end term expecting to get 80+ on 100. That was the best exercise in creative writing I have ever done. I'm sure I invented a few terms and came up with a few new theorems. In the 4 supplements I filled you could find the script of at least one oscar winning movie. Bless my teacher he gave me a passing mark and I did not have to stay back for another year.

[@trollbaron1329]

VLSI, is that related to Verilog?

[@nouvilas42]

Wow I didn't know that in some places they scale down or up exam grades depending on how it turned out. Here in Spain grades are definite and absolute, it doesn't matter if everyone gets a 50%, it's still a 50% for everyone on the final grade. One horror story I remember was during a ODE course in which the lecturer gave us some exercises to practice before the exam. There was one in particular that we struggled to resolve, so some friends went to the lecturer to ask for help. It turned out even he didn't know the answer, so he just put it in Mathematica, printed the 3 page long solution and sent them on their way... We were very "hopeful" about the exam after that... xD Fortunately our fears were unfounded and the exam was fairly easy. That lecturer was also quite frustrating to attend to, because when he wrote something on the blackboard, he put himself directly between the blackboard and the audience, so it was quite impossible to see what was he pointing at. Also he was the most disorganized lecturer I have ever seen: when the blackboard was full, instead of clearing it to write something new, he just wrote it in the first gap he saw, in between other sentences and equations, without any order. Another story I remember: We had a Statistical Mechanics course, but the lecturer had just returned from a 4-year sabbatical and he didn't remember a thing, so he was constantly just standing in front of the blackboard thinking, and making mistakes when he remembered something, to the point where when a proof didn't give him what he expected, he just said something like "well, this is wrong, but what does it matter?" and just continued with the lecture ignoring that proof...

[@honeymartin9120]

I love your channel. Great.

[@ProjectPhysX]

It's the same here in Germany. Maths was a real struggle with lots of quite unsolvable exercice sheets that took between 5 and 10 hours each. Another horror story for me was quantum mechanics.

[@sergiomacias1957]

Thank you for this! I can't believe I just discovered you're channel-it's fantastic.

[@indiramishra7013]

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us !!! It was really fun to know how the pde s troubled you😉 ... Keep posting and inspiring people to take up science. Thank you !!!!!!

[@wakiilcaashaq8270]

Am doing Bsc computer science and I love physics alot and I really enjoy these kinds of vids you share with us👍

[@ilyara.sabbaghian349]

The content is so good as usual. I have been in those environments and I can relate this video to my experience. Thanks again!

[@darthducky100]

Came across your channel yesterday and really enjoying your content. As a third year physicist I can definitely relate with a lot of those stories! Saw that you're into the science of hair. I'm studying at the University of Warwick in the UK and there's a professor in the department who won an Ig Noble prize for his work into the physics of ponytails. You might already know but thought I should mention it.

[@upmer2875]

Nice stories. I think it is important to have an idea about the difficulties you are going to encounter rather than going over optimistic. It's great that you continue your double major in math after gettig -5% btw, I wouldn't do it though LOL.

[@lifewanderer]

I'll tell you a horror story for Physics degree. i didn't get my master degree after 2 years of studying because i got sick in the last week and missed like 3 exams and my thesis presentation.

[@dalitas]

Nor a horror story maybe but similar to the last story told: During my 2nd year of chemistry at uni we had organic chemistry, one question on the exam spanned half a page and was only a couple reaction scheme about 10 reactions long, where we had to fill in on the reaction arrows what reagents/temp/catalysts and solvents used in the reactions. I had not a frick of an idea so I just scribbled down every single reagent etc that I found reasonable that could, let's say, fluorinated or reverse symmetry... got a perfect mark on It.. I guess the examiner didn't have the stamina to look up each and everyone of them

[@prabhatkumar-er7os]

She is a cocktail of beauty and brain...I love your video..very informative

[@robertomunoz2155]

WOO Kudos to Jordan! Love the video, I can personally relate to a lot of these

[@peersvensson9253]

I also had an exam that gave negative points for wrong answers, I think it's terrible. Mine was even dumber though, because there were a few multiple choice questions that gave you points for abstaining. I barely scraped through, due to those extra points from not even trying to answer. Exams are good for forcing you to sit down and work through material, but they're terrible at quantifying your knowledge. At some point you learn to study for a test, which is different from learning the physics / math. My preference is for take home exams, where you have a week or two to work through the problems, but that requires more honesty from the students.

[@kevinjose7569]

you are making even physics lovely..thank you

[@HidekazuOki]

This is a hilarious video, but it's so true! I did well in first year physics courses, but once I took second year physics course which was affectionately known as "death mechanics" due to its difficulty....it was difficult to say the least! Over 15 years later, I'm now tackling quantum mechanics....making slow progress. I'll probably not finish the online course but I'm still learning and it is so much fun! If only I could go back now....but that's probably not a reasonable option being in the middle of my career!

