How to ACE insanely difficult classes (like physics, chem)

Summary

In this video, the creator shares how they overcame challenges in difficult subjects like physics by adopting a growth mindset. They emphasize three key strategies: starting from scratch to build foundational skills, seeking live help for personalized guidance, and iterating through mistakes to improve gradually. The creator highlights their own struggles with physics, how coding sharpened their problem-solving skills, and how these approaches ultimately led to success in even the most challenging subjects.

Takeaways

• 📚 The speaker admits a struggle with physics but managed to achieve A's by adopting a growth mindset and applying specific strategies.
• 🧠 The improvement in understanding complex subjects is likened to navigating a maze, where progress is incremental and requires persistence.
• 🌟 Starting from scratch and building up foundational knowledge is crucial, even revisiting basics can enhance understanding.
• 🎓 The speaker recommends learning coding as a way to improve problem-solving skills, which is beneficial across various subjects.
• 💻 Digi Cafe is introduced as a resource for learning programming, emphasizing its focus on problem-solving and offering live help.
• 🤝 Live help, such as tutoring or guidance from experts, can prevent learners from getting stuck and expedite understanding.
• 📈 Data suggests that students who receive tutoring score significantly higher than those in traditional classrooms alone.
• 🔄 The concept of iteration is highlighted as a key to improvement, with the idea that small, repeated improvements can lead to significant gains over time.
• 📝 Keeping a 'mistake journal' is suggested as a method to learn from errors and avoid repeating them, thus fostering growth.
• 🚀 The power of compounding interest is drawn as a metaphor for the compounding effect of small, consistent improvements in learning.
• 🏆 The speaker shares a personal anecdote of overcoming a challenging physics quiz at Caltech, demonstrating the effectiveness of their strategies.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the video transcript?

The main theme of the video is how to succeed in challenging subjects, even if they seem difficult at first. The speaker shares personal experiences and offers three key tips: starting from scratch, seeking live help, and iterating to improve over time.

Why does the speaker struggle with physics, and how does it relate to the video’s advice?

The speaker struggles with physics because the concepts are difficult to grasp intuitively. This struggle is used as an example to illustrate how the right approach—starting from scratch, getting help, and iterative learning—can lead to success in any challenging subject.

What is the first tip the speaker provides for tackling challenging subjects?

The first tip is to start from scratch. The speaker emphasizes the importance of building a strong foundation by learning or revisiting the basics, which makes it easier to navigate more complex concepts later.

Why does the speaker recommend learning coding, and how does it help with other subjects?

The speaker recommends learning coding because it enhances problem-solving skills and logical thinking, which are transferable to other subjects like math and science. Coding helps train the mind to approach problems methodically and effectively.

What role does live help play in the learning process, according to the speaker?

Live help is crucial for overcoming obstacles and dead ends in the learning process. It allows for personalized guidance and feedback, which can significantly speed up understanding and improvement in challenging subjects.

How does the speaker suggest using iteration to improve in difficult subjects?

The speaker suggests that iteration, or repeated practice with a focus on improving one aspect each time, is key to mastering difficult subjects. By making small, consistent improvements, a learner can gradually overcome challenges and build confidence.

What is the importance of a 'mistake journal' as mentioned in the video?

A 'mistake journal' is important because it helps learners document and reflect on their mistakes, enabling them to learn from them and avoid repeating the same errors. This practice accelerates the learning process and leads to more significant improvements over time.

How does the speaker’s experience with a physics quiz at Caltech illustrate the effectiveness of the three tips provided?

The speaker's experience with a physics quiz at Caltech demonstrates the effectiveness of the three tips: despite feeling unprepared, the speaker was able to achieve a high score by relying on the foundation built from starting from scratch, seeking help, and iterative practice.

What does the speaker mean by 'starting from scratch' in the context of learning?

