The mere mention of the word “physics” can be scary to some NIU students.

However, according to Kirsten Hubbard, co-author of the book “The Physics ToolBox,” help with physics may be closer than students think.

“The best study tip for physics is to study in groups, or what we call in ‘The Physics ToolBox,’ ‘physics teams,’” Hubbard said. “Students new to physics often find all the bits and pieces of information provided in a typical physics introductory class overwhelming. Everybody learns some of it, but no one learns it all.”

Hubbard received her bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from the University of California at Los Angeles. She received her master’s degree in astrophysics from Johns Hopkins University. For her, physics was something that became an interest only after her initial major was not offered.

“The truth is, I wasn’t at all interested in physics at first,” Hubbard said. “But I wanted to study astronomy, and my undergraduate school didn’t offer an astronomy major. So, it was either get serious about physics, or forget about being an astronomer. I took the plunge. The funny thing is that, today, I am much more interested in physics than astronomy.”

In the book, Hubbard and co-author Debora Katz recommend studying in groups of three to five people. When studying in groups for physics, everyone in the group benefits from one another.

“The benefits are two-fold,” Hubbard said. “First, you learn information that you may have missed initially, and second, you get to do a little bit of teaching. The research is very clear that students who teach other students learn better than those who don’t.”

Hubbard said that relating material to the outside world will help students better understand different aspects of physics.

“It sometimes seems like everybody is always talking about quarks, or relativity, or magnetic levitation, or some other strange physics thingamabob – but what do these things have to do with getting a date, or Saturday’s football game or successfully living with a roommate?” she said. “But if you take a closer look, you begin to see that physics offers something quite subtle and useful: problem-solving ability.”

Physics department chair John Shaffer, who has taught physics at NIU for 37 years, said a key essential in reaching success in physics has to do with linking physics to the world outside the classroom.

“To understand physics, you need to be able to make the connection between problems you solve from a book and the real-world situations to which most of them pertain,” Shaffer said. “Students tend to divorce their study of physics from their experiences with the rest of the world. They don’t make the connections between these so that they often do not develop the critical judgment to evaluate whether their solutions to problems make any sense at all.

“Students need to spend much more time outside of the classroom studying their text, trying to solve problems, trying to make sense of the concepts, and formulating questions about what they are struggling with in the course. You cannot learn something like physics by merely attending the classes and laboratories. You must confront the material on a daily basis.”

The physics department staffs a help room for nearly 40 hours each week, Shaffer said. Graduate teaching assistants are available at various times to assist students both in understanding concepts within the physics classroom and in solving problems.

For Hubbard, physics is a way of life.

“Physics is important to me because it makes my life simpler. By understanding the way the world works – not the frivolities, but the fundamentals – I can approach events in my life with the confidence that I will be able to get an answer, if I only take the time to work the problem.”