I decided to write down my weekly goals on a small whiteboard.
Since I want to take an exam in biology, chemistry and physics in the Spring of 2015, I better start studying now. In addition, I need to cover some human physiology because they usually ask questions about it in interviews. Time flies and I should be aware of that!
I will tell you what I know about these 3 subjects:
- Biology: I know that the cell has a nucleus and something around it called the cytoplasm. Nothing else. You are allowed to laugh, by the way.
- Chemistry: I took an introductory course online and I have been exposed to 50% of the material covered in high school.
- Physics: nothing really. I may know something that is related to maths but besides that, it is a big dark room for me.
This board will help me to be disciplined and to keep the focus on what’s important. It’s impossible to sit at my desk without looking at it. By January I should have the biology and chemistry content covered. That’s the plan.
Thanks to the community forums on Coursera I found out about this website OpenStax College.
Here you can download high-quality books in several subjects, for free. Biology, Human Physiology and Physics is already available. How cool is that? They cover the material studied in high school or first-year college.
Today I have already learned about:
- Properties of life (and why viruses are not considered living organisms)
- Levels of Organization of Living Things
- The Diversity of Life (Eukarya, Archaea and Bacteria)
- Prokaryotes VS Eukaryotes
- Ionic bonds
- Covalent bonds
- Hydrogen bonds
- van der Waals interactions
- Water
- pH, Acids, Bases and Buffers
- Carbon
- Carbohydrates
A lot of new info for someone who only knew that ‘a cell has a nucleus and cytoplasm’, don’t you think?
In order to study chemistry, I’ll keep checking out the online courses available, and I found an app that is really good. ChemPro. For about 5 dollars you get so much material covered in videos. The guy who teaches is really straight to the point and the videos are short. Amazing way to learn chemistry!
I have also bought several books that should help me to prepare for the exams. I will share more with you guys once I get my hands on them.
These are the new things then:
- Writing down my weekly goals to help me keep track of the material covered;
- Studying as much as I can;
- Resting at least one day per week.
I’m really happy about having a plan. It gives me the strength to move on.
Time to go to bed!
