Physics hardest pre-med req?

[curious519]

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When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

 

[DoctorDreamer]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

This depends way to much on the individual. The hardest course I ever took was Art Appreciation. I had a 100% in physics both semesters, and I was terrified of it! I also thought OChem was easier than GenChem. Calc 1 was a blast, Calc 2 was okay, but was harder than either semester of physics. Microbiology and Human Physiology were probably the hardest I took because they were all fact memorization instead of understanding.

But that's just my experience... Each person will have their own.

 

[FlowLimited]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

Nobody can really answer this. It all depends on the person and their specific strengths and weaknesses.

 

[curious519]

If you do really well in Calculus, is it likely that you will do really well in Physics as well?

 

[shiftingmirage]

Nobody can really answer this. It all depends on the person and their specific strengths and weaknesses.

👍 I took summer physics which kinda sucked because it was your entire summer but the class was easy. My hardest prereq was probably gen chem, but I have taken harder classes for my major (p-chem, cancer bio) that aren't required for med school.

 

[shiftingmirage]

If you do really well in Calculus, is it likely that you will do really well in Physics as well?

Depends on the physics. My school offers a calc based physics but I took regular. I don't remember any calc in my physics class but physics is very number oriented so I would think if you are good at math in general you would do well in physics.

 

[ZagDoc]

It really depends on the person. I found physics the most demanding from a conceptual standpoint. Ours was algebra based, so no calc, just lots and lots of equation manipulation. Brilliant professor, but he demanded a lot of his students.

Pay attention to it, especially electrical and magnetism. You'll need them to understand membrane conductance in med school.

 

[In Vino Veritas]

Physics by far was my least favorite pre-req, but I think that's mostly because the prof wasn't so great. I still did well, I just found it boring and tedious. I think it depends 100% on your own personal experience.

 

[cgbg]

loooooved physics. found it most enjoyable of the regs. however, by far the toughest.

 

[LikeClockWork]

For me Physics was by FAR the most difficult for me, but then again it was hard in high school too. I guess I'm just not gifted that way.

For my college at large though, Gen Chem II and to a lesser extent Gen Chem I were the big weed-out classes for that huge freshman pre-med class. I'm not sure if it's just one of the first hardcore science classes they get to, or if it's the subject matter, but they drop like flies during that semester.

 

[BMBPSU2008]

Calculus Based, yes. Algebra Based, no.

 

[engineeredout]

The calculus required for the calc based physics was pretty straightforward.

Like they've said above it depends on the individual. I'm a chem engineering major, so for me I'm strong in physics and gen chem.

 

[flip26]

The real caveat is to beware of all the pre reqs - it will vary from one school to another which is hardest - and by hardest I really mean which one is graded the hardest (worst curves, fewest As, etc).

The real nut cutters at my school are Organic lab and Physics, but Gen Biol is no cake walk...Gen Chem was probably the "easiest" in every respect...hopefully you won't find all of your pre reqs "hard" because you need to make a fair number of As in them...

 

[T12]

At my school physics was hard because of the algebra. The concepts and "physics" parts of the test problems were pretty straightforward. After you had set up the integral or whatever that particular problem entailed, you were faced with a page and a half of algebra to solve it.

Every deduction I had on a test in physics was because of a negative sign or a coefficient that disappeared somewhere along the way.

So if you can dominate long algebra problems, physics will be cake. If you hate algebra, it isn't going to be much fun.

 

[Depakote]

Honestly, physics I was my hardest pre-req because of the professor. I know you aren't supposed to blame the prof, but I wound up taking a more advanced physics II class with a different prof then next semester and acing it.

 

[gasdf1234567]

Definitely depends on the person, but in my opinion depends more on the school. I go to IU-Bloomington and both intro physics classes were easy. The orgo classes were definitely on the harder side, especially orgo 2 and orgo lab.

 

[paranoid_eyes]

i agree with what everyone's been saying. it depends on school, professor, individual.

for me, my hardest prereq has been genetics, and the rest have been fairly easy.

 

[bozz]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

for me yeah... my worst pre-req grades were from Physics I and II

I just don't get physics >.<

 

[enjoydrywax]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

Just forget about being a doctor - if you can't pass physics you might as well drop your entire (assuming) biology major and pursue something more parallel to your intellectual ability.

May I suggest communications or possibly dropping out?


🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

 

[Timmythemic22]

I suppose I should preempt this statement by "In my opinion..."


