Physics major but I don’t think she has what it takes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got a 1 on both physics 1 and 2, and a 3 on physics C mechanics. I am now going into a PhD program for physics at a school you’d approve of.

It’s a slow journey and you shouldn’t expect that people who do well in the beginning are actually better at physics. Linear algebra is a difficult class in general and makes sense to a lot of physics majors when they take upper division quantum mechanics. Don’t kill your daughters dreams just because she isn’t perfect.

This is impractical advice. For every one of you there are 100s of students who changed their major while blowing up their gpa or dropped out. Yes, you can argue that persistence, maturation, and college environment can (and often do) enable kids to persevere and succeed, but someone, especially a parent, has to let a kid know what they're up against. When she gets to college, there are going to be plenty of freshmen who can ace lower level math and physics classes so the question is going to be whether this will be a motivating or discouraging force.

Other than struggling with some classes, how is she doing otherwise? Does she still have a positive attitude? There are many free online courses she should try out to see if she can get a better handle on the concepts. See how she does without worrying about grades. GL to her.

This is impractical advice if she doesn’t actually like physics. Not every physicist is Susskind- there are physicists who weren’t perfect throughout undergrad.

Physics isn’t specially different from other majors. You can struggle and still be successful- if you don’t like struggling, STAY AWAY FROM A PHYSICS MAJOR. Even the best students will have a moment where they realize a problem is too hard for them. I dont think high school physics is any actual measure of your ability to be a physicist- but it does help in the intro courses. Luckily, colleges today have so many resources to improve in your quantitative skills.

You really lack reading comprehension skills. Read it again or run it through a chatbbot. Nowhere does it say to do physics if you don't like it. The assumption from OP is that she does like it. So the advice was to weigh her current ability against her motivation/perseverance, and take some free classes online to see if the understanding comes. Literally, "try it out with zero consequences and see if you get it."

You actually agree with me, but just want to be combative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

? I mean, it's meaningless in terms of interest, but it shows that they at least understood the material.

My kid doesn't really like physics but got a 5 on the AP exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

? I mean, it's meaningless in terms of interest, but it shows that they at least understood the material.

My kid doesn't really like physics but got a 5 on the AP exam.

Luckily high school is nothing like college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

? I mean, it's meaningless in terms of interest, but it shows that they at least understood the material.

My kid doesn't really like physics but got a 5 on the AP exam.

No, I mean a 5 is meaningless in understanding. The tests can be crammed for and you can do well just by looking at prep books. It doesn't test understanding as well as it should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

? I mean, it's meaningless in terms of interest, but it shows that they at least understood the material.

My kid doesn't really like physics but got a 5 on the AP exam.

No, I mean a 5 is meaningless in understanding. The tests can be crammed for and you can do well just by looking at prep books. It doesn't test understanding as well as it should.

Sorry, but there is no way to cram for AP physics and not understand at least some of it. You can cram for APUSH or APGov and not really understand it, but something like physics, you have to understand some of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine interest, curiosity and self-motivation will always prevail over test scores. My son has 5s on Physics C and 5 on Calc BC. But he is empty and careless. He only wants to go into engineering to earn money. Physics theorems do not keep him up at night. Or at any time. No genuine interests in anything. I would be less concerned about his future if he had lower AP grades in exchange for that true spark of sincerity and real fascination with what he intends to study. I believe in your daughter!

A 5 on the AP is meaningless.

? I mean, it's meaningless in terms of interest, but it shows that they at least understood the material.

My kid doesn't really like physics but got a 5 on the AP exam.

Luckily high school is nothing like college.

I would imagine the advanced college level physics courses are harder than AP physics in HS. Granted, the student can build upon knowledge, but if they are struggling with physics 101, which is really what AP physics is, then they may have a difficult time with the harder physics courses.

[Anonymous]

OP high schools are so inconsistent in quality and curriculum that she may in fact end up being successful in physics. Look for schools that are smaller or ranked higher for teaching instruction. Search deep into things like rate my professor and even Reddit to figure out whether the professors and TAs in the department are good at teaching.

I’d also suggest that she step back a level in college even if this means taking what is labeled two level lower than what she did in high school. She may lack foundation or not be used to being actually tested. If she is from MCPS then she’s probably had horrible math instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

If you can't use calculus to elucidate basic principles of physics, it's unlikely your journey is going much further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

I imagine plenty of born physicists might have been turned off on the field upon being thrown the SUVAT equations to memorize before even seeing a velocity-time diagram.

I know many physicists who believe introductory physics is harder to learn without calculus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

I imagine plenty of born physicists might have been turned off on the field upon being thrown the SUVAT equations to memorize before even seeing a velocity-time diagram.

I know many physicists who believe introductory physics is harder to learn without calculus.

Because it is ridiculous to create a course where students essentially have to run purely off their physical intuition, because you aren't giving them the tools (mathematics) that drives that intuition. Calculus is such an important tool for physics that Physics 1 basically tests a very narrow set of what physics looks like,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

Preach!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Harvey Mudd for physics?

? Not with those grades in physics. Are you serious?

Why? Is physics at Harvey Mudd more demanding than UMD/UVA?

Look at the acceptance rate. And that's despite the selection bias of it being a much more niche school than T20s