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Gap Year Before Physics Degree

Hello all!
I'm currently at the start of my gap year, having just sent off my applications to universities to study Physics. However, I'd like to keep my brain ticking over this time, and would like to know if anyone could recommend any Maths or Physics that I should start looking into and potentially teaching myself to aid with my degree :smile: (obviously this would need to be above A Level standard, as I have already completed this!)

Thanks :smile:
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Would quite like to know this as well...
Reply 3
Avatar for mik1a
mik1a
10
Just make sure first of all that your maths stays sharp, do some integration and differentiation, basic trig problems, exponential and logarithms, because that's basically your toolkit for undergrad physics (matrix algebra also if you did it). For physics, I think it should be easier, the concepts are harder to forget, whereas with maths you can lose your speed very quickly (and certainly be very rusty after a year out).

I'd say take a few hours every 3 months or so, do a few past paper speed runs (e.g. C1-C4) for a mental refresher.

I'd say don't bother trying to learn new things. You'll find it hard to motivate yourself in the long run with no clear goals, and self-teaching is generally more inefficient and risky (easier to miss the point, especially in intro undergrad courses e.g. dynamics, relativity, vector calculus etc.). It will almost certainly be a waste of time (in my honest opinion). You're paying £9000 a year for the best in the world to teach you, and you're taking a year out to do something else. There's no point! Enjoy your time away from the subject and make sure you come back refreshed.

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