[@azmonator]

Just started my second year at UC, PHYS205 is fun so far, and I was looking forward to MATH240 in second semester, but now I’m a bit nervous lol

[@tibees]

omg no way! I guess this video is more relevant to you than anyone else. Math240 might have changed a bit since we took it - I know that it was a semester 1 course for us

[@umerjavednisar]

Don't know what Math240 is but people who Major in Applied Mathematics get good high paying jobs as Quants and Data Scientists. Maths Majors are in demand in these fields, more than even people in Finance or Accounting.

[@dzmitryk9658]

Thank you. I was smiling all the way through :)

[@godwinarendse9012]

that day we were writing a physics exam about relativity, I didn't study, I read the first question, a spaceship is travelling in a galaxy ..... I immediately got up and accepted my zero.

[@theAiEducationGuy]

Sounded like a relativity question

[@xmansemail177]

Could you pls make a video on study tips for courses that you found really challenging, so how you got through it learning as much as you could? Thanks for the awesome content so far.

[@tiborkovacs5317]

Been thinking about learning/thinking, being a upper school dropout haha & I think the only way to understand complex things is to Parse it down to little chunks Digit by digit if needs be. A good basic process (that builds on previous knowledge) to help is Grammar/Info/Data/Basics=Who/What/Where/When=Logic/Understanding/Awareness/Parsing/Analysis=Why=Rhetoric/Wisdom/Method=How. Of course Practice Consistency are key .Good vids thanks.

[@lachieharris3165]

Hey! I was just wondering what your study habits were like during you’re final years of high school. I’ve just entered into year 12 and, obviously, am hoping to do the best that I can.

[@radiotv624]

I was exactly your 2^3 • 5^3 • 7 th subscriber!

[@Mixarya23]

I would be the worst student in the world, I was kicked out of school in 2005. I hardly know English because I'm Russian but I still watch your videos

[@m35926]

This brought back so many memories. I had a similar experience in ODE. I messed up a problem during an exam and spent 45 minutes on a stupid matrix problem (I think it was for the wronskian, I can't remember) then realized I had 30 minutes to do 8 more problems. I wound up getting a 71 on the exam though so it could've been worse.

[@Danmate]

Related to a lot of these and I haven’t even finished undergrad yet 😅 maybe it would be cool to do a video of the good parts of university?

[@junhuishi5449]

That's quite a bit of math courses for phy b.s... PDE & Analysis are my nightmares as well...

[@Qibzo]

The maths department at my uni doesn't do scaling :( Only time they did was when a fire alarm went off during the linear algebra exam and nobody got to finish

[@anubis12321]

I went through electrical engineering and it's funny because I had a very similar experience with differential equations as you two. Prior to the exam day the professor basically told us that we were NOT going to finish the exam, so don't bother trying; and that we were going to fail..... and that's exactly what happened. Thankfully, like you two, scaling kicked in and we all ended up doing relatively well thankfully :D.

[@haldanesghost]

Group theory and real analysis second year? I could barely tie my shoes at 20!

[@mattRRgraham1996]

Lmao. I just technically finished the requirements for my math degree, next year I take some grad level math, but I cannot believe you had a single course divided between real analysis and group theory!!!! WHAT! When you said that I was like "OMG whyyyyy." Those two subjects at the undergrad level are so far removed from each other and are so different that people either claim to be an analysis person, or an algebra person. I did course sequences in both this past year (Real Analysis and Metric Spaces, Abstract Algebra and Linear Algebra II), but I would have lost my mind if I had a course that combined the two. I'm trying to imagine how far you would even be able to get by combining the two together. The very last thing we did in Analysis was prove the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and then in Algebra we did some stuff with Galois Theory and field extensions/proving C is algebraically closed. I have no idea what it would look like if somebody combined those two courses and cut them in half. I'd love to see a course description. All this to say though, amazing video, and definitely relatable. Many times was I like, "yep, omg, I've been there." Congrats on making it this far!

[@undertheradar4645]

Could you possibly do a video on the importance of first principles in problem solving, and perhaps problem solving more generally in physics?

[@martm216]

You are a fabulous communicator.

[@rishalsp814]

Saw some of your vids and now im getting long hair vids in recommended lol Great vids keep it up :)

[@toomanyhobbies2011]

Our Upper Division Mechanics teacher was a theorist from Princeton and about 80 years of age. He was having trouble but gave us all an appreciation of theoretical physics. Thank God we were all taking Mathematical Physics at the same time because the Mechanics course applied the concepts at a somewhat higher level. Mechanics in grad school was a breeze after those courses.

[@Mr4NiceOne]

I had similar same experience with real analysis. If you wrote something like sin^-1 instead of Sin^-1 ,boom! ,-10%. Oh ,you missed limit(x->...) on just a single line ,-10%. I still have nightmares about missing sum indices.

