Engineering Physics has shown me that I do not care enough to pursue engineering

[Mbira]

So I've been taking classes at the local Community College.  I was never good in math the many decades ago that I was in high-school, so I took on the challenge of doing some cramming to test in to Calculus.  I finished Calculus 1 with an A and am currently in Calc 2 and loving it.  It's really cool stuff, and totally up my alley.  I decided to also take Engineering Physics this semester thinking that because I love electronics that I'd keep plugging away on the engineering track in case I want to do a double major (I am pursuing a Music Composition degree),  and man...I hate Physics!  I don't know if it's the horrible teacher (the stereotypical Physics guy that is totally scattered and seems to just have no plan) or the mind-numbing boredom of drawing force diagrams and trying to think of every possible thing that is interacting with an object...only to get the thrill of doing some boring SOHCAHTOA.  But-ugh it is not for me!  I had this understanding tonight when I realized that it's been two days since I've been able to sit down to play piano because I've been dealing with this sh*t.  It's not worth sacrificing my music for Physics!  Thanks for listening, haha.

I am going to look a lot more closely at pure and applied math and see how that would work as a double major with Composition.  The time I put in to math is really enjoyable. 

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I am going to look a lot more closely at pure and applied math and see how that would work as a double major with Composition.  The time I put in to math is really enjoyable.

Don't let yourself be deterred by an inadequate teacher.
Physics is in everyday life. The way we walk, the way we breath, it's pure physics.
I believe that's what gave me confidence that I could do anything I wished, as long as it was not in contradiction with the laws of physics.
Understanding how a guitar "works" has made me able to dispense going to a luthier, when I see my colleagues spending fortunes every month.
I don't know if it has made me a better player though.  ;D
I believe the same would be true regarding the marimba...
Don't give up on physics, just give up on teachers that can't convey enthousiasm.

 

[Mbira]

Well I've been using physics in building marimbas and various other instruments for a really long time, so the actual physical experience of building things and seeing and learning the science behind it has been a part of my bones for a while.  But that has translated less than 0% to what I'm getting out of this class.  oh well!  I'm sure others are made for that-in the same way that they don't like math and I dig it.  Different strokes for different folks. 

 

[john12ax7]

Physics is many things,  so it could be the teacher,  or it could be the subject matter.  If it's the subject matter you still might like other parts, it's a vast field and the foundation for many things.  I didn't care for thermodynamics,  but physics is also acoustics,  quantum mechanics,  astrophysics, electricity and magnetism, and more.

If all you care about is audio circuits you don't really need to do engineering.  Study what speaks to you,  if that's math go for it.  If you like math I would recommend also trying out statistics,  economics,  finance, and more advanced fields like cryptography.  It can open up many lucrative career paths.  Becoming proficient in a programming language would also be a valuable skill.

 

[Bo Deadly]

Physics is the core of almost all science from electronics to biology so if you skip it you're really going to be ad a disadvantage trying to do just about anything else that pays well. So unless you have the connections to become a stock-broker, you really don't want to be the guy holding the short straw these days. Work hard now and you'll be a lot happier later.

Learning anything is all about attitude. You're not going to learn what you don't want to know. As a software engineer it's very important to stay curious and constantly explore the latest stuff even if you think it's garbage (and it usually is). Pretend you're having fun. Think positive. That might sound stupid but we do it all the time. There's some activity that's actually kinda boring but everyone talks it up like it's the best experience ever - "Oh, lets walk the High Line and it will be great and it's so pretty. Yeah!". It's just an old subway platform converted into a walkway with some grass growing along the sides.

It takes time for your brain to literally grow the new connections that makeup your understanding of something. No matter how hard to try to understand something, you won't really feel comfortable about it unless you think about it repeatedly over a span of a few days or even weeks. Try this exercise: Study one of your Physics problems intently for just 5 minutes. Every 2 hours or so stop whatever it is you're doing, find a quiet place and try to recall what you were studying. Try to recall the parts of the problem that you do understand and how it relates to the parts you do not. If you have your materials, sit down and study the problem intently for 5 minutes again. Repeat. Make sure you think about it for bit when you go to bed at night and when you're wake up in the morning. After a few days of this, your brain will literally start to change and build a new understanding. Long periods of staring at your materials will not work nearly as well. You're much better off focusing like a laser on it for shorter periods and then work on something else.

