Mistakes I Made in Sixth Form

hey everyone welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is ray and i just finished doing my second year physics over cambridge and in the summer of 2019 i achieved four stars at a-level now in this video i will start be explaining a few of the mistakes i made during my first few weeks of sixth form and hopefully for many of you new year 12's this should make sex film a little easier for you so my first mistake was

looking and caring way too much about other people's gcse results i think that for the most part it doesn't really matter and i think it can be quite easy to get hyped up during the first few weeks of a-levels like sort of comparing results from new people that you've met because it's like the first time in your life that you've actually got a proper set of results whereas at university you don't really compare a level results when you get to university because like people just don't care anymore and they've already received results before which are official so this was one of my mistakes and i looked way too much over people's results and said oh no they got better than me like they're going to be doing better than me at a level so why should i even try or like seven people i knew ended up getting all these stores at gcse and i just automatically assume that they'll like better than me for the whole year or they'll do better than me in their final results which they did not and i found there was no real strong correlation between what many really high achieving students got at gcse and a level so for example in my school there were quite a few people who got 10 or 11 a stars at gcse i didn't get all these ended up getting seven instead which is still like a good amount but these people acted as though they will like get all my stars at a level and for the people who ended up with 11a stars in gcse they did not like one person i know they didn't get any a stars at a level they ended up getting like a bb or something which like whilst it is still pretty good the way they were making themselves seem in the first few weeks or pretending they already have a levels under their belt uh was quite like it got to me during the first few weeks and i wish i didn't let it get to me i wish i realized soon that there wasn't really any strong correlation between what people ended up getting at gcse and a level now many of my friends here at cambridge they ended up getting like two or three stars at gcse and then ended up getting like three or four race stars at a level so it's pretty easy to turn it around so i wouldn't get too caught up in what everyone's getting at gcse and especially this year because people didn't actually set exams and it was more dependent on like teachers predicted grades and how your school system works and what teachers forced about you based on limited like results they had available for you and stuff like that now my second mistake

was comparing too much what i got to my first few topics tests with what seven people got so i remember my first further maths topic test i ended up getting a d on the complex numbers topic test and there were like three four people in the class who just did better than me in that topic test and i just cared way too much and was like oh well this is tragic i might as well drop further maps now like this is going terribly and then i ended up being the only person in my school to get a star in february's a-level despite getting a d in the first topic test so i wish i didn't compare my results with other people's results in the first few topic tests and especially for chemistry because there were a bunch of people doing better than me in chemistry during the first few weeks and first few topic tests and then i ended up being i think one of the only two a stars in chemistry my school um for like the actual final exam and i think this sort of has to do with the fact that during the first few weeks people can like sprint ahead and work really hard outside of school and then over time they lose that momentum i suddenly imagine it being like a marathon like if someone goes sprinting off right at the beginning and doing well on like the first bunch of topic tests they're gonna end up like crashing or burning out or well just losing that momentum and if you just run at a steady speed steady pace then you can catch up to them and you can even surpass them and like by the end of the marathon like you could be miles ahead of them so i wouldn't get too caught up in what like if tons of people are doing better than you in the first few topic tests because many of those people will find it hard to maintain that momentum throughout the year and as long as you're going at good steady pace and making uh enough improvements between the topic tests uh then that should be pretty good so my

third mistake was that worrying that i had to have everything figured out in the first like two three weeks or something um and that's really not the case so i remember trying a few revision like studying methods techniques and stuff like that and i thought like using mind maps might be useful for some topics in a level physics i didn't find it to be too useful but i still like experimented and found out that it wasn't useful for me or that i worried that i had to like have the perfect organization system in place from day one but i just sort of figured out the organization system like over months of trial and error and sort of figuring out and noticing what works for me and what doesn't work for me so i wouldn't worry too much if you don't have everything figured out or when it comes to like revision or organization just pay attention and be intentional like if you find that this certain thing is not working for you then like try to stop and think about why so one exercise