[@adriancoronel5119]

Congratulations,I am happy student Astronomy,greetings from México,thanks very much for you atention.

[@acreales]

I also have a physics degree. I can't tell you how many midterms I took and never got over 40% on them. Physics is tough.

[@sinopecrig2958]

Toby, you can also start making fun physics video like Diane Cowern does with her Physics Girl channel. I have a daughter that loves Diane's channel. The more "physics girls" out there more leaning she is into science.

[@LiveNKicking]

Well...Imagine Steve watching this video....LOL!

[@manmohanpal5668]

@Tibees - I had question for you . While I was studying Defferentiantion & Intergration in high school , my teacher told me these will used in your daily life . Even After My engineering I had never encountered Integration or diferentiation in daily life . Lol

[@doobick1898]

Since I'm early can you answer a question? Or you can just lead me to a video where u already posted an answer. So, I want to grow up and work in space exploration. Can a physicist work in that type of job or should I study aerospace engineering instead?

[@eliaskristen4755]

Studying physics is definitely the way to go if you want to work in space exploration! Geology (for planetology) is fine as well, depends on in what exactly you want to work.

[@MountMonty]

This was really interesting!

[@biamenezes7801]

I'm here because I start University next week and I'm gonna study Physics... I am normally a pessimistic-realistic type of person, so I like to be well aware of all the difficulties I'll go through. However, I kinda wish to get started with my studies now because the holidays made me sad, lazy and my brain is like dead haha so I want to wake it up.

[@nichbleb7155]

Currently an Astronomy and Physics undergrad in my senior year. So much of this is familiar haha. Stay curious!

[@kookykutter69]

As a Senior in Math at the moment, your description of that Math 240 class immediately sounded traumatizing lol. Definitely my 2 least favorite subjects within the broad umbrella of mathematics.

[@leonardmilcin7798]

The idea of getting negative points for giving bad answers is really making students aware that there is a world of difference between understanding you don't know the answer and just giving bad one at random. I would always choose to work with a person that doesn't know stuff but knows what she doesn't know and is willing to admit it and go do her research over a more knowledgeable person but one that will give you bad answers. You can never trust the other person. Also real knowledge is built on real understanding of facts. If you fool yourself you understand stuff then it is not very likely you are going to do any real progress.

[@PhrontDoor]

NEGATIVE SCOREs.. LOVE THAT. As a story.. If it happened to me, I'd have been rightly mortified.

[@juankim9581]

Hi I'll be starting my undergrad physics this year in New Zealand!! I was wondering what university you went to in NZ

[@MRF77]

I have just done my Maxwell's first equation (Gauss's Law) exam this semester, and got 72% (no scaling) :'( . This video helps me to restore some lost hope. I'm a freshman BTW.

[@RaymondRChammas]

a -5 and a 4 in real analysis.....i can't wait

[@nanditasudhatiwari1332]

I can completely relate with the Real Analysis typical Questions. It seems completely different language in itself. Though I got the Highest scores in the paper but I would never like to do it again.

[@wweoolofsson]

We don't have scaling here in Sweden. My math teacher said that "a good year 42% of the students pass the test. But 32% happens as well." But we have 4 math courses in the first year. They don't care about high school, they raise the bar waaay up. The first year is made for making the "bad" students to drop off..

[@undergroundalienstudios56]

In my bachelors we had a math methods course, where the homework solutions that he gave us afterwards was 70+ pages front and back. What I turned in was about 40 pages front and back. And it was about 2 weeks before finals. I forgot almost everything I ever learned in that course though... Oh well!

[@MrAnymeansnecessary]

i took a general (non major) physics course. dr pogozeski warned the very first day: if you dont get a 4 outta 10 on the quiz ill hand out later, you should drop. and if you think that because youre a chem or bio major that this course will be easy, as a matter of fact, if you think this course wont be one of the hardest of your academic career, you should drop. And within 3 weeks, in fact,the lecture had gone from 100 to maybe 25 students. but i went from a 6 on the first exam to a 48 on the final, out of 100. I learned that much physics in 16 weeks. my ats off to each of you. cheers!

[@illuminatiCorgi]

Damn you and your welcoming smile O_O ...*Subscribes*

[@KunalLal1984]

We had real analysis in 1st year of undergraduate study in Electrical Engineering. It was our first college exam. The class average was 1.5 marks out of 25. 20 people flunked the course. Those of us who got through, still aren't sure how.

[@norcal6181]

Watching this as I'm taking a break from my ODE class homework. I'm so stuck on trying to learn finding solutions to non-linear ODE's right now... Uhg!

[@tibees]

I feel your pain

[@zalchan2937]

Very cool stories, although I'm sure you get this a lot, you're absolutely gorgeous.

