<p>I am going to be a freshman at University of Alabama in their engineering program. I have taken two years of general physics including physics B in high school, and I have taken two years of calc, going into calc III. My problem is that PH 125, which is Honors Physics with Calc I is not offered fall semester, but regular PH 105 is, and PH 126, Honors Physics with Calc II is offered. I am currently signed up for PH 126, because we didn't actually meet with our advisers and we registered online in a computer lab at orientation, and PH 126 is listed as Honors Physics w. Calculus, not specifying one or two. I was wondering if it was too ambitious to try and take PH 126 and I should move to PH 105. I don't want to wait until second semester when PH 125 will be open, because I just finished taking high school physics.</p>
<p>Also, PH 105/125 is mechanics, while PH 106/126 is Optics, electricity and magnetism.</p>
<p>I didn’t even know it’s possible. I thought Physics II would require Physics I as a prerequisite class.</p>
<p>Well, I thought it would be, so it wouldn’t let me sign up for it if it was, and it says in our catalog that to take 106 or 126 it requires either 105 or 125, but when I went to sign up, it let me sign up for 126.</p>
<p>Allot of times the enrolling software at my school will let you sign up for a class without having the prereq. The system just doesn’t recognize you do not have the prereq. I am sure phys 1 is a prereq. They do cover very different topics so you may be ok doing it. Maybe be prepared to drop before the deadline? I don’t know what they would do if they found out you had not taken phys one.</p>
<p>I was going to say it doesn’t matter, but this thread on physicsforums convinced me otherwise: [Should</a> I learn Classical Mechanics before Electricity & Magnetism?](<a href=“Should I learn Classical Mechanics before Electricity & Magnetism?”>Should I learn Classical Mechanics before Electricity & Magnetism?)</p>
<p>Try to get in contact with your adviser to see is Physics I is a prerequisite for Physics II. If it is you really shouldn’t try and deal with the complicated graduation requirements and additional courses you might have to take. If they don’t care about prerequisites though, I’d recommend you look at the material covered in Physics I if it’s available. Some professors post their lecture slides, quizzes, exams etc. online. If you feel that you understand that well enough from Physics B and Physics I isn’t a prerequisite, I’d recommend you skip it. I’m in a similar situation where my school offers a sort of combination of Physics I and II (4 credit course but grants 8 credits) for HS students who’ve gotten a 5 on the B exam. The focus looks to be more on the E&M (Physics II) side, as the calculus in the mechanics section (Physics I) is much easier.</p>
<p>Note that many colleges’ course registration systems do not check listed course prerequisites, because it can cause too much inappropriate blocking if they did. Consider the students who have fulfilled prerequisites with courses taken elsewhere (including transfer students), those who self-educated the prerequisite course material, freshman whose AP scores are not yet in, etc…</p>
<p>Seems like they expect most students, including those choosing the honors physics courses, to start physics in the second semester, since most students need to take first semester freshman calculus before starting physics. Starting physics a semester ahead may relax some of your future schedule constraints with respect to future required courses for which physics is a prerequisite for. But taking the courses without the prerequisite knowledge may not be that good an idea.</p>
<p>You may want to check your knowledge against the content of Physics 105 and 125 with the old final exams:</p>
<p><a href=“http://bama.ua.edu/~rschad/teaching/[/url]”>http://bama.ua.edu/~rschad/teaching/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://faculty.mint.ua.edu/~pleclair/ph125/Exams/[/url]”>http://faculty.mint.ua.edu/~pleclair/ph125/Exams/</a></p>