which is particularly useful is a five minute timer so that involves like just setting a timer on your phone for like five minutes and thinking to yourself okay what are the biggest problems i'm facing right now in my a levels and then like just thinking about that for five minutes with say a piece of paper and then just writing a few things down can be like incredibly useful and no one actually stops to just spend five minutes thinking about this problem like they think about it for 10 or 20 seconds and then just like forget about it whereas if you think about it for five minutes then you're gonna come up with some good stuff and after thinking about that then be intentional about how you're going to be tackling those issues one example of being intentional is saying that you want to get better at say this subject rather than just doing like tons of practice questions from like topics you find easy and difficult you want to identify the topics you find difficult and be intentional about okay where in this topic does my misunderstandings lie or what do i specifically find confusing about like this method or like this like concept that we learned in maths rather than just saying i don't understand the whole thing and this is where i find five minute timers to be really useful like once i've identified a problem that i'm having like okay i'm worried that i'm not staying organized enough then i would set another five minute timer and then just think about okay what problems do i specifically have with my organization system right now and what improvements can i make and then sort of using five minute timers to identify problems and then come up with solutions can be really helpful and it just makes it even more helpful because no one really likes stops and sits down to do this stuff and if you're the one doing this stuff then it's just so much better for you now my fourth regret was getting

the next of experiences of year 13 to get to you so our form time uh was with year 12s and year 13s so half of it was year 12 half it was year 13 and year 13s whenever i met them they would always go on about like how difficult everything is and like this new cast system is absolutely not nightmare and they're like having sleepless nights and basically over exaggerating everything like that's going on or them feeling insecure about themselves so they would like try to destroy your ambitions so i remember one particular student i remember at the start of year 12-ish on an open day i was volunteering and he was volunteering too and he was insecure about his like application to oxford for physics or like medicine or whatever he was applying for so he asked me what i was applying for and i was like oh i'm thinking of applying for oxford for physics or whatever and then he would like ask me a bunch of questions and then basically be like oh well dude you have no chance why would you even bother applying and stuff like that and that was just to make himself feel better so when you meet a lot of year 13 so you're like complaining about how hard everything is and like trying to destroy your ambitions just don't let it get to you because they're just projecting their own insecurities onto you and trying to make themselves feel a bit better by saying like everything's super

difficult that relates onto a fifth point of if you keep telling yourself that everything is going to be hard or impossible then like you will end up finding it hard and or impossible so ali abdullah he uses this example quite a bit and when people assume that medical school is going to be super difficult he says that like if you keep telling yourself it's going to be difficult you will end up finding it difficult whereas if you just sort of say like oh hey it's like manageable if i sort of like put in a few hours here and there and stuff then you will just enjoy the experience a lot more rather than like worrying about having sleepless nights and agonizing over like exams and stuff all the time so i like his attitude when he says that everything is figureoutable and during medical school he found that when he stopped telling himself that this is like the hardest thing he's ever having to do and stuff like that he just enjoyed it a little more and he just found it easier as a result and i think this is to do with confirmation bias in the sense that when you keep telling yourself that something is going to be hard or like it's extremely difficult and then you get to a hard stage or like a difficult stage then you will just like you're more prone to giving up or just not putting in as much effort because you're like oh this is hard anyway i don't have to put in too much effort so for me personally i didn't think about like whether anything was easy or hard um like even drawing my degree right now i don't think whether something is like hot and kind of easy to understand or just like i don't assess its level of difficulty i just sort of do it or figure it out or like know that i will be able to figure out with like a little bit of time and effort and i wish i didn't tell myself like certain subjects were just going to be like super hard or super difficult because once i stopped telling myself that i actually enjoy the subjects much more and i just found them easier because i was enjoying them and i enjoyed doing the revision more because like revision is sort of enjoyable when you like enjoy the subjects or you sort of like solving the questions and if you keep telling yourself it's hard or difficult then you're not going to like solving questions as much so you won't be doing as much revision which will lead you to saying that's hard and difficult because you're not putting in as many hours as say if you just sort of told yourself that you were sort of enjoying the subjects or you found the interesting parts of it then you would enjoy doing the questions more and a little bit more revision and then you would like find it easier and if you enjoy things which are easy for you then you will enjoy even more and in