In the context of learning, 'starting from scratch' means revisiting the fundamental concepts of a subject, even if you think you already know them. This helps ensure a solid understanding and makes it easier to grasp more complex ideas.

Why does the speaker compare the learning process to navigating a maze?

The speaker compares the learning process to navigating a maze to emphasize that understanding challenging concepts is not a straightforward path. Like a maze, learning involves trial and error, retracing steps, and overcoming obstacles, which requires patience and persistence.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Overcoming Academic Challenges in Physics

The speaker shares their personal struggle with physics, a subject they found particularly challenging. Despite initial difficulties, they managed to achieve A's in all their subjects, including physics. The paragraph outlines the speaker's journey with physics, starting from AP Physics in their junior year, through to their time at Caltech. It emphasizes the importance of the right mindset when approaching difficult concepts and the speaker's strategy of starting from scratch, using resources like Caltech's YouTube channel to build a strong foundation. The speaker also advocates for learning coding as a way to enhance problem-solving skills, which can be applied to various subjects, including physics.

05:00

🤝 The Value of Live Help and Iterative Learning

This paragraph delves into the speaker's strategy for tackling tough problems and concepts in physics. They highlight the importance of seeking live help to avoid getting stuck in dead ends and the benefits of having a guide to navigate through complex problems. The speaker shares their experience with their mother's assistance in understanding physics concepts and the positive impact of live tutoring on academic performance. They introduce Digi Cafe, a platform offering live classes and feedback to enhance problem-solving skills, and compare it to traditional learning methods. The speaker also emphasizes the power of iteration and learning from mistakes, suggesting that small, incremental improvements can lead to significant progress over time.

10:03

🚀 Embracing a Growth Mindset for Academic Success

In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on their improved understanding and performance in physics, attributing their success to a growth mindset, starting from scratch, seeking live help, and iterative learning. They recount a specific incident during their freshman year at Caltech where they unexpectedly scored well on a physics quiz, demonstrating the effectiveness of their learning strategies. The speaker encourages students to adopt a growth mindset and to utilize resources like Digi Cafe for live support and to build a strong foundation in problem-solving. They conclude by reiterating the importance of fundamentals and the iterative process of learning from mistakes.

Keywords

💡Growth Mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of adopting a growth mindset to improve in challenging subjects like physics, demonstrating how persistence and learning from mistakes can lead to success.

💡Iteration

Iteration refers to the process of repeating actions or procedures, making incremental improvements each time. The speaker explains how repeatedly trying and learning from mistakes can lead to mastery of difficult concepts, much like how Mr. Beast improved his videos over time by iterating.

💡Problem Solving

Problem solving is the process of finding solutions to difficult or complex issues. In the video, the speaker discusses how coding and other transferable skills can enhance one's ability to solve problems, particularly in subjects like math and science, by applying logic and analytical thinking.

💡Starting from Scratch

Starting from scratch means beginning with the basics or fundamentals when learning something new. The speaker advises viewers to revisit foundational concepts, as they did with physics, to build a solid understanding before tackling more advanced material, which helps in navigating through challenging subjects.

💡Live Help

Live help refers to real-time assistance or tutoring, which can significantly enhance learning. The speaker recounts how getting help from their mother in understanding physics concepts allowed them to overcome obstacles more efficiently, highlighting the value of interactive and personalized guidance.

💡Coding

Coding is the process of writing instructions for computers to perform tasks. The speaker stresses the importance of learning coding, as it improves problem-solving skills and logical thinking, which are applicable across various subjects and careers. They also promote Digi Cafe as a platform to learn coding.

💡Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are abilities that can be applied across different fields or tasks. The speaker mentions that skills learned in coding, such as problem solving, can be transferred to other subjects like physics, making it easier to tackle complex challenges.

💡Maze Metaphor

The maze metaphor is used to describe the process of learning difficult concepts. The speaker compares learning to navigating a maze, where one may hit dead ends and have to backtrack before finding the right path. This metaphor illustrates the non-linear and challenging nature of mastering tough subjects.

