<p>Can Physics majors rank freshman math and science courses, any course or professors to avoid</p>
<p>i too am interested
so far my schedule consists of Calculus 2 honors, Physics 1 mechanics with some french guy, Elementary French, Olympic Fencing, and of course an FWS.</p>
<p>Prospective major, read a lot of bad things about PHYS 1116 teacher this year, Gibbons. I’m taking his class anyway, but I’m scared. Weird tests not from class, a terrible lecturer, etc…</p>
<p>idk anything about the classes, but a couple of friends who were physics majors RAVED - absolutely LOVED - professor seamus davis.</p>
<p>Yeah, i read the same on ratemyprofessor.com which is why i switched to physics 1 mechanics; it is supposedly taught in a very lucid manner, and the professor got high marks all around.</p>
<p>funny anecdote: if seamus ever finishes proving/solving a complex equation, he might stare out a window. if it was a particularly complex equation, he hums the indiana jones theme song.</p>
<p>Also a prospective physics major…was gonna take 1116 were it not for two things</p>
<ol>
<li>The professor teaching it (supposedly the spring professor is a lot better)</li>
<li>The textbook</li>
</ol>
<p>I got a hold of a copy of the book…some parts require knowledge of vector calculus (ie one part I skimmed mention path dependent line integrals), so the math is MUCH more advanced than a traditional first year physics course. Also, the problems have almost nothing to do with the actual sections, and require a lot of abstract thought. Given that this is first semester freshman year…I wanted to be really careful. I don’t wanna have a rough start to these four years.</p>
<p>Leclair (or however you spell his name) got a lot of high marks for the regular mechanics course, so I’m taking that one. There’s always the option of moving up to honors by taking a small 1 credit special relativity course, so I’m leaving that option open. </p>
<p>Glad to know I’m not alone in this dilemma</p>
<p>I had the same reasoning and did the same thing choosing the french guy’s course (i’m a prospective math major though).</p>