What makes 2nd year physics hardest

[torquemada]

I've heard a lot that 2nd year physics is the hardest part of the major. What makes it so hard relatively speaking? Is it b/c most students are taking physics courses concurrent with a Mathematical Methods of Physics I/II class? Would one be better prepared if one were to knock those 2 out of the ballpark first, and then take the rest of the physics courses, so that you have all of your math foundations in place? Or is it hard for some other reason, or just hard anyway you slice it? Thanks

 

[flemmyd]

i always thought the third year was the hardest. that is when you most people take mechanics, e&m and quantum. but this is using the US style of undergraduate education. are you in England or something?

 

[Galgenstrick]

I always thought first year physics was harder than second year because I dove right into calculus based physics without taking any high school physics. Second year was easier because the material was much more interesting than sliding blocks and rolling balls.

 

[Pengwuino]

I've heard a lot that 2nd year physics is the hardest part of the major. What makes it so hard relatively speaking? Is it b/c most students are taking physics courses concurrent with a Mathematical Methods of Physics I/II class? Would one be better prepared if one were to knock those 2 out of the ballpark first, and then take the rest of the physics courses, so that you have all of your math foundations in place? Or is it hard for some other reason, or just hard anyway you slice it? Thanks

Any decent physics major is constantly taking math courses so don't put too much emphasis on getting them all out of the way first. There is no generally accepted "hardest" year because you typically have great freedom in the order that you take your courses (even more so when your university offers a lot of courses). There are also professors that are simply very tough.

The only reason, and it is really a good reason, that the 2nd year is typically tough for students is because the first year is the boring typical calc based introductory physics course. The second year puts you smack dab into real physics courses and many students don't realize there is a big step up when you advance to upper division work.

 

[torquemada]

Second year was easier because the material was much more interesting than sliding blocks and rolling balls.

Oh good. That's the light at the end of the tunnel I need to motivate myself. I'm glad that the 'hockey puck, ice skater, and racecar' that's at the back of every Halliday/Resnick chapter isn't the type of stuff I'm going to be learning for 4 years straight.

 

[torquemada]

Any decent physics major is constantly taking math courses so don't put too much emphasis on getting them all out of the way first. There is no generally accepted "hardest" year because you typically have great freedom in the order that you take your courses (even more so when your university offers a lot of courses). There are also professors that are simply very tough.

The only reason, and it is really a good reason, that the 2nd year is typically tough for students is because the first year is the boring typical calc based introductory physics course. The second year puts you smack dab into real physics courses and many students don't realize there is a big step up when you advance to upper division work.

So does that mean that most physics topics aren't sequential, aside from the intro year and whatever prereq math skills you need? Because bio and chem seem to be very sequential.

 

[lisab]

i always thought the third year was the hardest. that is when you most people take mechanics, e&m and quantum. but this is using the US style of undergraduate education. are you in England or something?

I found this to be true in my case, too - the third year classes were the most difficult, by far.

 

[Choppy]

It's too broad and subjective of a topic to make any statement that's definitive on the matter.

However, I can see why a lot of people might say this. First year physics is generally a single introductory course. For many students a big part of it is review. Also, it's taken by a large number of students, so you generally have some anchors is the class to keep the grade distribution reasonable.

By second year, you start on what I would consider the more rigorous fundamentals. You take multiple physics classes that are now topic-specific, go through labs that are topic-specific, and you're largely in them with other physics majors - most of whom have chosen to be there because they're good at it and did very well in first year. I think it's also where the typical student begins to learn proficiencies with skills that aren't specifically taught, but the student is expected to know (examples include picking up a programming language, writing a report, finding various resources in the library, familiarizing oneself with an environment like MATLAB, using a spreadsheet for more than just addition and subtraction, etc.). It also seems to me like it's not uncommon for many students to rely on high school advanced placement courses as substitutes for first year courses. Thus, by the time they get to their actual second year, they're taking senior-level classes before they're ready.

