Physics Advice

[Glycerin]

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To those of you who've taken physics:

I'm terrified of the class! I began taking it last fall, but I withdrew after a few weeks because transportation problems (my school was an hour away). Anyway, I'm taking it this summer, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me about physics. I'm going to be taking this algebra-based physics. Is there any kind of study guide or website that anyone would recommend? Thanks. 🙂

 

[jdpharmd?]

Is it physics 1 or physics 2? I loved physics 1 (falling objects, etc), but was bored to tears in physics 2 (optics, electromagnetism). There's a long running joke around here that "physics saves lives".

"As part of the standard curriculum in a pre-med college, the
students had to take a difficult class in physics. One day, the
professor was discussing a particularly complicated concept.

Part way through the class, a student rudely interrupted to ask, 'Why do
we have to learn this stuff?'

'To save lives,' the professor responded quickly and continued the
lecture.

A few minutes later, the same student spoke up again. 'So how does
physics save lives?' he persisted.

'It keeps idiots like you out of medical school,'
replied the professor. 😉

 

[Glycerin]

Is it physics 1 or physics 2? I loved physics 1 (falling objects, etc), but was bored to tears in physics 2 (optics, electromagnetism). There's a long running joke around here that "physics saves lives".

"As part of the standard curriculum in a pre-med college, the
students had to take a difficult class in physics. One day, the
professor was discussing a particularly complicated concept.

Part way through the class, a student rudely interrupted to ask, 'Why do
we have to learn this stuff?'

'To save lives,' the professor responded quickly and continued the
lecture.

A few minutes later, the same student spoke up again. 'So how does
physics save lives?' he persisted.

'It keeps idiots like you out of medical school,'
replied the professor. 😉

Actually, I'm taking both physics 1 and 2 this summer. 😱 I did this last year with Bio 1 and 2. The summer session total is 14 weeks - 7 weeks for physics 1 and 7 weeks for physics 2. I begin May 17.

And about the joke - LMAO! That's great. 🙂 👍

 

[dgroulx]

Physics was pretty difficult, even though I'm good at math. I took mine at Saint Leo, which is about 25 minutes north of USF. The good thing there is that the lab is included with the lecture grade, so the A you get in lab gets factored into the overall grade. Also, part of our grade was homework so I was able to find equivalent problems by googling key words. That helped a lot, too.

 

[Glycerin]

Also, part of our grade was homework so I was able to find equivalent problems by googling key words. That helped a lot, too.

Ooh! I never thought about that. That would be useful. Thanks!

My microbiology class was (and in the fall, my D. Bac class will be) lecture/lab-combined grading. I think it was helpful to everyone. 🙂

 

[spacecowgirl]

Is it physics 1 or physics 2? I loved physics 1 (falling objects, etc), but was bored to tears in physics 2 (optics, electromagnetism).

I could not agree more - physics I = swell, physics II = 😴 😴


Funny joke, but I have got to go with the student on that one, I have yet to see the relevance of physics for anyone but a physics major (who the hell would major in physics anyway?!?!?).

 

[EarlyEditionDude]

You should check out the MCAT forum. There are a lot of great advices and book recommendations that will help you with physics.

 

[Modnar]

To those of you who've taken physics:

I'm terrified of the class! I began taking it last fall, but I withdrew after a few weeks because transportation problems (my school was an hour away). Anyway, I'm taking it this summer, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me about physics. I'm going to be taking this algebra-based physics. Is there any kind of study guide or website that anyone would recommend? Thanks. 🙂

Get good lab partners and study with them. If your professor's approachable, go talk to him/her during office hours. If you don't have good lab partners or the prof's a jerk, befriend an engineering major and ask him/her to help you. Other people were a lot more helpful to me than the books.

Also, you may want to brush up on basic geometry stuff - volume of a sphere, circumfrence of a circle, things like that. The worst thing for me this semester has been knowing the right physics equation for a problem but then having to go "wait, is the volume 4/3 pi r^2 or 4 pi r^3?"

 

[spacecowgirl]

I also bought the "Physics for Dummies" book which can sometimes explain concepts in a much simpler way. Sometimes profs go off on theory and crap and you're just like, just tell me how high the ball was dropped from ok? I don't care about from whence the equation was derived, just show me how to do it They also make Physics (and lots of other subjects) Cliff notes, but they are not nearly as helpful.

 

[Glycerin]

You should check out the MCAT forum. There are a lot of great advices and book recommendations that will help you with physics.

Thanks! I just looked at that forum, and they seem to highly praise the NOVA MCAT Physics book, so I'm looking into that one. 🙂