A hate letter to physics

I would have started with “Dear Physics,” but let’s not lie to ourselves here. You are not my dear, Physics. What would be a good antonym for “dear”? Unbeloved? I’ll use that.

Unbeloved Physics,

You’ve known about my hatred toward you since high school, when I was introduced to you forcefully by my school’s elective policies and had to add you to my schedule in order to graduate. You scared me with your weird-looking free-body diagrams and nonsensical equations that felt like someone puked them out.

I escaped from you as much as I could. Whenever I failed at solving a problem or got a bad grade on an exam, I consoled myself by remembering it didn’t even matter: I could just study biochemistry or molecular biology or chemistry… medicinal chemistry? Maybe even genetics? I didn’t care as long as it didn’t involve you.

Four years after encountering you for the first time, I decided to challenge you once again. I spent the summer before college doubting my career plans and debating whether I should give engineering a try. I was still anxious to wrestle with you in the Bloomberg classrooms, but how bad would it be? As a grown-ass woman, I would succeed in a class that high schoolers (or even middle schoolers nowadays) pass with flying colors, right?

Difference between displacement and distance? Understood. Velocity, acceleration… got it. Switched from one-dimensional to two-dimensional. Not too bad; I learned to find my way out. Oh, reference frames? Didn’t know we had more than one of those. Great, now we are connecting balls to rods with strings. Squares and circles on triangles… exerting some force A… surface has friction… static or kinetic? Why is this woman with mass M jumping onto a moving cart of mass 3M? Wait, since when do objects rotate? Can this physicist stop pulling the loose end of the spool of paper with tension T?

My confidence was crawling on the floor. Getting an iClicker question right deserved a celebration. My hands would shake whenever it was time to see an exam score on Gradescope. Written homework assignments would be procrastinated to the last possible minute because I dreaded the thought of facing you. I got jealous of those around me who genuinely understood you as if you were a foreign language they knew, yet I didn’t. It's as if one morning, the universe distributed “Common Sense for Physics,“ and I slept through it.

I stopped trying and made disliking you my branding. I wanted to go on top of Gilman and scream my lungs out: “Anyone else who hates physics, I thought you should know: I hate it the most! You will never beat me!” One time, a freshman asked me what the hardest class is at Hopkins, and I told them it was you. They laughed, thinking I was joking, then they saw my stern face. It was easier to blame my incompetence on Hopkins than to accept it.

I wrapped up my journey with you last semester, the day I handed in my last final, and literally shed tears of joy because I wouldn’t need to deal with you ever again. I thought I would never feel stupid again because, in my eyes, you were my only weakness, and I made myself believe that my struggles would be over once I was done with you.

This wasn’t the case. I don’t ever recall feeling as incompetent as I feel now as I begin my sophomore year. Math, the subject that has been my favorite ever since first grade, now intimidates me as it evolved into multivariable calculus. Biochemistry, which used to serve as a shelter to me whenever I needed protection from your attacks, turned its back to me because I didn’t want to memorize twenty different amino acids. My minor in computer science is laughing at me because even opening Terminal to code a program that calculates GPA feels like too much.

I am now realizing that the problem wasn’t you, Physics. I’m just not used to feeling dumb, and you happened to be my first failure, so I projected all my hatred and insecurities on you. Looking back, maybe I liked my favorite courses because I was decent at them on the first try. I seek perfection, but I give up if I don’t find it the first time.

You stung me the most, even though I had multiple things I wasn’t good at. I’ve never been consistent with piano. I’ve never made it to the volleyball team. I’ve never taken French or German to the B1 level. These didn’t bother me because I knew that I didn’t have to grow up to be a recognized pianist, successful volleyball player or fluent multilingual. However, I couldn’t be an engineer who is bad at physics.

At the end of the day, I don’t hate you as much, because I know that I caused us to fall apart. We will meet again when I take Transport Phenomena next semester, and hopefully, by then, I will accept that to learn and grow and take a few steps further, I must feel stupid at the beginning. So, maybe next time you see me, I will be playing my instruments again or doing more than Duolingo to master a language. Who knows?

I guess I might wish you the best, now that I don’t have as much hatred for you.

Best.

Buse Koldas is a sophomore from Istanbul, Turkey majoring in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. She is the Voices Editor of The News-Letter. Her column discusses how her past experiences have affected her, with the hope of making others feel seen and understood.