💡Caltech

Caltech, or the California Institute of Technology, is a prestigious university known for its rigorous STEM programs. The speaker references their experience at Caltech, using it as an example of how they applied their strategies to succeed in physics, a subject they initially struggled with.

💡Mr. Beast

Mr. Beast is a popular YouTuber known for his viral content and massive following. The speaker uses Mr. Beast as an example of someone who achieved success through consistent iteration and improvement, drawing a parallel to how students can apply similar principles to their studies.

Highlights

Physics is particularly challenging for the speaker, yet they've managed to earn A's in every subject for the past 8 years, including physics.

Improvement in difficult subjects should be approached as navigating through a maze rather than expecting instant understanding.

Starting from scratch is crucial; the speaker re-learned fundamental physics concepts before diving deeper into more complex topics.

Learning coding is highly recommended, as it enhances problem-solving skills that are transferable to other subjects, especially math and science.

Digi Cafe offers courses that combine coding and problem-solving skills, making it easier for students to grasp challenging subjects.

Live help and tutoring significantly improve understanding and problem-solving speed, as seen in the speaker's experience with their mom's guidance.

Students who receive tutoring perform significantly better than those in traditional classrooms, highlighting the importance of personalized learning.

Digi Cafe provides live classes and mentorship, offering a valuable resource for students to overcome obstacles in their learning journey.

The importance of iteration: continuously trying, learning from mistakes, and improving bit by bit leads to significant progress over time.

Compounding improvement: small, consistent improvements in problem-solving can lead to mastery over time.

The concept of a 'mistake journal' is introduced, where documenting and learning from past mistakes helps in making bigger leaps in understanding.

The speaker recounts a specific experience where they expected to fail a physics quiz but ended up performing much better due to prior preparation and a growth mindset.

The power of a growth mindset is emphasized as a key factor in the speaker's academic success, especially in challenging subjects like physics.

Digi Cafe's courses are presented as a cost-effective option for gaining valuable coding and problem-solving skills, with live support being a significant benefit.

The video encourages viewers to adopt a growth mindset and take advantage of resources like Digi Cafe to improve in challenging subjects.

