#studyblr asks

[studyblrspace]

hi! I love your blog. What programming languages would you recommend learning if you wanted to get into astrophysics? I already know c++, but I heard somewhere that python is better for data analysis?

I'm so sorry anon, I drafted an answer and then completely forgot to post it 😭😭😭

the main programming languages I've seen are c++ and python. there's also julia (new), and fortran (🥴).

so its great you already know c++! personally I've used athena++ code for simulations if you wanted a simulation code to play with.

but python would be good to play around with if you're not familiar, its great for visualization / data analysis! I started by learning the syntax and about packages like numpy, matplotlib, and astropy. "Python for Astronomers" may be helpful if you need a resource for learning, it has a free textbook and some tutorials. part of my undergrad computational astrophysics course could was based on it! another fun package is yt, you can look up "python yt cookbook" or click here. this website also gives you sample data from a simulation run and lots of tutorials.

julia is not as widely used but its supposed to have the intuitiveness of python with the performance/speed of c++. it's a newer language, like 10 years old. I've heard that there is a (very slow) shift to this language in the astrophysics community instead of python. I don't have any resources because I haven't gotten around to learning it yet 😅

fortran is an older language, I can't say I'm familiar with it. I've only encountered it in a skeleton simulation code a postdoc was developing (and I was testing the code) so I just know basic syntax. you'd probably be fine not learning it, unless you want to develop your own simulation code soon

I'm only a couple years into (theoretical) astrophysics research so if anyone else has input, please let me know!!

[desultory-suggestions]

hi there, thank you so much for running this blog! i have been following you for a long time and appreciate what you do so much, and i’ve been struggling with something and was looking for an ear or some advice so i thought i would come here.

this summer has been pretty hard on me mentally for a few reasons. being back home with family, as I live across the country for university and even studied abroad this semester, it’s always an adjustment living with people I love but sometimes struggle dealing with. i’m also back to an environment where I have no strict schedule, less friends, no privacy, no personal space, etc., and i got pretty sick for a portion of the summer.

this is my last summer before i graduate and i put many expectations on myself for how it would go (fun/personal life wise, but also academics/career wise). despite this sense of urgency and also these expectations, this past month of june i basically just rotted away in my bed, feeling depressed and anxious and not really doing anything about it. i did go out and about a few times and even got myself hired for two jobs, but there were so many responsibilities i ignored while rotting away and just feeling miserable for myself. now im finally clawing my way out of this hole i dug for myself, and im realizing how much i screwed myself over—all of the things i need to do would have been so much easier and enjoyable (!!!!!) had i not procrastinated. it feels like my memory for june is mainly just a haze when it could have been so great.

my question is—how do i cope with these feelings of self-disappointment, and almost self-disgust for the time i lost? for the moments i could have been better but didn’t? how do i cope with the knowledge that my summer could have looked totally different now, and that the power was in my hands to change it? the rest of my summer is looking pretty busy as i scramble to pick up the missing pieces, and im sad because i wanted it to feel special since it’s my last summer of university. any time i acknowledge the challenges i faced and the victories i did have just feels like making excuses for myself.

anyways, sorry for this ramble, and thank you for your time! i hope you are doing well and enjoying yourself.

Hello, dearest. First of all I want to tell you that I am so proud of you. I know right now you’re struggling with these heavy feelings, and it’s important to know that despite your inner struggles you are seen and loved and respected by those around you.

It sounds like you have worked very hard and been very busy for a long time. I know as a full time college student myself that the amount of work expected of us is often unbearable. People talk about it like a simple process, a part time commitment. It is not! You have been working a constant minimum of a full time job, plus additional work for pay, plus travel, plus family and friends needs, plus basic self care. Of course all of this can be so overwhelming and lead to a sense of burn out. Changing the language you use is giving reasons is not making excuses. Cultivate a mindset of correcting yourself:

“I’m making excuses -> I’m acknowledging the challenges and moving forward.”

I found quickly into college my high achiever mindset flipped into a constant sense of failure. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, and like I just fell behind everyone else I respect. I wallowed in this for far too long, so trust me when I tell you not to spend all your time worrying about the past. Everyone has had a time like these, sometimes weeks, months, and sometimes years. But it is never too late to change the present and future.

You may not feel like it, but if summer meant laying in bed and barely doing anything maybe that’s what you needed. If your body and mind were too beaten down to do much, that’s not your fault. Remember that you are just one person, and this was one summer. You will have countless more summers to live out your dreams. Summer 2022 I barely left my room, depression, anxious, I pretty much rotted in bed! I was burnt out and struggling. Summer 2023 I worked my ass off at my new job, made friends, and started going to parties and even a music festival. Summer 2024 is now, and I’m in a solid mix of work, school, friends, and working to take care of myself. Life will not always look how we imagine it too, but often it will turn out much better.