Physics sucks balls.


However, it is fairly important to have a basic grasp of the subject, especially come physiology (why I will never be a cardiologist, urologist, or pulmonologist)

 

[jult24er]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

Calc based E&M at Brown was the hardest class I've had. Calc based mechanics at Maryland was average and the lab was much less time consuming then any chem lab.

I think if you're taking physics with a lot of premeds, its not so bad, because they're out of their element. But if you take it with a lot of engineers / physics major, it's tough becasue you're out of your's.

 

[SStorm]

I destroyed physics, gen. chem, and calculus. And O-Chem raped me. I did pretty well in my bio classes too. So, it really depends on the individual. Though looking back at it, I'd say the hardest conceptually was calculus while the one with the most study time necessary was O-Chem (unless you can memorize really fast). And I think that math orientated people will do well in both Calculus and Physics.

 

[ChubbyChaser]

Nope, English was the hardest

 

[redlight]

Calc based E&M at Brown was the hardest class I've had. Calc based mechanics at Maryland was average and the lab was much less time consuming then any chem lab.

I think if you're taking physics with a lot of premeds, its not so bad, because they're out of their element. But if you take it with a lot of engineers / physics major, it's tough becasue you're out of your's.

yea, its gonna depend on which school you attend
for example:
at my school there's physics I,II for engineers, bio majors and then classical mechanics and electricity and magnetism for physics majors.
at my school it's harder to get an A in the bio majors one than the rest because (1) its mostly upperclassmen (vast majority are juniors) premeds who need good grades for the upcoming application year.
(2) typically the grades are really close to each other on tests (i.e. small variance in test scores) and average is curved to a B- or lower usually.

the engineering physics is almost entirely freshman (with covered grades) so some upperclassmen bio majors/premed take it to prey on silly freshman who are taking full schedules and wont care about their non-calculated gpa.

physics major physics is really hard, as it should be, but since it's class sizes are small and there's a lot of individual attention and because students are usually really good in physics and blablablah curves are not as bad and most ppl have As and Bs.

 

[redlight]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

so far chem II has been my hardest out of chem bio calc (I and II for all three). i dont understand why we needed to go into so much detail concerning molecular orbitals and the quantum mech. of bonds and ligand and crystal structures. i dont think physics will be too bad, mostly because i took it in hs and was fine. idk how my hs physics compares to uni physics though.

i think organic will be pretty hard but im most afraid of biochem because of all the memorization.

why do you think it would it help to mention my school?

 

[goldenstandard2]

I thought E&M was the hardest prereq. Maybe that is because I took the physics for physicists and engineers class, instead of the regular class. Yeah I wouldn't recommend that at all. I also thought gen chem II was pretty hard. All the other classes (ie ochem, bio, math) seemed much easier than everyone made them out to be.

 

[SamusLives]

Physics just made sense to me. I aced both semesters. I know it was not an easy course, b/c many people were struggling...I even tutored some folks.

It just depends on your strengths and what grade you expect to get. Some folks think just b/c they don't get an A in a class its "hard" (maybe its not objectively hard, just not what you're great at).

 

[redlight]

actually i only took mechanics in high school.

isn't E&M much harder? someone told me the ap exam for E&M was very hard so the curve was always huge and a lot of folks got 4s and 5s.. i even know people who placed out of E&M but didnt place out (as in had a 4/5) of mechanics, though i guess there are other variables that might have influenced that outcome.

 

[Terpskins99]

Orgo was by far the most difficult class I took as an undergrad. It is absolutely brutal.

I loved physics, and I'm surprised at how many people shun the class. Its very easy to see how concepts in physics can be applied to everyday life.

 

[anomalous738232]

When compared to biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry, and calculus, is physics the hardest? It would help if you mention what school you go to.

gen chem > calc > physics > biol

based on the level of difficulty of the material. however, biol required the greatest time commitment (which is often a challenge in itself)- lots of reading. it took me a while to figure out what works b/c it requires a different kind of studying than all the other science classes.

physics was pretty easy b/c i took the algebra based series... i'm sure the calc-based one is much different.

gen chem was probably the most difficult b/c it's the first weed out class offered @ UW, and they generally want you to fail =)

 

[bcat85]

I think it depends mostly on your school (and somewhat on the person too of course). For me, orgo was my most difficult pre-req, but the hardest class I ever took was definitely developmental biology.... rough.