Transcripts

do you have a class that's so hard

there's no hope for an a maybe you're

just not cut out for the subject and

will have to accept the L's well I have

a confession to make I suck at physics

like there's no other subject where

Concepts just go whoop over my head in

one ear and out the other because it's

just so hard for me to understand

intuitively but guess what I've gotten

A's in every subject for the past 8

years including in physics how today

we'll go over what I did and the three

tips for you to Ace any challenging

subject the last tip is something Mr

Beast can teach you yes you'll have to

see let's go okay so some background to

my physics Journey the first time I

touched physics formally was in AP

Physics my junior year I remember one

night I was working on this problem

about a boat going down a stream and

there was some opposing current

everything I thought about the problem

every direction I guessed the solution

was was wrong this was very

disappointing to me and I imagine to my

two electrical engineering parents let's

see the process I use to still get that

a first we need the right way to think

about challenging Concepts it's

frustrating to read and watch problems

over and over again and still not get it

we expect that with enough effort

suddenly a light switch will just flick

on and we'll understand everything

immediately it will all become clear to

us but that's not the way to think about

improving in challenging Concepts

Improvement is not 0 to 100 it's not a

light switch instead it's a maze you

navigate through this maze hit dead ends

have to trace back and you have to go

through obstacles since each tough

concept is a maze we have to treat it

like one and do my first tip which is

start from scratch it's easier to

approach a maze if before you enter you

have already done easier mazes before or

you have transferable skills from past

experiences at the very least you need

to know what the maze is for example

when doing math or science you you need

those problem solving skills from

fundamentals like I talked about in my

math advice video since I knew physics

was my weakness the summer before I

started at Caltech where we would have

to learn every single stem subject I

watched every single one of Caltech

YouTube's Channel physics videos and

that started from the very beginning the

very first video talked about Newton

with the Apple boom dropping on his head

I already thought I knew the basics of

things like gravity but I still started

from the very beginning and I worked my

way through all this many videos I

didn't remember everything from all of

that content but going through that

experience indirectly helped me at least

my mind was warmed up but Amy if we're

already learning math and science in

school how do we start from scratch how

do we build new problem solving skills

ah good question the answer is that we

must start from learning something new I

recommend that every every every single

person learns coding in their lifetime

as early as possible that's something

that I really missed out on in high

school because for some reason I thought

that when people code they're like those

little computer geeks but that's

computer whoa that's funny that's

completely not the case knowing how to

program is an amazing skill no matter

what you do in the future because it

makes your mind so much more open to

using logic and problem solving and

every other aspect that you'll have to

do in school in your job and so on and

specifically many students find Math and

Science to be the hardest classes coding

helps with all math and science subjects

because of that problem solving Mark and

Matt data scientist and software

engineer created Digi Cafe because they

saw a need students needed an easier

more accessible way to learn programming

from scratch as I said in my top 1%

video I actually took the programming

class myself and I found that the

content was really focused and helps you

even when you have never done coding

before plus it really EMP emphasizes

that problem solving by guiding you

through how to solve problems without

telling you everything so it truly

sharpens your brain with the way that

the course is designed there are so many

options on there right now like python

for data science R for data science and

python for software development Digi

Cafe focuses on coding and learning

while other websites only do one or the

other so you're getting a two for one

deal boom right in one place damn good

deal plus if you're really into coding

and getting that bag in the future then

Digi Cafe also helps prepare you for

lead code with its projects programming

is definitely a transferable skill for

the future after I learned coding at

Caltech I was able to do better problem

solving in general and I actually used

coding at my consulting job which was so

surprising but it really gave me a leg

up compared to the other people on my

team who couldn't solve the problems

like I did learning from somewhere like

Digi Cafe is that first step that

dipping of your toes into the world of

programming and who knows you might find

it so amazing and fascinating and you

can use it for other aspects even if you

start from the data science route that

exposure is really valuable and highly

transferable to software in a maze you

hit dead ends and you have to retrace

your steps and try going again to get

farther and farther the last time if you

had a guide to help you through the maze

wouldn't it be easier of course that's

why you need Live help so going back to

when I struggled in AP Physics often I

would hit dead ends where I just

couldn't get farther in a problem or I

couldn't get farther in my understanding

of a physics concept so I would enlist

the help of my mom working on my own to

try and work through the challenges was

good to some extent but at one point it

just becomes a waste of time and energy

because I didn't have that intuition so

instead of continuing to jam myself into

dead ends working through problems with

someone gets me to understand way better

way faster than struggling on my own

with my mom like on that boat in the

river problem I I would get to a step

ask a question confirm if my thinking is

on the right track then I continue going

down that track ask a question again she

answers and then there's back and forth

