I rushed into going to university. I didn’t do enough research into what studying physics at university would actually be like, outside of extrapolating my experiences of studying it at A level. I assumed it would be the same, but harder. Instead, there’s a lot, LOT more mathematics, especially calculus, which I had in reality been looking forward to escaping. For some reason, even though calculus is a core aspect of physics, neither GCSE nor A level had married the two at all.
I managed to ignore the nagging in the first semester by not really paying attention in lectures, doing all of my assignments the night before, and spending all of my time socialising or chilling out in my room. Then the January exams came around, and I failed them pretty spectacularly. ~20% marks on each. I nearly dropped out then, but I decided that I had just been lazy, and if I worked to understand everything, I could be on top of the course and enjoy it.
So the next semester, I shut myself away, in my room and one of the physics building’s study rooms. I worked really hard, and I did start to feel satisfaction with my understanding. But I think I pushed myself a little too far -- I burnt out really badly, and, probably out of habit at this point, still shut myself away. I wasn’t getting any work done, but I also wasn’t going to socials, or bonding with my housemates for next year. I think at its peak I spent four days (Friday morning – Tuesday morning) in my room/flat not speaking to anybody, half-heartedly doing hobby stuff and feeling guilty that I wasn’t working.
Overall I felt pretty awful about everything, including the prospect of dropping out or switching courses, which seemed like resigning to the fact that I just wasn’t clever enough to study physics at university. I spent too much time thinking about how I was feeling, and kind of disappeared into my own head for a while.
I feel like I’m coming out the other side of this weird haze of anxiety, mainly because I’ve forced myself to spend more time with my friends. Luckily, the amount of work I put in at the start of the semester means that I’m not unmanageably behind.
I do feel that I’m interested in Physics, but I don’t know if my interest extends to treating it from a rigorous mathematical analysis point of view. Which does sound stupid and shallow now that I’m here and actually know what physics is, instead of the butchered version they give you outside of HE.
Now I’m at this weird crossroads. I told myself and my parents I’d work harder and see how I found the course then. The fact that I sort of shut down makes me feel like I can’t honestly say I gave it my all, but also that something obviously isn’t quite right. I feel like over the course of a day I can go from sure I should go to sure I should stay and vice versa.
My plan B would be to get a job for a little while and re-assess. I’ve also been toying with sitting a music a level independently and applying for the 19-20 academic year to read music. Both of these ideas I’m pretty worried about bringing up to my parents.
I’ve read a lot of articles online about people having similar experiences, so I know I’m not even nearly alone in having this kind of first year. Would you say it sounds like I should carry on?