Struggling with Quantum Mechanics? Share your experience here!

[Eric_meyers]

I'm a senior and I'm in my fourth (and last) year in college. Traditionally I'm an A/B student, I haven't ever earned a grade in a course below a B. However, this quantum mechanics course I'm taking has me scared. I'm taking quantum mechanics using Griffiths as a textbook and my school curricula has it such that we'll cover the whole book in two semesters (next semester will cover the other half of Griffiths)

However, I've looked over the material, and I feel that I'm really unprepared for this level of difficulty. I know I'm not alone but I don't know if I have the ability to solve these complicated abstract problems and I worry if I'm going to struggle to even pass the course.

Have other people felt this way? How did your first quantum mechanics course go?

 

[eri]

I got a B- in QM my first semester of undergrad (the only QM course my university offered). And I took it from Griffiths himself. The teaching was great, it just didn't 'click' for me. I took the second semester of undergrad QM (from another book, Liboff) when I entered grad school, and got an A in it. It just took a while for it to really make sense. I did fine in graduate QM after that, and the qualifier. If it doesn't make sense right away, or even after a semester, don't despair. It doesn't mean you're not qualified to be a physicist. It just means you might not want to specialize in QM theory.