I will be an upcoming junior this fall, and I currently am enrolled to take the AP Physics C: Mechanics course my junior year. I know that this course will be calculus based and it is one of the harder physics courses offered in high school. Before signing up, the teachers have said that taking the calculus course as a co-requisite should be fine. Indeed, I will also be taking AP Calculus AB alongside this class, so should I be fine?
This is my first AP physics class that I would take. I have a strong foundation in math and I am interested in pursuing the engineering field. Should I be worried about not knowing the calculus concepts for the class? I’m not too sure the required calculus concepts I will need for the physics c class will be covered before in my calc ab class.
If anyone has taken ap physics c alongside with calc ab with not much prior physics knowledge, how was it?
This really depends on how common it is in your school to do it that way. In my physics class, about half of us had taken Calculus (myself included) and half of us had not. My teacher was aware of this and made sure to briefly explain the concepts required. If most, or all, of the students, in your class have not completed calculus, this explanation will probably be more thorough.
In my school, the people who hadn’t taken calculus had to learn the concepts in physics (wasn’t covered in calc AB until later) and they survived. In fact, they said it made certain calculus tests a lot easier.
I’d say that the class will be harder than if you had taken Calc AB last year, but you will be fine if you put in the extra work and make yourself comfortable asking the teacher for extra help.
Also, my AP physics score was not one of my favorites, but this was more of a senioritis issue for me, and TBH I don’t regret not studying more.
Thanks for your comment. So as long as the teacher explains the calculus concepts briefly and I put in the extra effort, it should not be too disastrous?
In my opinion, you really won’t be that well prepared. AP Calculus AB’s basic concepts- derivatives (of trig/special functions), integrals, limits, etc. are all vital to understanding the content of AP Physics C. You might need to do a bit of self-studying for these concepts, but at least AP Calculus AB will be easier for you