<p>I'm a soon-to-be first year student who's been looking through Lou's List, and I want to ask about some of the physics courses.</p>
<p>I'm probably going to be a math major, and I'm Echols, so I don't actually have to take physics, but to confirm that I don't want to do physics, more generally just see what college-level physics is like in college, and to keep open the option of transferring to some schools that expect physics (just in case...), I want to take some physics classes.</p>
<p>I'm somewhat confused as to how the physics classes work, however. There seem to be two intro sequences- 1610, 1620, 2610, 2620, and 2310, 2320. I'm not clear as to why they both exist- 2310/20 seems to correspond to the two parts of AP Physics C, which begs the question of why the four-semester sequence exists. It might be a slower-paced version, but then I don't get why it's recommended for physics majors. If it's more expansive, I'd be worried that the shorter sequence doesn't cover enough.</p>
<p>I don't know how much it matters, though, since (unless something went wrong), I should have gotten at least a four on both parts of the Physics C test, so that I have credit for 2310/20, unless I misunderstand the equivalences (which might be the case, because the page listing AP credit is really confusing for AP Physics). This in turn leads to the question of what I should take this fall. While some of the 3000-level courses look interesting, the interesting-looking ones also require Differential Equations, which I have not taken yet (although I probably will take it next semester).</p>
<p>Is it worth trying to get an exemption from that requirement (if it helps, I have some experience with differential equations already, and I'm generally really good at teaching myself math) to take the 3000-level classes? Should I even be trying to take them at all, or should I just take something else? What would that be? (I'm somewhat suspicious of 3110, "Widely Applied Physics", which doesn't require diff eqs. It looks like a flaky class, except that it has Physics 2620 as a requirement.)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any help.</p>