Maybe a month ago I decided to develop a personal curriculum. It has been 2 years since I graduated from undergrad, and I have been on and off studying for the LSAT. I find it hard to stay focused on one thing, like the LSAT (though I know that should be my primary focus right now), I decided to develop my own personal curriculum to get back into the habit of studying regularly with LSAT prep baked in to the curriculum. This also gives me a chance to enjoy learning for fun again around some kind of structure.
While reviewing topics I wanted to study, I realized that I would have to go back to fundamentals to get to learn the things I am really interested about – specifically astrophysics…but I haven’t taken physics since high school. Therefore, I am taking fundamental math and science classes using Khan academy to work myself up to learning astrophysics. Additionally, I am hoping that studying regularly will have a side effect of helping my LSAT studying as well.
It was just this evening that I thought to keep a personal curriculum journal to summarize my studying over each day, though I have “officially” completed 2 days of studying so I’ll start this journal describing the work I did on the 2nd day specifically of studying. I haven’t decided a specific format that I want to write these journal entries in, so for now I am winging it.
Study time: 10:30pm-1:30am
- Khan Academy: High School Chemistry
- Isotopes
- Isotope Notation
- Atomic Mass Formula
- Khan Academy: College Algebra
- Integer Exponents
- Powers of 0
- Khan Academy: High School Phyics
- Position
- Velocity
- Speed
- Acceleration
- LSAT
- Untimed redo of wrong answers from PT 78 Section 1: LR
- Untimed redo of wrong answers from PT 78 Section 1: LR
I most enjoyed learning physics today because things made sense in a way that I couldn’t comprehend when I took physics in high school. I don’t think the formulas have stuck in my brain just yet, but the examples of cars and graphing changes in position, distance, and time made a lot of sense to me.
Algebra and Chemistry feel very much like a review from high school things and clicks mostly easily. I think one thing I am struggling with is why exponents get added vs subtracted or turned into a quotient…that may be something I need to look up a video on separately to make sure those equations stick in my head better.
LSAT review of my wrong answers shows me how much I still need to learn about the test and how it isn’t just the short amount of time that is making me rush and get wrong answers…I think I don’t understand some of the questions or answers at all. I will need to look up explanations to understand what I did wrong and I also need to look up how to keep a wrong answer journal – then I will post that on this site as documentation of my study.
Overall, I felt motivated to study this evening. I put on cozy library lofi music, though I had to pause it during watching Khan academy videos. I seem to learn best from narrated walkthroughs with written notes and especially pictures or graphs.
I don’t have a consistent study schedule mapped out, but I liked how today I finished a lesson of each of the Khan Academy courses which took about a half hour each, so I plan to base my study schedule based on objectives vs time limits. I’ll need to work in more frequent LSAT study to be a majority of the time though. Perhaps I will finish a section of LSAT and then complete a lesson of another fun topic and switch back and forth as my brain does well with reward systems.
I was writing my notes on my iPad in Goodnotes, but my apple pen was frequently disconnecting, so I moved to notebook handwritten notes. I may continue this, but I like the way my iPad notes look much better.