 

[JohnRoberts]

So I've been taking classes at the local Community College.  I was never good in math the many decades ago that I was in high-school, so I took on the challenge of doing some cramming to test in to Calculus.  I finished Calculus 1 with an A and am currently in Calc 2 and loving it.  It's really cool stuff, and totally up my alley.  I decided to also take Engineering Physics this semester thinking that because I love electronics that I'd keep plugging away on the engineering track in case I want to do a double major (I am pursuing a Music Composition degree),  and man...I hate Physics!  I don't know if it's the horrible teacher (the stereotypical Physics guy that is totally scattered and seems to just have no plan) or the mind-numbing boredom of drawing force diagrams and trying to think of every possible thing that is interacting with an object...only to get the thrill of doing some boring SOHCAHTOA.  But-ugh it is not for me!  I had this understanding tonight when I realized that it's been two days since I've been able to sit down to play piano because I've been dealing with this sh*t.  It's not worth sacrificing my music for Physics!  Thanks for listening, haha.

I am going to look a lot more closely at pure and applied math and see how that would work as a double major with Composition.  The time I put in to math is really enjoyable.

I love physics (its the law), but I experienced a horrible physics teacher teacher (at Northeastern in the 1960s). He was a apparently a ski bum who would arrive to lectures late, borrow a text from a student , and ask if there were any questions. We learned that if we had no questions we could get released early. 

He threw me out of one lecture for yawning... he was that interesting.  I used the opportunity to take advantage of all the empty Hollerith punch card machines to do my Fortran homework, because all my fellow classmates were in the lecture.

If you have a crappy teacher try again, physics is beautiful and not burdened down by opinions.

Speaking of calculus (I failed that twice), but I found calculus derivatives and integrals useful for transforming motion equations between, position, velocity, rate of change, etc. Easier than memorizing all three equations. 

JR

 

[emrr]

My mother was a college math department head, but could never answer ‘why’ about it, and I have to know that first.  I really couldn’t get on with any schooling in general.  I know what I know from figuring it out as I need it.  Horrible in many ways.  I have no official qualifications in anything.  As a result I’ve never had a job working for someone else since high school. Everyone has their own path. 

 

[kambo]

i studied engineering of physics!
its is crazy deep and endless subject to study!
we had lecture books 4" thick from electrical engineering department to machine language to quantum to etc etc! you freaking name it!
you get to learn a lot of stuff you hate at first, but they all make sense later in other
subjects / lectures you take!

you need to be patient!
after you study engineering of physics you can study any other engineering in your sleep.

 

[Matador]

What is it about physics that you don't like?

EE is all about applying physics (Maxwell's equations) and math (i = C dv/dt, which comes from physics), so if you understand the underlying principles of physics you get many other science subjects "for free".

I remember clearly an epiphany I had in my third year of EE:  when drawing a force diagram in a mechanical engineering class they showed that the force D on a damped spring is: D = R dy/dt where R is the damping factor. 

This is the same equation as current through a capacitor being proportional to the change in voltage, or the voltage of an inductor being proportional to the change in current.  In fact, circuit diagrams are just force diagrams, with different names for things: velocity can be thought of as voltage (it is applied over a distance, just as voltage is applied over nodes), and force can be thought of as current (current flows through a component, just as force flows through a spring).  A force applied to a mass, causes it to change position, just as a current into a capacitor causes the voltage across it to change.

Once you get these fundamental physics properties you unlock pretty must ever other science (with the notable exception of perhaps quantum mechanics).

 

[Mbira]

Context is everything, and I should have given more. I actually love physics itself-but pretty much only when it’s applied. Also, I have been self employed for so long that I’d be a HORRIBLE employee, so I have no interest in pursuing anything in order to be more attractive as an employee. Anything I’m learning is purely for my own pursuits.

The biggest context that I left out is that we are completely virtual. That has turned out to work very well for me in math, but for the physics...especially the “lab”, we are watching videos and copying data from PDFs in order to then just sit and crunch numbers in small breakout groups. Those groups consist of kids that are 25 years younger than me with their cameras and mics turned off so I’m just sitting there saying what I think in to the void and getting text responses like “yep” and “k cool”.

So when things go back to in person I may try it again, or I may not...

