the right physics..

[Amanda C]

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At my school (and forgive me if this is standard at all other schools) there are 2 types of physics I and physics II courses. Fundamental physics and general physics. Fundamental is required for all biology majors (which is my major) and Gen. is for physics/chem majors. Should I opt for the General physics course instead of "fundies"? (as my physics dept. likes to refer to it)

I think the difference is that fundies is algebra based and general is calc based. I guess I could take general since I'm going to have calc under my belt, but I'm ranting......anyway.....any thoughts?

 

[JMU07]

All you need is algebra based physics. 🙂

 

[inspired]

I think it would be to your advantage OAT-wise if you opted to take the fundamental/algebra-based physics courses. There is no calculus on the OAT and its physics portion is very very basic (velocity, forces, optics etc).

My school also offers both General Physics and Intro/Fundamentals to Physics (for Biology majors). I took two semesters of General Physics unfortunately (because I assumed it was what was required), which I felt in the end was unnecessary since the optometry school that I was applying to accepted the "fundies" as you call it to satisfy their prereqs. And my second semester of General Physics skipped optics because the professor spent too much time deriving equations and doing complex calculus problems. So I think I struggled in return of very little OAT-wise =x

So ... double check what the schools you are applying to want and if you can get away with it, just take the fundamentals. Good luck!

 

[pienfoo]

you should definitely take the fund/algebra based physics! as mentioned above, it will adequately prepare you for the OAT and save you the agony of competing with engineering majors.

 

[Amanda C]

Thanks everyone! I don't have a pre-optometry program at my school so I kinda have to figure out this stuff on my own 🙂