Here is what I said the last time I posted (In the first thread):
I’ve been working on being more sociable. I’ve been talking to people in my classes, and doing work in the lounge for my major. I’m not as productive as when I work on my own, but I’m getting involved in small talk. I think someone here mentioned that much of small-talk is just about being enthusiastic and friendly—once I started looking at it this way it became much easier—it is actually pleasant for me now.
This has gone great! I have new friends and it’s wonderful!
I’m about halfway through reading Social Cognition by Gordon Moskowitz, which is helping me gain a better understanding of cognitive biases.
I finished reading this, and didn’t learn about cognitive biases so much, but did get a better understanding of stereotyping and attributions. Mostly general theory, and lots of specific experiments (the book gives the details on every experiment for every fact, so is actually not very information dense in terms of psychological facts).
I’ve also been writing explanations of science topics for my grandmother, among other things like “what is an internet community?”
I haven’t written anything else.
Currently:
Learning quantum mechanics and so that I can have a better understanding of what my research group is working on. Quantum is the basis for most modern physics so it seemed the most useful/important of all the interesting physics things I wanted to learn.
Trying to break down what “physical intuition” is and creating a guide for to how to solve physics problems. I’m doing this because it seems like people get to a certain point when learning physics where their mysterious intuitions for how to set up problems do not work anymore. Many people don’t know what to do and end up stuck, with grades and learning plummeting. If I can figure out a way to teach people certain problem solving heuristics, then hopefully we can get around this.
I’m reading literature, and taking ideas from here and summarizing them.
Here is what I said the last time I posted (In the first thread):
This has gone great! I have new friends and it’s wonderful!
I finished reading this, and didn’t learn about cognitive biases so much, but did get a better understanding of stereotyping and attributions. Mostly general theory, and lots of specific experiments (the book gives the details on every experiment for every fact, so is actually not very information dense in terms of psychological facts).
I haven’t written anything else.
Currently:
Learning quantum mechanics and so that I can have a better understanding of what my research group is working on. Quantum is the basis for most modern physics so it seemed the most useful/important of all the interesting physics things I wanted to learn.
Trying to break down what “physical intuition” is and creating a guide for to how to solve physics problems. I’m doing this because it seems like people get to a certain point when learning physics where their mysterious intuitions for how to set up problems do not work anymore. Many people don’t know what to do and end up stuck, with grades and learning plummeting. If I can figure out a way to teach people certain problem solving heuristics, then hopefully we can get around this.
I’m reading literature, and taking ideas from here and summarizing them.
Love the updates.
How are you approaching breaking down physical intuition? That seems very interesting. I’d love to talk about that at the meetup.