How to Be a Physics Student

Being a physics student is hard work. We have to understand the intracy of Gods creation, and do it all while denying that God exists. We’re charged with developing fundamental theories of everything, from the quantum to the stellar, from the electromagnetic to the mechanical, from the complex to the even more complex. Often we do all this without any idea what it is we are actually supposed to be doing, and for this reason I offer a simple guide.

The first thing to note is that not only do people not understand the majority of what you’re studying, they don’t care either. Any attempt to discuss your work will be met with strange looks and, if you continue, a type of social exclusion I call the ring of death. If seen from above, this represents a five foot zone around your person to which no one will enter unless forcibly pushed. Still, it makes you great at navigating crowds. If you are ever locked in debate with someone about any physical subject, a rare occurence but it can and does happen, you can use the lack of common understanding to bewilder your opponent with fancy physics terms, learned during the portions of lectures in which you were awake: terms such as entropy, quantum, electron, force and rope, can all be used to confuse and confound the layman into a kind of intellectual submission. 

Contrary to popular belief, physics students do not work hard, we simply give that impression to outside observers. Our faces look tired and pale, our hair matted and freyed; these things happen not because we were up all night studying for a class test, but because we are tired of life, easily sunburnt and do not understand the concept of personal hygiene. A budding physics student must adhere to this strict code of conduct if he is to be accepted by his peers. I use the term ‘he’ because it is a well known fact that women neither do physics nor are found around physicists. 

While lectures are the heart and soul of most university courses, for a physics student all real work is done in a local tavern. A tavern is any pub that the average student would intentionally avoid thanks to its musky aroma and the proportion of patrons who own bus passes. Such institutions are the lifeblood of modern physics, without beer we would not have string theory and without cider we would not have gravity (before the fermentation of apples things would just float about: the term hangover originally reffered to the tendency of objects to hang over people and for them to subsequenty bang their heads). If you can not find such an establishment it is fine to drink in the house, but remember that there should be no fun or members of the opposite sex, both of which are alien concepts to any true physicists.

Further into your course you will find your mathematical skill improving at an unprecented rate. You should use this phenomenon, coupled with your apparent understanding of complex physical processes, to make everything you say overwhelmingly complex and unintelligible, even to yourself. For instance, the way the room spins at the end of a hard nights work can be explained as a curious combination of both centripetal and centrifugal force, combined with a sense of torque upon the upper abdomen. The words “I was spinning” simply do not suffice for your newly endowed cerebrum.

The decoration of your room should be almost self evident by now, but in case you are having difficulty, know that esoteric quotes and scifi nostalgia are always good themes. The worth of a poster is directly proportional to how little the average person knows about it. You should also ensure that your room is either immaculately clean or resembling a heroin den, never inbetween.

By now you should have dropped all interests except sarcasm and physics, but be looking into developing misanthropy and social awkwardness: no true physics student is ever comfortable in social situations. Choosing a seat on a bus should be a truly traumatic experience, as should interacting with the checkout girl at sainsburys. In fact, you should hardly be venturing outside your home at all, preffering instead to order food, clothing and women online. The amount of work you do should be increasing steadily, yet never reach a point where you could legitimately be labelled as giving a shit. 

Diet is a concern for most students, but since you live at home you see no logical reason to learn to cook, and so subsist on whatever it is the parents provide supplemented with as many sugary drinks and treats as your loan will afford. For the rare physics student who ventures away from home, we remove mothers cooking and replace it with potted or packet noodles and a vitamin tablet. Do not forget the vitamin tablet. You will get scurvy. Fanta doesn’t count as orange juice, trust me. 

Exercise is an interesting topic. While I have found that most physics students are incredibly small in stature, they do posess a strangely strong right or left arm. I have found no correllation between this and drawing deltas, or any other mathematical symbol. Still, expect that over the course of your study you will obtain a suprisingly powerful wrist action.

As your final exam approaches, you will look back upon all you have learnt, all the mysteries of the world that you now understand, all the intricate mathematics, and think, quietly, to yourself: I really need to revise.

Tags: exams, masturbation, physics, student, university