Is this a good applied physics curriculum?

[laramman2]

The program is called 'Applied Physics major in Instrumentation'

The courses of the program are (in no particular order)

Math:

College Algebra
Trigonometry
Analytic Geometry
Calc I
Calc II
Vector Calculus
Differential Equations
Linear Algebra
Probability and Statistics

Physics ( All of them include a lab course except for QM, Theoretical Mechanics, Stat Mech/Thermo, Solid State and Modern Physics)

Physics I
Physics II
Physics III
Instrumentation I
Instrumentation II
Instrumentation III
Instrumentation IV
Computational Methods
Stat Mech/Thermodynamics
Modern Physics
Advanced Laboratory
Quantum Mechanics I
Solid State Physics
Photonics
Electronics I
Electronics II
Theoretical Mechanics I

 

[Vanadium 50]

Course names are not very helpful by themselves. That's why course descriptions are published. "Instrumentation III", for example, could be anything.

 

[laramman2]

Sorry, for not including the course description.

For Instrumentation I - Sensors and Transducers
Instrumentation II - Digital Signal Processing
Instrumentation III - Logic and Switching Circuit Theory
Instrumentation IV - Microprocessors and Introduction to Medical/Health
Physics

 

[Vanadium 50]

That's not a course description. In your course catalog, there are a few lines of description next to every course, explaining what will be taught. That's a course description.

 

[laramman2]

For Instrumentation I - Sensors and Transducers
-'Sensors, transducers, and measurement techniques for various physical variables.'

Instrumentation II - Digital Signal Processing
-'The fundamentals of digital signal processing techniques and their applications..

Instrumentation III - Logic and Switching Circuit Theory
-'The course begins with an introduction to number systems and Boolean algebra. It proceeds with a bottom up study of the basic units of a computer and the basic building blocks of digital electronics, the logic gates. Other basic units of the computer are also studied including memory, arithmetic and logic units. Other topics include gates and gating networks: minimization; state and machine equivalence; asynchronous sequential circuits, race conditions, design of digital sub-systems.'

Instrumentation IV - Microprocessors and Introduction to Medical/Health
Physics
-'The course is divided into two topics. The first one begins with fundamental study of architecture, interfacing and machine language programming for microprocessor-based systems and its applications. The latter introduces to some selected topics in medical physics.'Anyway, what do you think of the curriculum? Is it good?

 

[Jorriss]

Sounds like a useful program for many areas of experimental physics. For example, if you want to do any work involving lasers, say, laser ion trapping, those instrumentation classes would be immensely practical.

 

[DLX]

It looks just like an electronics degree with the fluff about communication systems and transmission lines stripped out. I studied something very similar (under a different name) but less physics and more control and mathematics to it. I can tell you it was in fact useful for all kinds of experimental work, including lasers, conductivity measurements, spectroscopy, pressure measurements etc.