Professor Vlad Lukic is a Physics professor who teaches freshman mechanics and astronomy courses at Stevens. He gave advice for incoming freshmen that centers around the ideas of adaptation and thinking.
When freshmen begin their first semester they realize that “it’s actually a large culture shock. Everybody needs to understand that they’re not in high school anymore. The level of understanding in college is much deeper. The complexity of any course grows rapidly,” says Professor Lukic. The skill incoming freshmen need to learn is time management. “People who get into this school are very, very good students, and if mechanics or chemistry was the one thing they have to worry about, they’d all get an A, but it’s all balancing the other stuff. Having several courses at the same time plus your own personal life makes it difficult.” Lukic advises reaching out to upperclassman. “They’ve been through all of it [and have a] perspective. Not having a perspective is [a] dangerous thing. Everybody is going to have a small glitch. The important thing is to lift and move on.” Students need to develop a perspective.
Students should look forward to thinking in Professor Lukic’s courses. “I’m trying to teach students to think in simple terms,” he states, “Memorization of formulas is not something that I insist on, but how to analyze complex systems in simplest possible terms. I’ve never had one student who told me that this is much more complicated than I thought. I was always told this is much more simpler than I thought. Thinking really, thinking in simpler terms is what I want them to do in this class.”
Professor Lukic said that the intelligence of the students inspires him. “The advantage of working as a professor is that you always interact with a lot of super smart people. [It’s] not the just the colleagues and the grad students and the other professors, it’s actually the undergrads.” As a mechanics professor, Lukic interacts with a wide array of students. He sees that “people are very different. Some prefer to sit down quietly; some prefer to interact, but generally there are so many good questions, so many ideas about what should be done. I really like it.”
Aside from studying during their time at Stevens, students need to go to New York often. “You’re in the center of the universe,” Lukic states, “I don’t get to see one percent of things I wanna see [in New York each day]. Museums are great. Visit all of the museums and concerts. Hoboken is nice, but the city is absolutely great. I’m actually quite shocked how little students from Hoboken, from Stevens, go there.”
Professor Lukic gave one last piece of advice: “Think, don’t just go on autopilot, you have to think. I think that’s the most important thing. You have to be honest with yourself and study. If you don’t know something just admit it to yourself and study harder.” Lukic’s final piece of advice comes from a Harry Potter quote that captures his and Stevens’ message: “help will be given to those who ask for it.”
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