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<p>Calculus wasn’t used to explain the relationship between location, speed, and acceleration? Or electricity and magnetism?</p>
<p>I was telling S2 about this thread and he wishes there would be a literary analysis course for STEM kids. :p</p>
<p>Kajon, my DS would agree with your S2 on that one…or Literature/creative writing “lite” for stem majors! Or even a course that focused on the technical aspects of a piece, rather than “inferences”. LOL</p>
<p>Actually, a good argument could be made for rigorous writing and communication courses focused on various topics, rather than the typical offerings based only on analysis of fictional literature. It would not be surprising if the vast majority of writing and communication done by college students and graduates (other than literature majors) is on other topics like history, politics, science, sociology, business, etc…</p>
<p>At both the colleges I teach frosh comp at, the emphasis is on argumentative writing, not literary, and the readings are indeed from many different subjects, all nonfiction. It’s definitely meant as an introduction to the skills necessary to write in all subjects, and there is no way it could be watered down, as writing is so central for college learning in general.</p>
<p>And the skill most emphasized is critical thinking.</p>
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<p>You can have a good physics class without calculus. Honors physics in high school typically lacks calculus but does use algebra and trig. I would expect physics for non-majors to at least require use of algebra and trig.</p>
<p>I think you are confused. They use physics to explain calculus not calculus to explain physics. The main problems is that we need more intelligent word problems starting in about 6th grade, no 4th grade, no kindergarten. Physics is all about applying math to the real world. F=ma is not calculus. E=mc squared is not calculus either. But it does required to get out of your chair and go measure something.</p>
<p>UCB and Garland…I hope that is what my DS finds in college. I wish there was more of that in HS! He graduates HS this year, and is so looking forward to university level courses!</p>
<p>I used Halliday and Resnick for freshman physics. Most people I knew in those days did so as well. I’m pretty sure it had calculus based problems in it, and since we worked just about everything in that book I’m sure we covered them. But what I remember is that the calculus based problems were rather elementary and the harder problems didn’t involve much calculus. THe difficulties were primarily in conceptualizing and setting up the problem, and maybe using some trig identiites or something like that. At least that’s what I remember. </p>
<p>Of course, when I got to upper division classes, things were a bit different.</p>
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There was probably a passing reference to it in the lectures, but I don’t recall having to actually use it on a test or homework. Remember this was back in the days before graphing calculators, it was a lot more trouble to use calculus!</p>
<p>Wow, you gotta love CC! I’m just amazed at all the excellent responses here…sort of makes me wish I taught physics! Sylvan, I sure hope you are taking notes and thankful for all the great ideas on here (and the fact that you have an only 7 person class! lol).</p>
<p>I believe there is a misunderstanding in regard to non-calc Physics. Non-calc does NOT mean non-math. Non-calc Physics is still very challenging for most as HS Physics (including AP Physics) is very deficient. Just for comparison, non-calc college Physics is much much harder than college Gen. Chem, both of them are part of MCAT PS section and one should be prepared very well in both. So, all these jokes about “cartoon” Physics and such are not that relevant. More so, do NOT combine Physics with couple more challenging science classes. 2 challenging classes per semester is OK, more might be a problem. Taking Physics with Orgo is OK, but I would not advise combining them with Cell Bio or Genetics or Physiology (as an example). Calc. on the other hand, is NOT a hard college class, maybe other higher level math beyond Med. School requirement is, but I have been in engineering myself and never had any problem with college math.</p>