Math Help Bc I Can’t Watch Ya’ll Suffer Anymore

Learning astronomy

Podcasts

astronomy cast  : hundreds of podcasts! Great for beginners and general facts, but keep in mind that those are from 2006, so some technical things may no longer be relevant

Videos 

crash course : amazing synthetic videos about astronomy, those are my personal favorites 

Websites

astronomy basics : all you need to know if you’re a great beginner!

Free online courses

probably the most complete one I’ve ever seen

khan academy astronomy courses are quality af

Books

list of books about what to see and how with a telescope

another list of books about astronomy in general 

telescope books

astrophotography

Stargazing

Sky maps

sky maps per month 

very good starwheels aka planispheres 

How to observe

basic skills

10 steps to begin

the perfect all-in-one stargazing guide: I can’t recommend this highly enough!!

Telescopes and things

telescopes

telescope reviews : aka what to chose for what you want to see

everything about telescopes : super useful when you start using one!!

Astrophotography

Starting

everything you need to know depending on what equipment you have!!

all you need version 2!

General

catching the light

hundreds of tips 

Apps and websites

For computers

stellarium

googlesky

astroplanner: plan your observation!

winstars: 3D planet/stargazing!

planetarium 

+ full list of softwares and websites

For mobiles

starwalk2 (android version): alright guys, this one is my absolute favorite at all times. Like, really. Have you ever wished you could point a device at the sky and know exactly what’s above you? And have a description of those things? Even in the middle of the day?? Well, now you can yaaay! :D 

Astronomy News

astronomy.com

universetoday

skyandtelescope

space.com aka my personal favorite

astronomynow

sci-news

++bonus !

All the random facts

here +other links:  x x x x

Backgrounds

hubble site gallery

ESA/Hubble gallery

HD wallpapers

NASA gallery

Even more resources

friendsoftheobservatory

NASA

European Space Agency

ISS Live

I really hoped it helped! Thank you very much for reading! Zoya

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

gotta write a research paper for astronomy now whoops

shouldn’t be too hard tbh

done

My view immediately after my zoom meetings. Some notes from the most recent meeting, an empty coffee cup, and the makeup that I rushed to put on using my webcam before logging on😂

Happy Friday loves!

hw fanfic? 👀👀

okay guys this is very nsfw. apparently this was turned in as a homework assignment; the annotations are from a very confused TA.

problem solving tips that actually worked for me

Hey there!

If you have a math, or science related subject (like I always do), you’ll find that you really can’t escape analysis and problem solving, especially if you’re majoring in something science or maths related. So I am here to share some tips that actually made studying technical subjects a little bit easier and manageable for me in college:

Practice solving. If you have a subject that requires you to solve, you really have to practice solving, there is no easy way out of this one. This allows you to develop your own technique in solving the problem. You can start by doing the problems you did in class, then venture out to some examples in textbooks, then further into the problems in the textbooks until you get the hang of how the concepts and theories are applied. 

Listen during class. I know, it’s boring. But you have to do this. This way, you’ll be able to understand the topic once it is presented to you. In my opinion, it’s better if you let an expert explain it because they know the important bits in the lesson. Then study it afterwards on your own to develop your own techniques.

Ask your professors. Don’t be afraid to ask questions in class. Or if you’re shy, you can ask them after the class. However, it’s important that you ask them about the lesson when you already did your part; meaning: you already studied the material/solution over and over again but there’s just something that you can’t seem to grasp. 

Study before the class. Studying the lesson in advance doesn’t hurt. Plus, it works because you already have an idea about it. However, I don’t do it usually. What I do is that prior the discussion, I study the lessons that are going to be essential to the next topic. Example: Say that our topic later will be about introduction to thermodynamics (which includes derivation of various thermodynamic formulas); what I’m going to study instead is the different integration and derivation techniques, and different basic thermodynamics concepts like laws of thermodynamics. This ensures me that I know the prerequisite lessons of the next topic in class.

Absorb the conceptual parts of the topic first. Before diving into the problems itself, try to digest the concepts or theories behind it first. This way, you can understand which information is important and easily think of a solution because you know the problem’s framework. Even when your professor gives you a problem that seems different from your other sample problems, the concepts will still be the same throughout.

Reverse engineer the solution. Reverse engineering is reading and understanding your solution from bottom to top. I do this to make connections while going through the solution. I usually ask myself “‘where did this come from?’, ‘why did this happen?’, or ‘why is the answer like this?’” It allows me to look into the parts that I missed which are usually concepts or theories that I forgot to apply in solving the problem.

Look for key terms or phrases. There are some problems that put in information that may seem unimportant, but actually is really important. Examples such as the phrases constant velocity, constant acceleration, starting from rest, accelerate uniformly, reversible isothermal, adiabatic conditions, isobaric/isochoric compression/expansion, etc., are easy to miss but actually gives you vital information especially when solving a problem.

Try to ask yourself how or why it happened in every step of the solution. You can do this to gauge your mastery of the lesson. If you can answer yourself confidently, then you’ve studied well enough. But, if you can’t or if you feel that it’s not enough, then you better get your pen, paper, and calculator to practice some more.

If you have to draw it, draw it. Some problems need the use of your imagination, and these problems are the ones that get tricky most of the time. It’s easier to draw each of the time frames that are important so you get the sense of what’s going on between these pictures. This way, you’ll know which information you’re missing and which ones are you failing to take into account.