There's also a professor-factor to consider too. Because lot's of students take the first year physics class, departments like to put a 'best foot forward' and place instructors into those positions that are good at what they do. (This isn't ALWAYS the case.) But by second year you're likely to have at least some instructors who are stronger at the research side of the profession than at the teaching side, which can be challenging.

On a social level there is also a little less hand-holding that goes on. In first year many schools will provide you with on-campus housing and even a meal plan that means your most difficult decision outside of class is to go with the burger and fries or the pizza. By second year, in my experience anyway, many students moved off campus. You no longer have a frosh rep (or orientation leader as I believe they're called today) to go to for guidance or to help when you don't get along with a room mate. You have to commute, and you have to shop for your own groceries. Lots of students also put on the 'freshman fifteen' which can diminish your energy level. And depending on the local laws, that can be the year where it becomes legal for you to drink - not that that ever affected anyone's studies. There can also be additional financial stress too. Lots of scholarships are money for a single year, or a one-time-payout based on high-school marks. At the start of the second year that's dried up.

So, yeah, I could see why someone might argue second year is the hardest.

 

[Pengwuino]

Oh good. That's the light at the end of the tunnel I need to motivate myself. I'm glad that the 'hockey puck, ice skater, and racecar' that's at the back of every Halliday/Resnick chapter isn't the type of stuff I'm going to be learning for 4 years straight.

Nope. You'll be learning about the particle in a box and the swinging pendulum.

Oh and what separation of variables is. 4 times.

So does that mean that most physics topics aren't sequential, aside from the intro year and whatever prereq math skills you need? Because bio and chem seem to be very sequential.

Well you typically want to take classical mechanics and e/m your second year. The rest is kinda just however you want or however the university pushes students towards.

 

[flyingpig]

The Thermodynamics course at my college has an average of 48%. I think two years ago, it was 53%. It's a second year course.

Personally I plan to take load myself with more math courses than physics.

 

[qspeechc]

It differs from university to university. I think I had a bit of a "weed out" physics course in my second year, although many people will just say I am a whiner. Weed out courses seem to be the sort of thing physics departments do, but not math departments, just from my experience and anecdote, don't take it as fact. The EM class I took in my second year was the most intense I have ever taken.

In the first semester of 2nd year I did an EM course where we covered almost all of Griffiths' book, but left out a few things. By the end of the semester we were really flying through the book. We had weekly problem sets where some of the probems were from the book, some not (ahem, problems from Griffiths...). We also had labs every week or two, and we needed to have a 20 page report. Of course, that was a minimum; if you actually handed in a 20 page report you got about 70% at best, if you wanted a decent mark you needed about 30 pages. Thankfully there was very little programming. I think I ended up with about 68% or 72% or something like that for the course, and I was one of the better students! About 60% of the people failed. One nerd ended up with 98% or something ridiculous like that.

I was also taking linear algebra, general biology, numerical methods I and PDEs that semester. I was struggling to stay awake in the classes, because bio also has quite a heavy workload.

The second semester was less intense. I took classical mechanics and QM. However you were largely on your own in the labs. You had to arrange and set up your own experiments, look things up in journals, there was a programming element too (python), so the labs often took up a lot of time, but the course load was less than the first semester. We needed reports for the labs and the programming part.

By the end of the senior years I think only about 5 or so people were majoring in physics.

 

[kramer733]

I'm sorry but i'd like to hi-jack your thread OP. I've heard in 3rd year math program, that's the hardest year. I don't know why but can somebody explain? People said 1st and 2nd year were easy but 3rd year.. THERE WAS A HUGE LEEP! Well that's what I've heard from a few friends of mine. Is this true? They never told me why.

 

[G01]

My undergrad physics department didn't really have weed out courses. Of course, we were very small department. 9 professors, and 20 majors. If they started weeding people out, the professors would be out of jobs!

At my grad department, things seem different though. It's a much bigger department (40 professors, ~100 undergrad majors and ~60-70 grad students) The department, and the university as a whole has a reputation for low grade inflation, and I think our department likes that reputation. So, the intro courses in particular (1st 3 semesters) are tough where grading is concerned.