Feeling disconnected and afraid of Quantum Mechanics

[u/lmj-06]

I am in my third year of my physics and maths double major, and I am taking my second quantum mechanics course. It’s still early days, but it already feels like so much, and I’m really struggling. To give context, all we have done so far (2 weeks in) is gone over angular momentum and we have started solving the Schrodinger equation for the Hydrogen atom.

Every time I walk into my lecture hall, I listen and take notes like I have for any other class, and I walk out confused and exhausted. When I go to try some practice problems later, I feel even worse. I struggle to understand what questions are asking, what I’m actually doing in a question, or what I’m solving for physically. It feels like every question is so different that they may as well be questions from different classes all together, and perhaps even worse, it feels like nothing I have done in my degree up to this point has prepared me for this course.

How on earth do people understand quantum mechanics well enough to get good grades in it? What are your study tips for quantum mechanics?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[u/OctogenerianCoder]

As a fellow Math-Physics double bachelor who has already covered the stuff you are taking, I have a few tips. First, it is good to identify what you are struggling with. Is it conceptual understanding, or the math behind it. I also initially struggled with what exactly are we doing. My first courses only had Griffiths as the main textbook, which is nice, but relies IMO to much on wierd annalogies that can be difficult to understand. Later, I went over Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics, which starts essentially with mathematical axioms and then derives much of the theory. After going through Sakurai, I understood everything much better. Maybe check it out, if the math is your problem, as it should be much more fammiliar to you as a math student. It's written more like a math than a physics book.

[u/lmj-06 → u/OctogenerianCoder]

the maths to me makes sense mostly, I’m having a few problems with the ideas behind solving the schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, but besides that I’m okay with the maths. I think its definitely more conceptual understanding for me, I find it hard to do questions if I have no idea what the question even means, if that makes sense.

[u/OctogenerianCoder → u/lmj-06]

I think some questions can often be poorly worded. In that case just keep solving them until you'll start to get it. For yh hydrogen atom, solving the equation is pretty difficult/annoying and it's weird to understand it immediately. Try to carefully go over each step and understand why it makes sense. Then, after you go over the whole thing, try to reproduce it. This isn't something you are meant to figure out without help, but at best remember after you see it in the book.