<p>Should I take both my senior year, or should I take Mechanics my junior year (next year) and E&M my senior year? Note that I have to take E&M online.</p>
<p>Your preference, really. There’s not too much material in common, so it’s not like you’ll forget a lot of important stuff if you do E&M as a senior. If you think the workload as a junior would be too much with both parts, then do E&M as a senior.</p>
<p>(I did both last year, and I got a 4 on E&M because I had to study for too many useless APs…)</p>
<p>The AP Physics C: Mechanics exam covers various topics that you would see in a calculus based freshman physics class in college, such as kinematics, Newton’s laws, work, energy, momentum, rotational mechanics, statics, gravitation, and simple harmonic motion. It’s pretty difficult by itself, but it’s usually covered in one semester in schools. The second semester of Physics C deals with electricity and magnetism. All in all, it’s a pretty challenging course, especially if you don’t consider yourself relatively proficient in calculus. Although you won’t have to set up that many integrals during the exam, an understanding of basic single variable calculus will help you understand the concepts behind the physics, especially in E&M when you start going over things like Gauss’s Law. A good textbook like Young/Freedman’s “University Physics” and a Princeton Review book for AP Physics C should suffice along with your class.</p>
<p>With that said, most high school students that I know of take it over two semesters during one year, as AP Physics C, and then simply take both exams on the same day in May. If you’re seeing physics for the first time, it may be a little overwhelming. However, if you’ve taken AP Physics B and passed the AP exam, then you should have sufficient preparation to take it in one year. If you only take the mechanics portion as a junior, then you will have to take a different class during the second semester because you won’t be enrolled in physics anymore. As someone pointed out, there isn’t a huge amount of overlap between the two exams, but understand that they’re meant to be taken right after each other. In addition, if you take the E&M portion this year, then it will show up on your transcript in time for college applications and colleges will appreciate that you were taking a rigorous course load. If you think you can handle the work, I say go for it; just know it won’t be a walk in the park. It will, however, teach you a tremendous amount about how the world works and really open your eyes to the wonderful world of physics.</p>