[@olivergonzalezyo]

In México we have the National Polithechnique Institute were is imparted the degree in Physics and Maths, so I think is very interesting combination, unfortunately I did not have the time to attend it, so I graduated of degree in Math through distance courses.

[@pk823456]

Jordan sounds like an absolute unit.

[@abhishektomar5314]

wow! Loved it

[@Snagabott]

Me and a friend of me in astrophysics were attending a gathering the day before he was going to present his master thesis. As it turned out, the guy who had flown in to be my friend's examiner the next day was also there and we started talking. I got interested - everyone knew who he was and why he was really in the country - so I started asking him if he had graded master theses before, how it was done etc. He told me he had, but in a different country. When pressed, though, he reluctantly admitted that he had been generally disappointed at the quality of the work he had previously seen and that somebody had told him that students over there referred to him as 'The Butcher from Norway'". Guess who happened to walk past and catch the last part of that conversation....

[@akapo98]

Description has "I chat my my friend James...". Great video! :)

[@tibees]

Thanks, have fixed it

[@juanramonvazquez3212]

Pretty good video and stories too.

[@thadtheman3751]

Your real analysis class couldn't compare to mine. The teacher never collected the homework but he assigned all the problems from Spivak ( yes the same Spivak ). I actually got together with a math grad student on Saturdays and we would spend six hours just doing all of the problems. Then there was mechanics. The material was not hard, but the teacher made the simlesst of techniques sound complicated. My favorite was Quantum Mechanics. The teacher was great. He would refer to things happening as "swindles", such as when you did a sudden approximation (assume the time vriation was small ) then integrate over all of time.

[@renkun7064]

I'm gonna start school soon and I'm really scared cause i have very poor social interaction

[@spdcrzy]

PDEs and ODEs still freak me out. And I still have my college notebooks to look at from time to time. LMAO

[@evanking6737]

ok heres my horror story. I had taken Sociology (God knows why). First Semester - I worked hard but only achieved 49%. I was disheartened at the lack of the scientific method, no peer reviewing of published work, and the general lack of rigour. Not to mention - a lecturer who did not bother to check her facts before lectures. I decided to do an experiment. Second semester. I did not study at all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Minimal effort at exams. This semester - I got 53% and a comment on one of my assignments that my writing was "too scientific". 3 rd semester transferred my major to Psychology. what can I say - high distinction and honors. Lesson learned - Universities challenge you to engage in critical thinking and be creative - but... if you want the marks - do NOT stray outside of their paradigm. and when a student in sociology class asks the lecturer what type of work we could expect to find once we graduate - and the lecturer looks stumped.... Do NOT jump in with a "Thats easy!!! plenty of work out there... Nightfill in supermarkets, street cleaning, car detailing.... oops... my bad!

[@palexisdempster73]

A negative 5 Omg!! That can't be legal/fair XD

[@butterfury]

Scaling is referred to as Bellcurve in Canada

[@tanmaybhore1979]

Watching this before an Electrodynamics quiz

[@dsgarden]

Scaling sucks though since it usually works out for people who focused on few questions and left the rest but not ones who tried EVERY question

[@destroctiveblade843]

thermodynamics ? anyone ?

[@venanciorodriguez9050]

This video makes physics courses frightening.

[@Minecraftrok999]

They are.

[@seven9766]

they are tough but doable most of the time.

[@zokalyx]

Nice video :)

[@markattila9835]

We called it surfing the curve waves...

[@xilo3012]

What is under grade? Finish college? And then go to university? Is confusing that system.

[@dogwithwigwamz.7320]

I`m teaching myself Maths. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

[@bobmanahmed7258]

Power Scaling equates to " God Grades On a Curve" Hahha

[@sawmaster6095]

No mention of quantum mechanics? I thought it was significantly worse than the courses you mentioned

[@jaisonvarghese]

How is like to search for an idea on a own project?

[@ssn90]

It would have been great to study physics in 1600s but no courage to study it Today. The learning curve is like y = x^2 graph.

[@SPlion960]

I see this video to motivate myself..

[@colinmaharaj]

My A level math teacher was a holy ghost father and very strict. In a 5 question exam your were going to get 100, 80, 60, 40, 20 or 0%

[@himanshudixit9163]

Pde was one of my favourites

[@basilbrush7878]

What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape

[@Swetlana0]

James kind of reminds me of James Grime on youtube!

[@feynstein1004]

You mean the guy from Noombahphile?

[@patricecharbonneau8565]

Great :D

[@nickdummythicc3361]

Even though I’m in the 7th grade I find these videos very fun and interesting due to the fact of me wanting to major in physics and cosmology!!!!!

[@asrmharryw1352]

I was going study astrophysics there no jobs in UK has astrophysics so am studying mathematics then doing Research has a careet