Hi everyone. I’m currently an undergraduate student at UT Austin studying Electrical & Computer Engineering. For the Spring Semester of 2019, I have registered for Engineering Physics II (a.k.a PHY 303L). I’ve heard horror stories about how this is a weed-out class and how difficult it is. So I’ve decided to study over winter break and take the Credit By Exam in January so I can claim credit for the class without taking it. I was wondering if anyone knows the difficulty of the exam, and what are the chances of getting credit. Also, do you just need to pass the exam to get credit? Or is there a certain grade. Any curves? All answers are appreciated. Thank you!
I don’t know the answer to your question, but it was a killer class back in 1980, ha! Sounds like it hasn’t changed. When my son entered UT as an engineering major a few years ago, I advised him to take physics at ACC, and he did.
No idea about it being a weed out or not, but so glad I saw this because my daughter is in AP Physics C now and wasn’t sure she wanted to take the AP test, but if she gets a 3 on it, she gets the credit for this course, so I’m definitely encouraging her to do it and be done with it so she doesn’t have to worry about taking the class there later!
Alot of these exams are relatively new. Four years ago you couldn’t even use your SAT Subject Physics test to get credit for mechanics + lab. They only offered a few classes credit by exam. So most of the UT engineering students I know who are seniors took it via ACC summer or used AP Physics C credit. This is a fundamental foundations class to EE + CE so just beware that 6 weeks of studying might make things harder as your classes get more difficult requiring that background. Did your Advisor tell you to do this? Alot of these credit by exam classes are geared towards those who need to take the class but not necessarily for their major. Like ChemE has to fulfill this engineering requirement but Physics isn’t the background they need for future classes.
If you are pursuing ECE degree, I recommend taking the UT on campus physics class.
I took it and it was not super hard.
Good physics and math knowledge are needed to do well in engineering.