Does taking calculus based physics make it fun and more understandable, compared to algebra based physics? It seems like the algebra-based physics you don’t go into depth.
Do calc based physics. It’s much more elegant. I took AP Physics B in high school, which was algebra based, and I’m currently taking calc based intro physics in college and it’s SO much better. I definitely like calc based a lot more.
At most you would need calc 1 background for calc based physics.
If your calculus is good, then you will probably like the content of calculus-based physics better.
Of course, the student population in each class is different; if “curve” grading is used, that can affect the competitiveness (even if no “curve” is used for grading, the grading scale and test difficulty may be based on expected student ability that differs between the classes). Calculus-based physics will have mostly physics and engineering majors, who are probably stronger in physics and math than the pre-meds and biology majors who populate non-calculus or light-calculus physics. However, the latter may be more prone to grade grubbing behavior, unless you are at a school where engineering majors start in first year pre-engineering and need to make a high GPA to get into their majors.
@ucbalumnus raises a good point I forgot to mention, there may be different courses of calc based physics at your university. At mine, there are separate calc based physics courses for engineers, life science majors, and actual physics majors.
I had assumed from your post that you meant the kind of calc based physics NOT for physics majors, which is the kind I am currently in.