 

[JohnRoberts]

yup education is pretty compromised these days but you can learn a lot from books and the WWW:

One book I really enjoyed reading (I gave away my copy) is https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Teacup-Physics-Everyday-Life/dp/0393355470/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Helen+Czerski&qid=1612548798&sr=8-1 Apparently her dad was a big dog physicist but she knows her stuff, and connects the dots between theoretical physics and real world phenomenon.
===
After I got out of the army I did take one night school course in semiconductor physics, and that teacher who had a day job as a working engineer didn't suck. I dropped out of that class too, when I got a good job offer in another state.

JR

 

[kambo]

one thing about engineering of physics, you never have to memorize any of the complicated formulas,
you re create/calculate along the way as you needed, u just memorize basic fundamentals!

 

[NOON]

I had a great physics teacher in high school and got top marks. First year at university and they were pretty much repeating the same content for those that didn't do it at high school, but the lecturer was so bad I was getting confused about things I previously understood well. After a couple of lectures I stopped going and just sat the exam at the end after skimming the textbook as a refresher and got great marks, especially vs those who bothered to attend the lectures. Moral of the story, a bad teacher can destroy an otherwise interesting and useful subject, as others have pointed out.

 

[fazer]

A bad teacher is a bored teacher.  I loved history in jr high and high school.  I hated history in Collage Where 300 people set in an auditorium with a bored professor to screen out people.  Collage needs a reinvent.  But for me that was 50 years ago.  Good teachers motivate you to see the greatness of the subject.  They don’t just give out grades.  I like Kahn academy for instruction.  Great short videos with a trick to remember the important points.  Teachers can then help people with homework.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I had a great physics teacher in high school and got top marks. First year at university and they were pretty much repeating the same content for those that didn't do it at high school, but the lecturer was so bad I was getting confused about things I previously understood well. After a couple of lectures I stopped going and just sat the exam at the end after skimming the textbook as a refresher and got great marks, especially vs those who bothered to attend the lectures. Moral of the story, a bad teacher can destroy an otherwise interesting and useful subject, as others have pointed out.

I forgot about HS, I had a really good Physics teacher in HS (Mr Goodyear).

Kind of opposite from where I live now, I grew up in a wealthy suburb of NYC in North NJ. They taught us biology in the 9th grade, chemistry in the 10, Physics in the 11th, and ran out of stuff to teach us senior year. I did manage to fail calculus my first time that year.

JR

 

[Squeaky]

Quite a few years after I graduated from my science degree, I saw my one of my old mathematics professors at the supermarket. I said hello to him in a friendly way and told him he taught me undergraduate pure mathematics. He looked embarrassed and apologised to me saying that he was a terrible lecturer. He was probably correct, but he was far from the worst. I recall sometimes just trying to keep up with the pace of the lecturer rapidly writing the formulae on the enormous double sliding blackboards. Greek characters, subscripts, superscripts, illegible handwriting... No time to think about the content or what the lecturer was saying. The failure rate was so high that they used to mark pure mathematics papers out of 120 (6 x 20 mark questions). However, you only needed to get 50 marks for a pass.

 

[john12ax7]

To be a professor the requirement is knowledge of the subject matter. The ability to explain the subject matter has no bearing on it,  so you get a very wide dispersion in teachers.

 

[rackmonkey]

In grad school (biochemistry) we used to say that all biologists think they’re chemists; all chemists think they’re physicists; all physicists think they’re mathematicians; and all mathematicians think they’re god.

The bigger point being that it’s all connected, and as physics sits near the top of the heap, it unlocks understanding of everything below it (or above it, if you’re looking at it foundationally).

(I never finished that grad degree. All it took was a call about a great tour opportunity. We all take our own path. No regrets)

 

[fazer]

https://www.khanacademy.org

I recommend khan academy for tutorials.  Very well done.  And Free.  Lots of content here.  If your in collage or choose to side step the rigors.  Also study the subjects your interested in. 

The discipline required is just like practicing a new instrument.  Scheduled practice might be the only way to further your knowledge.

Try some coursework in math to help with your physics studies.  I’ll 

 

[Mbira]

https://www.khanacademy.org

Khan is great.  Also check out the "Organic Chemestry Tutor" youtube channel.  They both complement eachother very well.  Khan is great for teaching and OCT is great for doing lots of different practice problems.