which is a really helpful process she

guided me so in those study sessions I

didn't even get to Dead ends and I can

jump through obstacles more easily

reading something everyone else reads

only gets you so far you need live

customized responses to your personal

struggles in fact data yes I did some

research for this video data tells us

that students who get tutoring actually

score on average two whole standard

deviations higher than students who were

only taught in traditional classrooms

and speaking of helpful live classes and

feedback Digi Cafe also offers this on

their courses as well Mark and Matt will

go through the content of three courses

in 5 weeks the content that Mark and

Matt will cover in these Digi Cafe

classes is going to be the same as the

online courses but you would get an

advantage because you can ask questions

to experienced experts live and this is

all in addition to the Discord that's

there as a valuable resource essentially

the digi Cafe courses to improve your

problem solving skills is like a boot

camp but it's even better because you

can actually do all three courses at the

same time at no additional cost there's

no one specific path you can go to as

many classes and sessions and paths that

you want so you can learn data science

in R and Python and software development

oh and the important thing is it's only

$35 a month that's an expensive meal in

New York City no an expensive lunch in

New York City that's such a good deal

compared to the other courses I saw for

example there was this other data

science course that charges around $300

per month and that was without Live help

so definitely a steal I encourage you

guys to check out the link in my

description later to get all the good

information the live classes will begin

on this date so mark your calendars and

more H follow these instructions to sign

up for the live classes like Mr Beast

with YouTube videos is make 100 videos

and improve something every time he

started from the bottom now we here and

is now at 200 million subscribers and

that's why we should improve by

iteration iterate is a fancy word for to

perform repeatedly even with starting

from scratch and getting Live help you

still need to try and hit some dead ends

yourself learn from that and then don't

hit the dead end again so do do the

thing try learn one to two lessons from

your mistake or where you got stuck to

learn you can either use videos reading

Live help then you improve on that one

to two things so you can go one step

further next time basically you want to

improve one thing at a time imagine if

you improve by just 1% every time you do

a certain problem and you try that type

of problem like five times that's a big

Improvement that compounds over time so

we need to remember that math concept

that power of compounding interest for

each time you iterate you have a little

level up and that's going to be so

significant over time that eventually it

seems easy how much you improved you got

to make a bunch of videos and improve

over time to be great you don't just

pick up a baseball and become an MLB

level uh athlete within a year you guys

are amazing a subscriber actually

commented that they use what's called a

mistake journal where they document

their mistakes from the past this is

such a good idea and crucial because if

you don't really internalize and focus

on your mistakes there's no way for you

to improve I know it's really fun and

feels good to focus on the stuff you're

good at I love doing things I'm good at

too but where you feel the most pain and

bad about yourself and try to get better

in those will be the areas of

opportunity such that you will get

better faster than ever often it's

easier to go from 50 to 80 than go from

80 to 85 bigger jumps are made by simply

fixing your mistakes by iteration and

that repetitive nature will really form

those connections between neurons such

that you can understand the challenging

Concepts better of course it's easier to

know what you did wrong if you have live

classes and mentors right then and there

the iteration process will become faster

as well so you might be wondering after

all of this Amy were your physics really

improved did you actually have a better

physics sense well this is what happened

freshman year at Caltech one day we had

a basketball game and to celebrate my

teammate's dad took her and me to get

matcha out of your Mall M delicious

matcha but then I remembered I have to

take my physics quiz so for contacts at

calch all the tests and quizzes are

essentially take home so yeah we were in

good moods High Spirits but then when we

got back and I opened my physics quiz I

was so suddenly distraught and sad moo

just plummeted all the way down I was

like you know what I was never good at

physics I tried my best I'm just going

to probably take some L's so I wrote

down everything I thought I knew and I

just brain dumped Pro tip on math and

science write all of your thinking and

work down because you can still get

points for that I was like okay I'm just

going to try and whatever hand it in

expecting out of 10 I would get two

points but lo and behold I got the

opposite of that I actually got back an8

out of 10 which is really really good

for a phys quiz at Caltech I literally

had to look at that paper several times

cuz I thought there was a mistake in the

grading and that just shows with

starting from scratch Live help and lots

of iteration that you can really

actually improve and suddenly BS some

things and get good grades and that's

why I ended up with an a at Caltech in

physics so folks students my friends

that is the power of a growth mindset

and I hope that you guys really take

that mindset with yourself as well it's

probably the thing

that got me where I am today and I'm

continuing to use it every day on this

journey of growth with you guys make

sure to try dig Cafe with a link in my

description and again these instructions

to join their live classes don't miss

the chance to get awesome Live support

from Mark and Matt these three tips were

great and all but if you don't have the

fundamentals you might still struggle in

things like math so to get those

fundamentals built up again and to make

math easier then check out this video

thanks so much peace

okay but after all of

[Music]

this I have to burp so much today