Nothing that has already happened can be changed, all you have power over is the current and the future. Tons of people express the same sentiment to me

“I didn’t do X and now all I do is Y and it makes me feel Z so I don’t do X!”

And I totally understand! But this is the trap right here! This is what resembles the grave but isn’t! The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done the more past you create where you didn’t do what you wanted. It is so important to develop the ability to go “oh well, what do I want Now?” This takes practice. When you catch yourself in the internal doomscroll of all that you should have done, literally say “oh well, that’s the past. What do I want to do right now and how can I do it?”

Actions you can take:

- Make a list of goals you have tiered by right away, short term, medium term, and long term. Make sure to include a tier for goals that feel impossible! You’d be surprised what you can do!

- Start by picking one thing you want to change. Go on a walk every day, listen to an audiobook or music on that walk. Bam! Two enriching activities at once. Cook one new recipe a week or every other week.

- When at home from school, work to establish your independence in the home. This is hard! Family dynamics vary, but if you can, try to communicate with your family about personal space and boundaries. Perhaps rearrange your space at home to fit your needs as a more adult space while still maintaining your nostalgic environment.

- Cultivate a positive mindset and excitement for what comes next. This summer is not just an end, it’s a beginning! What do you want next? You can have it if you believe in yourself.

A final piece of advice. I started college with such high hopes and dream of what it would be. The summers with friends, late night studying in the library, goofing off between classes, getting to be this dream idealized self. For various reasons, this didn’t happen. I felt so angry that my experience with college had been tainted and forcefully taken from me, and I stayed angry for a while. This constant obsession with regret starts to eat you alive until you can’t see how good things are right in this moment. This did not get better because I somehow changed the past, it got better because I accepted that this was an idealized dream of one tiny part of my life. It got better when I started aiming towards the future. It’s ok to feel sad that you didn’t get what you wanted, but that doesn’t mean you never will. I am happier for moving on and saying I’d had enough grieving a hypothetical. You are real, you are young and alive and filled with dreams. It will never be too late, and there is nothing you could have missed this summer that cannot be achieved in a happier and healthier situation.

Start making today special. You are filled with light, dreams, and love. You will create the life you dreamed of, filled with adventure and happiness. Treat yourself tenderly, this is your first time being alive, the first last summer of college. You are learning and growing. I am so proud of you as you are now, and all that you will become. Keep the sparks alive, and I’m always here if you need someone to support or another senior in college to lean on!

I hope this helps!

Evan

P.S. here’s a poem that’s helped me!

[linastudyblrsblog]

Your blog is super cool! I want to become a medical student one day. Have great day:))

I wish your dream becomes true 👩‍⚕️

Thank you so much ✨

[itsjustanne]

Occasionally, I get this random urge to be super productive and get all of my schoolwork done. Yet, when I sit at my desk with a pen in hand, I get this sort of writer's block that stops me from doing anything. Do you also get this, and if so, how do you get over it?

I totally understand that feeling and I get to far to often. I am both a chronic procrastinator and an over achiever so I often want to be productive but just can't do the thing. My ADHD may also be a factor in that but coping with that has helped me figure out ways to maneuver that writers block. Here's a few things I've found that help me!

To-Do lists! I live and thrive on to-do lists. I try to look at whatever syllabus I have for classes or outlines that I've made for myself of what needs to be done and what I want to get done. I prioritize things that I know need to be done sooner rather than later and estimate how long these things will each take. I always overshoot how long they will take so that I budget my time a bit more.

Outings- my friends and I call this "walkies." This is when I've been sitting at my desk for like an hour and I just keep getting distracted or I can't get started. I round up a list of things that need doing (like grocery shopping) and get out of the house for like an hour. Sometimes this looks more like getting coffee and wandering around a store for a while but there's only so many errands that need doing.

I always always always need to be dressed in order to get any work done. This kind of goes along with the "walkies," I have to get dressed and get shoes on (the shoes are very important) in order to be able too focus myself on getting tasks done. For me this looks like getting up, taking a shower, putting on jeans and a shirt, doing my make up, etc. But for someone else this might look like just putting on a different shirt.

The last thing that helps me get into a focused workspace is a change in location. When I was on campus for school this often meant leaving my dorm and going to the library or a common space or even driving a ways away to barnes and noble. Sometimes I need a bit of outside stimulus in order to get myself in to a more productive mindset.

These are just a few of the things that I've found are helpful to me! Remember to take breaks, drink water, and not to be too hard on yourself if you can't get into your tasks. Sometimes the best thing is just to take a nap and let your mind relax.

[actualising-study]

let's try this again lol!

