Conversely, when I visit HBCUs, they often talk about their anti-weeding courses. If you come in planning for a STEM major or pre-med, they want you to stick with it. If you get a D on the first chem mid-term, that means it’s time for the tutoring cavalry to come a whip you into shape. Kids sometimes make up 4 years’ worth of science and/or math preparation in the first year of college work. When the institution is committed to bringing everyone along, the kids can do things that seemed impossible.
Probably not in terms of enforced prerequisites, but sometimes, high school physics is listed as a prerequisite even though it may not be enforced.
For example, in http://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/physics/ , Physics 7A (for physics and engineering majors) lists high school physics as a prerequisite, although Physics 8A (for biology and architecture majors) does not. Still, a pre-med taking Physics 8A is likely to be at a disadvantage if s/he never took physics in high school, compared to other pre-meds who have and are competing for limited numbers of A grades.
At another school, as shown at https://catalog.registrar.ucla.edu/ucla-catalog18-19-1179.html , Physics 1A lists high school physics as a recommended prerequisite, although only the math prerequisite is an enforced prerequisite.
At yet another school, as shown at https://www.deanza.edu/physics/courses.html , Physics 2A has an advisory prerequisite of Physics 50 (a course equivalent to high school physics), while Physics 4A requires Physics 50 or high school physics or equivalent. (These are in addition to required math prerequisites.)
At some colleges, prerequisites are not really enforced. My S, who is a freshman in CS major, registered to take the complexity theory class this year without having taken the prerequisite course. He said this is relatively common in his college. I told him to at least take a look at the lecture notes from last year during this winter break.
The colleges that are frequently discussed on here often offer one or more freshman physics class options that require previous knowledge of HS physics and one or more that does not. For example, Stanford offers the 3 freshman physics options listed below. One has no previous physics requirements, one requires high school physics, and one recommends previous exposure to AP physics or equivalent. There is a freshman physics option, regardless of past HS physics background. However, Stanford applicants contemplating an engineering or physics major are generally expected to have taken HS physics. There are also options to catch up in the summer before starting for students with especially weak HS backgrounds.
PHYSICS 21: Mechanics and Heat – Prerequisite: high school algebra and trigonometry; calculus not required. Everyday examples are analyzed using tools of algebra and trigonometry… Problem-solving skills are developed, including verifying that derived results satisfy criteria for correctness…
PHYSICS 41:. Mechanics – Prerequisite: High school physics and MATH 20 or MATH 51 or CME 100 or equivalent. Minimum co-requisite: MATH 21 or equivalent… Discussions based on language of mathematics, particularly vector representations and operations, and calculus. Physical understanding fostered by peer interaction and demonstrations…
PHYSICS 61. Mechanics and Special Relativity – Recommended prerequisites: Mastery of mechanics at the level of AP Physics C and AP Calculus BC or equivalent. Co-requisite: MATH 51 or MATH 61CM or MATH 61DM… This course covers Einstein’s special theory of relativity and Newtonian mechanics at a level appropriate for students with a strong high school mathematics and physics background… Uses the language of vectors and multivariable calculus.
@OHMomof2 my daughter actually loved that Calc 1 class. The professor saw his job as holding fabulous lectures and breaking down the concepts lucidly and clearly. I think the idea is to force the students away from being fixated on grades and more on getting really into the material. They had quizzes but they weren’t graded.
@Hanna that is the reason I am really a fan of HBCUs. They are about really successful teaching. My kids are not Black but I’ve touted HBCUs to them anyway. That’s why they are producing so many of the Black science PhDs.
There was an article years ago about a HBCU in Louisiana if I remember correctly that has a great placement rate into med school - they did a lot of what Hanna described. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/a-prescription-for-more-black-doctors.html Wow, that was easy to find!
@mathmom Sorry not a parent here, but yeah Xavier University!
My question was more to the point of do they require that you have the equivalent of high school physics or that you took physics IN HIGH SCHOOL? Presumably they would accept their own lower level courses as preparation for a more rigid one, for example.
In the example at https://www.deanza.edu/physics/courses.html , the entry level physics courses are:
Physics 2A: for biology majors
Physics 4A: for physics and engineering majors
Physics 10: for students looking for a general education requirement
Physics 50: for students who want to take 2A or 4A but have not had high school physics
So, no, they do not strictly require high school physics because they do offer their own version of high school physics (50) for students who will take the more typical college physics courses (2A or 4A).
However, some other colleges list high school physics as a recommended or advisory prerequisite to their college physics courses, but do not offer a course like Physics 50.
I always find it ironic that many equate good grades with unoriginality and ability to regurgitate information and lack of creativity and intellect. Just accept it, many top scorers are blessed with both. Scoring low isn’t necessarily a natural sign of creativity or intelligence.
To get all As you need to be able to regurgitate information but that doesn’t work for all classes. Some classes will require you to be able to write well, make presentations, do research, analyze data, problem solve, work well with people (for group projects), organize your time well, etc. Colleges typically don’t let you graduate without a wide range of types of classes (some type of core requirements) and therefore you can’t get straight As without a wide range of skills.
Kids who get all As are generally smart. It’s that some smart kids lack any discipline to get good grades at young age. We grow at different speeds and different ways.
Someone mentioned pre-med and organic chem? Just picked up my S1 from his college for his winter break and learned that his organic chem final exam he just took was 22-pages long and took nearly 3 hours to complete. @-)
Isn’t 3 hours a typical college final exam period?
Also, there may be many pages if the exam has pages with a problem and a lot of blank space to write the answer (showing work).
I believe my S1’s final exam in org chem was the longest of all four courses he just completed. I don’t know whether 3-hours per final exam is typical or not, but I’d have to assume that’s all dependent on each course and each college. I remember having to take 7-hours to complete my written final exam when I was in college, so it all depends.
As for the 22-page length, my S2 joked upon hearing his older brother complaining about it, “was there just one question per page?” Joke aside, it sounded like my S1 just survived a very tough course, and I’m perfectly fine not knowing ANYTHING about his pains.
So many boring kids these days. Yep, just hyper focused on the grades and not on the learning. It’s tough. Society has reinforced the stats rather than the learning. Kids don’t have enough options given the costs and the job market on the other end doesn’t guarantee a wage that can pay for an easy life and decent job.
As an employer who has hired often, I’d be VERY wary of a 4.0 kid ( perfectionist tendencies bother me). However, someone with consistently good grades though not perfect and an occasional anomaly would interest me. Why did the the kid take those classes and that major? What did they weave together in interesting ways. How good are their social skills? What are the writing class grades like? Did they diverge from the general curriculum? Why? What is the story?
As a software engineer who notices things about other software products and websites, I’d prefer these companies hire fewer creative people and more perfectionists. Then we might not see so many sites that are painful for end users to deal with while their engineers are able to come up with beautiful interview-ready algorithms in their sleep.
Very interesting development around here. My daughter who has a 2.8 for her first semester at cc was just selected for their hyperselective honors college (100 students are invited to participate out of 30,000). I thought maybe they made a mistake but she went to the info session and they talked about how they don’t base selection so much by grades - they care about whether the students are getting the classes they need to be challenged to their highest potential so they base it more on test scores and teacher recommendations. I thought that was so great.
Congrats.
Thanks @websensation she’s excited because it seems like a really good program - small cohort, intensive interdisciplinary classes that are team-taught. A recent graduate just was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and he has credited his honors courses there with really pushing his intellectual development. She can’t do it full time since she’s majoring in math and doesn’t need as much humanities but she can do the part-time program for her non-major courses. I was so surprised!