terms of like things being figure out about one of my mistakes was worrying too much during the first few weeks of a levels about like my entire future and thinking that i have to have my entire life figured out and that's really not the case like i'm i thought because i turned 17 in the september of year 12 i had to have my like entire life figured out because my 13 year old self assumed that my 17 year old self would know what to be doing with my life and stuff and i just generally had no clue but what i like to do is just keep the options open so the a levels i chose master of mathematics and chemistry i found to be the best in terms of keeping the options open for me when it came to say picking a university degree and then i just sort of worried about the next step along the ladder i didn't worry about like picking the degree and then thinking about what comes after that or having my whole life figured out based on that because some people like they enjoy doing chemistry and they want to sort of do a chemistry degree and if you enjoy doing chemistry and want to do a chemistry degree then try not to worry too much about like what everyone will end up thinking or saying what are you going to do with chemistry degree or physics degree people told me like if you're going to study physics at university like you can only become a physics teacher or something and i'm like yeah as if there are so many more options open to me than just becoming a physics teacher and like whilst being a physics teacher ice i think would be pretty fun except that i would enjoy teaching online rather than in a classroom because i have a wider impact that way whilst being a teacher would be fun i just realized like the degree itself just provides you with the skills and it's not so much about the knowledge so many people graduate from doing physics degrees or chemistry degrees and they rarely or never use their physical chemistry knowledge again or well most degrees people just don't use that knowledge again and it's more about the skills they've developed during that degree like being able to critically think and analyze information and problem solve and sort of the networking skills they develop during university for getting involved in societies and whatnot so that when it comes down to like interviewing and just applying for stuff they care much more about the skills and the technical expertise so for like a science-based degree like physics um plenty of people go into like data science uh software engineering like investment banking consulting and basically er almost every job that is somewhat like number related they're able to go into because of physics they may not be able to go into like medicine because medicine you actually have to have done like a medical degree for um but like most jobs are just open to most people and don't worry too much about like having to have figured your entire life out and sort of just think about what you enjoy and like the degree you want to go for based on that so for me i just personally like to keep the options open and right now like i'm going to my third year of doing physics and i still have no idea what i'd want to be doing afterwards and i think just like me having a physics degree right now it keeps a lot of options open and people care much more about like the skills i've gained during that degree rather than just being like oh hey you're not going to use like you studied quantum mechanics at university for like eight weeks you're not gonna we don't really use quantum mechanics here they're going to think more about the skills you developed for actually learning quantum mechanics which is like being able to learn new and challenging concepts as well and being able to like problem-solve and

stuff like that and myself mistake was not realizing the value of improved my problem-solving skills sooner i started improving my problem-solving skills seriously like at the end of year 12 and i wish i just started doing it much sooner because it would have made admissions tests a lot easier and like interviews and just everything else when it comes to like applying for cambridge or oxford especially for science-based and stem-based subjects so i did like sort of try to improve my problem solving skills throughout the summer but during classes or when i was bored in form time or something or when i was just asked for homework to do rather than repeating flashcards over again or just going over the same material again i wish i actually took some time to improve my problem solving skills and attempt more difficult problems and just gets so much better so i'm slowly developing problem solving series where like i interview a bunch of people and i talk about my own experiences which should be linked to above somewhere right now so if you do find yourself on with a bunch of time um during six time or you just want to like sort of enjoy a bit more and enjoy solving challenging problems which is actually very enjoyable um and it's quite hard to believe until you actually start doing it and things just start clicking in your head and stuff do watch that playlist which should be linked above or in the description right now anyways hopefully you found some of

that information useful and learns from a few of the mistakes i made during my first few weeks of six film and sort of stay on the lookouts for these mistakes and if you find yourself making those mistakes or just thinking that things are difficult then set a five-minute timer identify like the biggest mistakes or the problems you're making right now and then just like set a few more finance timers to help you solve them and that say like 25 minutes of like five minute timers would be exceptionally useful and just helping you think more about these issues or like the big issues that are happening in your life because i mean seriously some people spend more time in a day thinking about what they're going to be having for dinner or like lunch instead of like what are the biggest problems i'm facing right now in my life and how can i tackle them so yeah five minute times are fantastic probably do one after watching this video as well because it's just super useful but i guess for now i'll see you next time bye