<p>How is the physics department at Dartmouth? I really haven't seen a lot of info on it on this site and the Dartmouth website really didn't explain much in depth</p>
<p>How large are the intro classes? Does this get much smaller as you continue?</p>
<p>Is it more difficult to study abroad? (from the sample schedule on the website it looked like you were taking one or more physics courses per term, can you do this in a different country?)</p>
<p>Do you have to know before you enter the school that physics is what you want to major in? With many of the prereqs it look like it might be different to do otherwise.</p>
<p>The physics department here is really good - the professors seem solid, there's a lot of good research going on in both physics and astronomy that you can get involved in too. The intro classes are about 70 or 80 students and definitely get smaller in the higher levels - 20, 30, 40 students are the norm.
Is it more difficult to study abroad? Only a little bit. You have some regimented classes, but the good thing about the D-Plan is that the term-long classes cover a semester of material. This means that you could do two physics courses in the fall and winter, for example, followed by a study abroad. The physic major doesn't require too many more courses than other majors, so if you want to study abroad you can definitely work it in - my friend who's a physics major just studied in Argentina on the Spanish foreign study program, for example.</p>
<p>as of now, my daughter is a physics major and she has found her physics and astronomy classes to be challenging and the professors to be, for the most part, very good. at most universities there are not many physics majors so once you get beyond physics classes taken by non physics majors the class size decreases.</p>