Physics in University

[hallowon]

I got a few questions regarding computer engineering physics classes in university.

How difficult are you finding it?

What concepts are taught?

What was your method of success? if applicable.

[jernst]

I can't comment directly to your question...but you might interested in my answer anyway.

I attended Laurier for my undergrad. There were no separate physics for different disciplines, if we wanted to take physics, we took it with the physics students. I was a CS major. I took a physics minor. In high school I generally had around 80-90s in physics. In university I generally had the same success. It was difficult at times, however to me physics seemed like a good use for all of the math I was taking for CS anyway. As for the concepts taught, well it depends what you take. If you are just talking about a general introduction to physics class, you will get a bit of everything, but in more detail than in high school hopefully. If you specialize more, you can probably take courses on more advanced topics such as optics, quantum mechanics etc.. just take a look at some of the course descriptions on the university websites to get an idea of what they cover. I would say success is physics is very related to your skill in math since physics is really just applied math.

In order to succeed in physics, there seem to be two ways to do it. I've encountered some people who fail to understand how to manipulate formulas and derive equations. These people must memorize all of the useful formulas for their exams. Many (arguably) more successful people are able to manipulate the formulas into new forms and derive equations. This will require good algebra and calculus skills. Either way you do it, you will need lots of practice at doing the problems. The more you do, the more it seems to become mechanical.

If you also have an interest in CS / CE, in my personal experience I have found it helpful (if you have the extra time) to create simulations to try to understand and visualize concepts. Actually these can also be found online and can be very helpful. For some more complicated ideas sometimes the visualization and experimentation can be a valuable aid to understanding.