<p>I think I am forced to take this twice (discussion once) a week in the morning from 8-10 because I wasn't able to obtain other classes to make my schedule start at 9. </p>
<p>I probably will be moderately sleepy throughout this... is this really gonna kill come fall 09?</p>
<p>Wait until the week of the drop deadline for the class, spaces in other sections will clear up. If you do end up stuck with it, it’s typically okay. Discussions were more or less optional for me, and labs aren’t worth that much and most GSIs go easy on you with them.</p>
<p>i had 8 - 10 physics 7A lab section… you won’t be the only one who is sleepy. My section was generally pretty quiet, and as the semester went on, fewer and fewer people attended because attendance wasn’t necessarily mandatory. By time of the final, literally only 5 -6 of us were still attending out of the original 20 -25. </p>
<p>I think it’s worth going because you do practice worksheets in groups, but if you really can’t wake up - they were posting the workbook solutions on bspace.</p>
<p>can someone describe a typical Physics 7A lab day, procedures, whatever please?</p>
<p>It’s worth it to go unless you’re a real physics whiz or have a not so good GSI (although in my experience the were pretty good). As for what we do: some labs are like discussions (i.e. they use the “lab” day to just do discussion activities). In labs we do very simple stuff, often using the motion detector to reinforce the basic concepts. These are usually the most boring, but are also required (or at least were required under Zettl), which kind of sucked but is something you can just coast through without much thought.</p>
<p>In discussion the GSI usually teaches for the first portion then assigns practice problems from the workbook or goes over hard questions from that weeks homework. If you have a good GSI this can be very worthwhile as it’s basically a weekly review session of what you have to know. I had a great GSI and I can’t really see any reason why it would be more beneficial to NOT go if they had him, unless they were a bona fide physics master and would be getting an A anyways.</p>
<p>So my recommendation is that you should attend all labs and discussions. Skip lab if your professor allows it, and only skip discussion if you absolutely know the material or if your GSI is bad.</p>