Physics: Friend or Foe? by Zoey

Physics: Friend or Foe? by Zoey - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

When the class that you think will become one of your favorites turns out to be one of the hardest, what do you do? Unfortunately for me, that class was IB Physics, and at first, I had no idea what to do. I would like to be able to tell you that at the first sign of difficulty, I smiled and thought, “I got this,” but my reaction was in fact the opposite. For a while, I genuinely was wondering if I would finish the class with a desirable grade. Even though I do not think that I will ever willingly take a physics class, the experience I had working through this challenge strengthened my critical thinking skills by teaching me how to adapt and figure out potential solutions to difficult problems.

People often say that if you’re good at math, you will like physics, which piqued my interest. While I would not consider math to be my strongest subject, I have always liked how straightforward the rights and wrongs are, so I figured physics would follow that same trend. However, what people conveniently leave out is the strong ties physics has to certain pre-calculus concepts such as derivatives and how displacement, velocity, and acceleration are related, so if those concepts are unfamiliar or challenging to you, physics will be a struggle. Thus, since I was experiencing both physics and pre-calculus for the first time at the same time, I felt like I was being hit from both sides.

The main thing that came from my experience with physics was learning how to find connections between different concepts to solve problems. As previously mentioned, there is a lot of overlap between physics and pre-calculus, so it was almost as if I was learning the same thing twice. Therefore, whenever I would get stuck on solving a physics equation, I would consider the methods we used in my math class to solve problems of a similar nature. Furthermore, working with equations naturally builds one's critical thinking skills because of their many variables. Being so used to dealing with equations helped me when I encountered unfamiliar variables in physics as I became better at using the knowledge I already had to work around any unknowns and move closer to a solution. As challenging as it was at the time, I am grateful to have taken IB Physics because I was able to grow in my problem-solving abilities.