I WAS planning on majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in computer science. I’m taking ap physics 1 and just failed the multiple choice part of a test before the curve and now I’m having doubts on my ability. I’m also in ap calc ab and it started off harder than physics, but it’s becoming easier. I feel like I’m grasping it easier now.
Could it be as simple as bad studying methods or do I just not have an affintiy for physics and therefore engineering? This is also only the second test in the class.
I have another problem. I’ve already applied to 6 schools for engineering, all with cs as the second choice. Should I just wait it out and see how I do throughout the entire year before I make the decision to switch? I’m worried that I set myself up for failure.
It absolutely can be as simple as bad study methods. For example, if you are spending all of your energy just memorizing formulae and “recipes” for how to solve a given problem, then you probably aren’t learning it all that well.
@boneh3ad It’s funny that you say that because memorizing how to solve problems (Atwood machines and inclined planes with friction, etc…) is basically all I did to study because that’s how I study for math. Whether or not that’s good for math is a different topic for a different day. I know CollegeBoard re-designed the test so that it’s more conceptual, which is what killed me in ap bio last year. Any tips for studying concepts? I noticed you all around the engineering forum so I assume you’re at least an undergrad, if not in the field already.
Personally I disagree with a lot of what he says but I do feel that if you really are quite lost as to how to study well, this is a good place to start.
Actually, research shows that while everyone thinks they have a unique learning style that works best, that’s generally not the case. Students are just typically bad at evaluating what is working for them. What works best according to cognitive research is actually fairly straightforward to describe, if more difficult to implement.
Essentially the worst thing you can do is what they call “mass practice”, aka cramming for the exam. Doing a set of similar problems over and over doesn’t actually help; it just wears you out and makes you fee like you learned something, but you’ll soon forget it.
What works better, almost universally, is spacing out your practice sessions so that you tend to forget a little bit each time and have to work to recall the information. That cements the brain pathways that store that information. It also helps to study a few topics back to back that are related but not the same, because it helps you connect the dots between subjects. That’s also a more durable form of memory. Ultimately what you want is to know why each of those recipes are used to solve a certain problem and how that knowledge can be applied to other problems.
There’s more to it than that but that’s the general idea. The tough thing is that they’ve done studies that show that these sorts of study tactics produce marked increases in knowledge retention and grades, but when surveyed, the students who practice them feel like they didn’t work very well before they saw their scores on the tests. There’s a pretty fascinating, if a bit dry, book on this topic that I recently read called [Make It Stick](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013).
Not sure that’s really true - while there are methods that are better and worse, the consensus of “learning styles don’t exist” is definitely bunk. The research is mostly either fishy or inconclusive, and from the perspective of most long-time teachers that really doesn’t seem to be true.
The rest of what you posted, I generally agree with. The human brain is much better at slowly but incrementally building conceptual connections than mass-gathering information, and feeling exhausted after studying isn’t productive. Anyone who has ever taught a class might notice that recalling and teaching what used to be really difficult for you is much easier conceptually than it was to learn the material the first time. Months and years of building connections does that.
It’s absolutely not bunk. Read the book, which is based on solid science and cites its sources. I don’t mean this as a “hands-on” versus “book-learning” type of argument, because the research about which I am speaking shows that both can work. Indeed, learning is likely enhanced when these are used together because it forces the brain to approach a given topic from multiple angles and helps build connections between that topic and others. The more important aspect is how those methods are applied.
The other issue is that students come into courses thinking they have a certain learning style that works best for them, and that also typically isn’t the case. That is just the learning style with which they are most comfortable, most likely because they feel like it is the easiest. For example, if you have one student who thinks he or she is a “hands-on learner” and teach them only using hands-on methods, they are going to fare worse than if you had used several methods, even if they were less comfortable with some of them. By forcing them out of their comfort zone somewhat and forcing them to work harder at learning, it ends up enhancing the overall knowledge retention. That is what I mean by the idea that one student doesn’t have a single learning style that works best.
So the bottom line is that yes, there are absolutely different learning styles and different students have different comfort levels with each. However, studies have shown that pushing students out of their comfort zones can pay dividends in terms of learning outcomes even if they aren’t convinced (at least initially) that it is good for them.
Further, there are many people (particularly some older generations) who will swear that the best way to learn material is practice, practice, practice. That’s simply not the case. For example, memorizing your times tables is about the worst way to learn multiplication. You can sit there and memorize that 9x6=54 without understanding why that is true, and then when you move on to algebra, and instead you have 9x=54, you have a much harder time learning why x=6. Yet, this sort of studying and teaching is still pervasive. It’s also why Common Core math has come under fire so heavily despite the fact that it’s actually a lot more intuitive way of understanding mathematics.
I guess the best I can say about this particular set of studies is that the science is solid enough that at my university, they have handed this book out to newly-hired engineering faculty over the past several years and have apparently seen student performance rise as its ideas have been slowly implemented (which is not always easy to do and is often uncomfortable for the faculty as well).
Essentially the worst thing you can do is what they call “mass practice”, aka cramming for the exam - Based on my experience, tis very true.
For most of my engineering courses, my "exam studying strategy was dispersed across the term:
attended all lectures (marking my notes where prof dropped hints about good exam question)
completed all the homework (whether it was graded or not)
sometimes attended office hours, if help needed
did occasional homework review and exam study with other students - wish I had done more of that,
before exam: studied lightly (mostly practice problems) and tried to get a good night’s rest
Many of my peers were admittedly brighter than me. But I was a hard worker and graduated with honors. I still did ECs and had fun, but my primary focus was academics.