👻 for the ask game :)

second time lucky 🤣

👻 share an academic horror story! (bad group projects, missed an exam, etc)

One that deffo sticks out for me is during exam season of my undergrad - I had to catch a train to take one of my final exams, and decided to travel with a friend on my course. She was one of those people who was perpetually late, and we ended up arriving at the exam hall and the exam had already started! I remember walking in and everyone staring at us and me frantically trying to find my seat 😭 luckily I did pass that exam lol

[amultipotentialite]

what do you see yourself studying at a tertiary level?

I actually had to google what tertiary means xD You really do learn new words every day! I'm assuming this means like university, but please correct me if I misinterpreted that :D

There is currently a new university being built no more than 15 minutes from where I live and they specialise in technical subjects, so I really hope I can study there when I finish my current education. I'm in the graduating class of 2026, so we'll have to see whether it will actually be done by then. If it does manage to offer its first courses by the time I'm of university age, I wish to enrol in their Artificial Intelligence course!

Otherwise, I will most likely study at the university one city over which offers a wide range of courses: from Medicine to Computer Sciences and from Biology to Literature, they offer pretty much everything. If I should study there, I'm still keeping my options open for which subjects I want to choose, but I have been interested in potentially studying mathematics there.

[bujokookie]

Do you use transparent post it notes?

I have a pack of them somewhere but I’ve never used them before.

[why-the-heck-not]

the saturday-sunday night diabolical "life is falling apart"- to do list followed by a mad scramble

[studyblrspace]

Hi if you are tess than I have some questions to ask. So, I'm 15 y/o, French, and I want to ba an astrophicist. Could you tell me about hat degree you had or wich type of uni to go stuf like that. (I'm sorry if I didn't specify the terms cause I don't know how it works or you call these thisng in your country. 😓

Thanks in advance if you reply to me ☕️💻🎧😊

Hi!

I just graduated with a bachelor (of science) in astrophysics. (If you want to do research it's important to look at classes for a bachelor of science not bachelor of art.) You can also do a physics degree with an astronomy minor. At my university, the classes were very similar but at others, it could be helpful to look at a physics degree.

I plan on applying for graduate school this fall (again). I'm in the U.S. so I directly apply to Ph.D. programs after getting my bachelor's (you earn your masters during that program). I believe in Europe (and Australia) you'd have to get your masters before applying to Ph.D. programs.

You can find some research related jobs with just a bachelor's but usually many places look for some sort of graduate degree. Let me know if anything was unclear or if you have more questions :)

[thatfrenchacademic]

"The biggest issue is students using it, me spotting it and having no recourse whatsoever to do anything about it." can you elaborate a bit further

Hello !

So to explain a bit more: we [aka your lecturers, teachers, teaching assistants, etc...] know that some students will use ChatGPT.

And there is a discussion to be had about how to work with this, how to design assessment which allow students to leverage something which may simply become a fixture of writing in a workplace environment, but that is not the discussion we are having here. Because that is not what we are worried about.

The defensible, problematic situation is: a student straight up entering the essay prompt on ChatGPT, and using the grand skills of Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V, submits it as their own paper.

And our main worry, I think, was for a long time that we would not be able to catch it. That students would, actually, be able to fool us and that we would actually think this was a student who understood the course, who put in the work, and who deserve to be rewarded for their grade. That was the main fear.

But here is the thing.

And listen up, students :

Essays written by ChatGPT :

Suck

Are spotted from a mile away from the person reading it

For real. They suck.

I cannot stress enough how easy they are to spot. You are NOT fooling anyone. I do not need the platform's AI-detecting tool to know when an essay was written by Chat GPT. It is so, very painfully obvious when that's the case.

But the problem then becomes : ok, I have spotted a student who cheated.

What am I even supposed to do with it.

It is one thing to KNOW that an essay was AI-generated, it is another to defend it to a plagiarism committee. First of all, does it actually count as plagiarism ? Second, how do prove, with certainty, that the student did not write it ? How to I convince the plagiarism committee that this is worth looking into ? I am in the role of a police officer, who needs to convince the DA that this is a winnable case, that prosecuting will not be a waste of their time. But I don't have a Similarity Percentage to rely on. I don't have an original source to say "look, this is the exact same wording!" like in a classic plagiarism case.

Best case scenario, I can make my case for thee student to actually be called to the plagiarism committee, where we probe into how, exactly, they wrote their essay, until they fold. Unlikely, morally questionable, and in all likelihood, ineffective on students already so confident in their bullshit that they have the audacity to submit a fully AI-generated work for their finals.

Now, students, gather up, especially if you have considered using Chat GPT this way. Because right now, you might think it means you can get away with it.