It’s okay to be messy and slow while practicing. Not all of time you can solve in a tumblr-esque manner because, dude, tumblr notes or solutions are soooo pretty to look at, BUT, what’s more important is that you understand each step of the solution and how the answer came to be 8.0658 m/s directed 32° south of west. So it’s okay to have dashes, strikethroughs, and crosses on your scratch paper, as long as you’re learning, a messy solution on a paper you’re not going to submit to your professor is fine.

IF YOU’VE REALLY GOTTEN THE HANG OF SOLVING IT, try to solve a fresh set of problems as fast and accurately as you can. Try to solve as if you’re in an exam. This is also to gauge how well you’re prepared for it, but you need to do this accurately. I repeat, accurately. It doesn’t work if you’ve finished it in less than an hour but all of your answers are wrong.

Rest. If you know that you’ve done a good job, then take your mind off of everything first and let it wander to wherever it wants to wander. You deserve it ✨

I'm not actually smart, I just prep for a class like I'm going into battle

Learning to like Physics

I actually cannot believe how much I used to hate Physics until last year, but then I actually took the time and effort to understand it and?? it’s so cool and fun and easy?? unreal.

It literally seemed impossible for me and I legit thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate because I was never gonna pass Physics (I’m a Math major so we actually have 4 required Physics courses). I don’t know what the point of this is but, don’t be afraid of Physics guys!! (or any other subject!!) yes it’s frustrating as hell and you feel dumb for not having a clue about what is happening or how to work out the problems but I swear once it clicks for you (and it will) it’s gonna be great.

So if anyone needs a step by step (for college/uni), here’s one:

Google is your best friend, the internet has plenty of videos/papers/worked out problems for you to check out. The most important thing to look for is drawings and videos that help you visualize what’s going on. In most of general physics, the key is to see what forces are acting, and from that follows everything else.

Know your core equations. Honestly it’s always the same ones in the end.

For mechanics: you absolutely gotta know Newton’s Laws, Work and its relation to Kinetic/Potential Energy. Momentum is also important.

For thermodynamics: pV = nRT, Boyle/Gay Lussac etc (note that they’re all connected), Carnot’s Cycle.

For electromagnetism: Maxwell’s equations. This is as far as I’ve gotten in my studies.

Understand where the formulas come from, rather than learning them by heart. For me, this was necessary because my memory is absolutely shit so there was no way I could remember every variation. But most of the formulas actually do make sense, and once you’ve drawn out a diagram of what’s happening, you can work them out yourself.

For the previous point, I suggest you watch and rewatch your professor’s explanation until you get the gist. Don’t get discouraged if it’s not immediately crystal clear, seek out other explanations if you need to. Then try to do it yourself.

ASK. FOR. HELP. I cannot stress this enough, do not feel ashamed about asking questions in class or during office hours. There are no stupid questions, and you’re paying thousands every year for people to teach you. Also physics is hard, so you’re pretty much expected to not understand immediately. Moreover, I can guarantee there’s at least one other person in the room with the same question who’s too afraid to ask. I was that person, and I failed the class because of it. Don’t be me.

Practice until you’re able to do most variations of standard problems. Once you’re able to do a certain problem, try to change it and see what happens. You don’t have to crunch the numbers all over again, go with your intuition first. Then you can calculate everything and see if you were correct.

This is all I’ve got at the moment. It applies to General Physics because I’m still pretty shit at Mathematical Physics (Rational Mechanics?) lmao, which is why I don’t talk about Lagrangians and such here.

If anyone has any other tips (for Mathematical Physics as well!) , please feel free to add them. Note that I’m from Italy, and this is what it was like for me. Other countries might have different ways of testing or focus on some formulas that I haven’t included. Do what works for you, obviously.

Good luck STEM students, I know it’s hard, but hopefully worth it in the long run :)

Important things I learned while studying Astrophysics

During presentations, 90% of the people won’t know anything about your topic, no one will notice minor mistakes

During presentations, 75% of the people won’t even listen to you

Don’t compare yourself to others. There will always be someone smarter than you, and the people you think of as smart, think of themselves as really dumb

The profs, the TAs and everyone else is also just a human. They are not perfect and have other things to do than run after and care for you.

Take care of your own shit. Always

If you work in groups, don’t be selfish. Just because you think you dont need to hand in that last paper because your grade is secure anyway, it does not mean that the others feel the same. Dont pull them down because you are lazy

If it seems too easy, you’re doing it wrong

Just because a person seems to sound convincing, check their data, they’ve usually ignored gravity or temperatures

Knowing professors personally can be both good and bad, good when it comes to jobs and favours, bad when it comes to oral exams

Buying books is useless when you can just get them from the library and sit on them for a year. Especially when there are no textbooks, but only specific literature costing around 600 € per book

Reading papers is the way to go. Always.

When showing your work/thesis, try to explain the process as simple as possible, while at the same time make your work look as hard and complicated as possible (Quote from a guy I work with: “It looks too easy for the public!”)

Learn how to work with others. You won’t get far on your own.

If English is not your native language, learn it! You will need it

Your humour will consist of science jokes and math references. Good luck making friends in the real world

Can we romanticize humble academia?? Be in love with sharing your knowledge with others. having a sheepish smile on your face as you clumsily explain a concept that you fully understand but haven’t read up on recently. Happily help someone understand a complex concept that you do understand. Roll your eyes and make funny faces at people purposely being pretentious. Give away or sell at a reasonable price old textbooks that you know are still in use. Lend and exchange notes with other genuine acedmics. Encourage others with whatever their studies/aspirations are.

Pretentiousness in academia is so outdated, and frankly off putting. Romanticize the academic practice of being kind.