I’m at a community college in North Carolina. I’ve got General Chemistry II and Statistics remaining—but I’ll stay two more years so I can take Calculus and Physics classes in a cheap and lax fashion. You see, I am not sure of myself and to be honest I’ve had to withdraw from math and science more than once.
Eventually I plan to use UNC Charlotte as a “stepping stone” — lax admissions criteria & better for me an average student
with little competitive gumption. I want to major in Physics and go on to a graduate school for Condensed Matter Physics; Faculty at Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, and NCSU are researching nanofabrication, quantum electronics, graphene based microprocessors----these are why I want to study Physics.
Will I be at a disadvantage if I take the route of UNC Charlotte (a school of lax enterance criteria) to Duke, NCSU, UNCCH—all top competitive graduate schools for my interests? I just didn’t take my first year of community college seriously and I think I am learning disabled. That’s the part that I think is hurting my chances of ever making it into condensed matter physics.
First of all, it is nice to dream of going to specific graduate schools but it is a long road and you might find that you will get into other programs besides the ones you are thinking about now. It is more important now to concentrate on getting serious about your CC studies so that you can get be very well prepared when you transfer to complete your physics degree.
Where you get your physics degree is not as important as how well you do in your academics, your GRE scores, and getting very strong letters of recommendation form research mentors. Get as much research experience as you can and then apply to a range of schools with the kinds of research you are interested in. There are lots of good programs out there.
Xraymancs is right about undergrad research being important for grad schools, and about needing a very solid foundation in calculus and physics classes. Make good use of whatever tutoring centers your CC provides so that you can complete the classes you need.
At some universities, nanofabrication and graphene based microprocessors would be in the Materials Engineering department or in an interdisciplinary program with professors from various engineering/physics/chemistry departments. If by quantum electronics, you mean quantum computing, that can overlap with physics, CS, electrical engineering, and mech engineering.