But let me tell you something. First, that essay is getting the shittiest grade we can give you. Because you know what is more difficult than a lecturer proving that a student used AI to generate their essay ? A student proving that they deserve a better grade. Once we give you a grade, burden of evidence is on you to prove that you have not been graded properly. And we can come up with 15 reasons why an essay is a shit essay. We put on kids' gloves, when we lecture and give feedback. We give the simplified version of most theories, we give the basics of how to structure an essay, the bar we set is spectacularly low, because students come in good faith, they are learning, they will not be held at the same standard as academics. But if you try to argue that you need a higher grade, when you had the audacity to not write a single word of your work, the kids gloves are going to come off real quick, and your lecturer will be able to very convincingly explain why, actually, giving you a passing grade was a mercy in the first place.

Second. Academics, especially angry academics, are a gossip machine.

You may get a passing grade, and there may be no official note of it in your file whatsoever. But I can guarantee you that your lecturer will chat with their colleagues. That every single one of your essay that year, and the years to come, will be looked at with so much scrutiny I hope your referencing for every single work reaches perfection. Every single paragraph will be looked at with the knowledge that you are likely to have had it AI-generated. Lecturers will tell their TA to look at for That One Student when they grade you .You will not be getting any flexibility from us, no extension without full documentation to support it, no letter of recommendation from any member of the faculty, no word in your favor if you are bordering a grade bracket. If we are feeling especially petty, we might even forget to answer your emails or answer any question you have with such warmth and kindness you really still never feel like asking a question again in our class. And I know that, because that's already happening. I have the name of three undergrads that we know, for a fact, did not write their own essay. Two are not even in my modules at all.

Now. That's pretty mean. But if you have the absolute audacity and lack of ethics required to submit an essay for which you have not written a single word, and thought it would actually work, when your lecturer spent probably more that 80 hours working in this module this term, gave you the opportunity to meet for office hours, to ask any question in person or in email, to have extensions, accommodations, additional time ? When you decided that putting exactly zero second of your time, considered that you were above that - and above other students- and yet we were not able to officially sanction you for it, we had to give you a passing grade, the same passing grade as students who actually made an effort?

Yeah, sorry, you are not getting any sympathy from your lecturers anymore.

[itsjustanne]

I'm packing up and getting ready to move to Wales for my masters program!

Send me asks to keep me busy in the airport!

[actualising-study]

🌟for the ask game :)

🌟 share one of your academic “core memories”!

hey thanks so much for asking! 🫶 I answered this one in another ask (great minds think alike lol)

[amultipotentialite]

what’s your favourite favourite subject and why? is your favourite subject something you actually study in school or some other random thing?

I really love Computer Sciences when it comes to programming and the likes, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much at school. Unfortunately, Computer Sciences is a subject that doesn't require a university degree to teach, so a lot of my teachers are just incompetent in that subject.

Purely school subjects, I enjoy Ethics a lot! I feel like the subject becomes a lot more interesting in high school when you're no longer only discussing world religions. Now, we're also learning about Philosophy (which will become its own subject for me soon), war ethics, medicine ethics, etc. Talking about how the human mind thinks has been incredibly eye-opening and I wish this were a mandatory course for everyone and not just for those who don't affiliate with the two most popular versions of Christianity

[bujokookie]

kpop really keeps us from going insane with studying doesn't it ^^

Omg so real. I’ve been studying for my IELTS exam and I usually have a weverse live play in the background. Studying English is unnecessarily difficult but it’s not so bad when I look up and Jungkook is folding his laundry or something 🫣

[why-the-heck-not]

me, a responsible being, working on the coding project as I should vs. me, a dysfunctional shithead, getting distracted by reading about brains (once aGAIN damnit (it's my favorite "I need to study my field but bc I should do that it's an impossible unthinkable feat now, so I'm reading about something else to fool my brain I'm still being productive"-topic))

[productivefairy]

tell me some apps that help u with organization and some other things (if u use ofc) i always search but i never find something that i can use well yk

So, come apps which I have used and liked for organization are:-

Notion :- This app is an all in one app. You can just use notion to track anything in your life be it academic related, life related or keeping tracks of movies or books you have consumed. You can download a nice template online to make your work more fluid and easy

Acloset :-This app is life changing if you get overwhelmed when you have to decide what to wear. It helps you organize your closet. It's also free and the background removing function is great.

Habitica- This app is great if you have to track your habits and build habits or todos. Its super fun and it gamifies task so you get a lil dopamine rush.

Google calendar:- I use it to schedule my classes and to remind me of party, events or any social gathering I have to attend

Pinterest:- This is non-traditional tracking app but its super fun to track what you "want" to do in life. Like what type of clothes u wanna wear, movies you wanna watch, the way you wanna look, the way you wanna your home to look. Its fun.

NOTE- While keeping track of things you do is super important but a lots of time "organizing" gives a false sense of productiveness, I dont mean its not productive but it can come as coping instead of doing the task. So, just dont just get consumed in it waste 3-4 hours doing it. Also, a lots of people work well in more structured and rigid way and a lots of people work best in flowy way so think about yourself that what you work best in or maybe try to find a midway.

Hope this helps. :)