Intimidated by an Upcoming Course

[kq6up]

I have been out of school for 15 years (for physics at least), and plan on going back for my masters. I have been teaching chemistry and physics at the high school level for 9 of those years. I have often challenged myself with calculus problems so that I don't loose it completely. I have been reviewing with Boas and find it perfect for where I am at, but when I saw the course description of the course I am planning to take in the fall I was a little intimidated. After looking at the contents of the textbook:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0120598760/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I became really intimidated. I am not sure if I should put it off another year and finish Boas -- maybe start reviewing some Junior and Senior college level physics.

Here is the course description:

http://physics.fullerton.edu/~heidi/510.html

What do you guys/gals think?

Thanks,
Chris Maness

 

[ZombieFeynman]

The coursework seems like the standard for a one semester mathematical methods course. Perhaps in addition to Boas, you could supplement your preparation with Byron and Fuller. You should be able to find a Dover edition for ~25 dollars at most. You may want to do some problems from Morin's classical mechanics text (or Taylor's) and perhaps some problems from Griffith's E&M and Shankar's quantum mechanics. The four of those books is what I used the summer before I came to graduate school to prepare. I came straight from undergrad, but even if I didn't I think that would have been the best bet.

Edit: Arfken and Weber is a great book, as a reference. I never used it while taking Math Methods in graduate school (except as reference). To learn the mathematics, I used a combination of Byron&Fuller, Hassani, and Lea. Classmates of mine also found Boas helpful. Now that I am doing research, I have found Stone and Goldbert to be the text of choice when I want to refresh my mathematical memory.

 

[kq6up]

Thanks, Zombie. Do you think I can get all this done by fall? I do have the summer off, but my break from work is only two months. It has taken me a two months to get to the middle of chapter three, so not really fast going. When I am off, I can do a section a day -- when I am in work I can do about half of that.

Thanks,
Chris Maness

 

[ZombieFeynman]

I think that depends a lot on how much you recall from your undergrad courses. I would focus on the core competencies of each undergraduate subject. Try to draw parallels and get a unified picture of what's going on. Honestly, physics came together a lot for me during my first two years of graduate school.

 

[kq6up]

I am solid on lower division stuff. Upper division is a murky mess at very best.

Chris