Teaching / Skipping chapters in a text

[QuarkCharmer]

I have two questions for the most part. I'm getting really close to the point where I will be taking the classes that really matter for my physics BS, and I have started thinking about what specifically I would like to major in, or focus on. I really like physics, and mathematics, probably both at an equal level. I have no belief that I will ever profoundly impact the way we think about physics, I doubt that I will be the one to invent a revolutionary new way to look at calculus, and I am not trying to get a job at CERN. I simply want to teach. I really like the application side of mathematics, and I have had so many moments where it all just "clicked" and I felt that I had gained a deeper understanding of how elegant both of these can be, and I want to be there when other people do the same. I ultimately want to teach, physics or mathematics, and I have no idea what I should focus on in order to achieve that goal. What type of courses should I be taking if I want to simply become a professor? I understand that research is massively important, and certainly plan to do whatever it takes to be an asset to my university etc. Should I take a minor in mathematics? Specialize in photonics? I have not yet seen a "so you want to be a physics professor" article!


My other question is about skipping chapters in courses. For instance, when I took Trigonometry, we basically learned what a polar coordinate was, and how to plot them, and that there "is" a way to translate polar into cartesian etc. We skipped over several chapters in our book, and I worked through many of them that I found interesting anyway, but I wonder if there was a reason for this? I have put in a great deal of my personal time studying polar coordinates, vectors, matrix theory, and basically anything else in the book that we did not cover. Is this normal?

 

[jtbell]

In my experience as both student and teacher, textbooks always include more material than can be taught in a standard-length course on the subject, at an appropriate level. This is because different instructors emphasize different topics beyond the core topics that (nearly) everybody agrees about. Textbook writers and publishers generally want to maximize their potential sales, and don't want instructor X to turn down their book simply because it doesn't include topic Y.