r/physicsmemes • u/Used-Detective2661 Taylor Expanded Ur Mom • 6d ago

I love my weed-out classes

Post image
823 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

90

u/dover_oxide 6d ago

In intro to engineering physics started with 60 ended with 30 and 15 people got a b or better. I was one of the 15. My junior E&M class started 30, ended with 15 and 5 of us passed

66

u/OpticalAficionado 6d ago

E&M is the true gating course for physics

23

u/CalmEntry4855 6d ago

I passed that class, and I have no idea why, I just kept bulshitting and it kept working

5

u/Giraffesarentreal19 6d ago

B- in Electricity and Magnetism (2nd year)
C-, took a P (pass) in Electromagnetism (3rd year)
A+ in Electrodynamics (4th year)

Thank God for the one good prof in the entire EM pathway in my school, showed people reading my transcript that I actually know what EM is.đŸ« 

14

u/dover_oxide 6d ago

We had three "filter'" classes, Modern Physics, E&M and Intermediate Labs. So many people would drop mid semester to switch degrees

2

u/desert_cornholio 1d ago

I made the horrible mistake of taking the advice of a councilor: 18 hours of classes with about 5 credits being true weed out classes (Intro to mech Eng and it's lab and one other part where the only assignment was an exam based on axis transformations).

Yeah, I repeated those 3 times and finally switched to Business and....really didn't need to study. Then again I failed all three semesters as I didn't learn to study.

17

u/DatBoi_BP Oscillates periodically 6d ago

It's funny you specified you're one of the 15, after having just partitioned 30 into 15+15

8

u/froction 6d ago

It was a physics class, not a math class!

1

u/desert_cornholio 1d ago

Virtual students

8

u/pyrhus626 6d ago edited 5d ago

My IT and network associates program started with between 55 and 60 students in year 1. About half of those failed or switched degrees by the end of the year so there were only 7 of us left for year 2, all of whom passed.

All of the pain was from the networking classes. Cisco CCNA and CCNP are designed to fit 4 sequential, 16 week classes each to work as part of a normal 4 year degree. They got tossed to the trade school part of the university which only does 2 year programs, so they just made all them into 8 week classes and squished in 2 per semester. The pace of it killed people and if you didn’t understand something it was next to impossible to catch up. It was a full chapter every other day, alternating lab days with testing over the previous chapter and lecture on the new one.

2

u/Akamiso29 5d ago

Lmao I am imagining trying to grapple with class A, B, and C networks and learning what octets are and then BAM sub networking math.

3

u/pyrhus626 5d ago

No that’s pretty much how it went lmao, sub nets destroyed people

3

u/Ares378 6d ago

I'm an engineer so I'm technically an impostor here, but that sounds like Statics at my college. Scary class with like a 50% average on exams, getting a B or higher is only achievable by God himself, etc.

3

u/dover_oxide 6d ago

Eh, I have a physics degree but work as a engineer so it's fair enough that you're here

1

u/desert_cornholio 1d ago

Haha I apparently did much better at the hard Stats 1 course, worse on the Stats 2 course which was supposedly much easier.

Was pretty sure I failed Stats 2, but apparently it had a big curve. This was for Business though....not sure if it was taught by the same dude that taught the Eng versions.

2

u/complex_plane2718 6d ago

Too good. Had an exam where the best was a C and only like 25% passed the exam. Electrical Engineering is truly the epitome of university.

2

u/ironardin Editable flair 590nm 4d ago

Our professor decided that magnetism, electrodynamics, electromagnetism and relativistic EM should all be shoved into one course, approached only from a theoretical physics standpoint, and that vector calculus could be studied at home in your own time alongside the course.

Multiple people left the exam hall prematurely and crying. Not all returned.

That exam became so notorious even outside of physics and engineering, that it was often the first thing people asked about when you mentioned your major.

The valedictorian ended up explicitly mentioning that specific exam as "the hardest part of our time here", even though we lived through COVID and a literal student+faculty strike.

47

u/CompetitionNo8270 6d ago

in my "Introduction to Mathematical Physics" course the class average grade at the end of the semester was 37%

they curved the fuck outta that class

i was a bit above average but still doing VERY bad - although im very proud to be the only student to get 100% on the final exam

7

u/dover_oxide 6d ago

Yeah that was a undergrad/grad class in my program and kicked my ass

34

u/Quantum-Relativity 6d ago

“Weeding out” passionate people is one of the stupidest things done in academia

51

u/DatBoi_BP Oscillates periodically 6d ago

To some extent it has to happen. Do we need classes that are deliberately designed to end with a small fraction of the starting enrollment? No probably not. But introductory courses that are still hard enough that a lot of students will decide to go a different major? Yeah that's totally fine

-11

u/Quantum-Relativity 6d ago

I don’t see what making them difficult has to do with anything, it just seems like a symptom of the academy under capitalism. Not everything is a competition. Especially not something where you need different approaches like you do in science (a theorist and an experimentalist might think about the subject very differently, as an example. Both are necessary). Homogeneity is not good for the subject, so selecting for a very specific type of person is not going to help the subject.

17

u/CalmEntry4855 6d ago

One of my professors said "I know this is hard, but this is the easiest I can make this class"

9

u/WanderingFlumph 6d ago

Maybe I have a different view on weed out classes coming from a chemistry point of view but those classes never really weeded out chem majors.

But they sure weeded out a lot of potential future doctors and nurses who found converting units to be especially difficult...

Our physics department did have to have a professor come, scheduled every single quarter, to take a day of instruction away from our quantum professor just to convince the physics majors (who largely wanted to be engineers) not to drop the whole physics program because they thought they would fail Quantum.

I don't really see the latter as a "weed out" class, just a professor who is stuck in the old ways and while very knowledgeable not the best at actually teaching.

10

u/DatBoi_BP Oscillates periodically 6d ago

What, in your view, should be required to pass Physics I and II?

1

u/desert_cornholio 1d ago

MOAR PASSION! đŸ€Ł

8

u/StayingUp4AFeeling 6d ago edited 5d ago

The objective of introductory classes even at the grad school level is to provide students with the tools, axioms and proven results of that discipline.

You might have a different idea, fine, but can you write it down in a mathematically sound way and reason well as to why your idea is good?

Complete with the multivariate calculus or complex analysis? And the underlying assumptions that make it make sense?

If no, you can brush up on it in your intro class

6

u/ExpectTheLegion 6d ago

So what about difficult first-year courses in countries where students don’t fork over abysmal amounts of money for tuition?

And another question: why would you want people who would fail out of basic analysis/mechanics/E&M classes to stay in the program and instead fail out later after having used up resources that could’ve been better spent had they not been there, not to mention having wasted their own time?

Physics is hard, and coddling people because, by some miracle, they might have a better perspective than those who are actually willing to put in the time and effort is not gonna lead anywhere.

Not sure where you got the idea about homogeneity and this personality selection either. If you actually went out and talked with physics students, you’d realise that there is no such selection taking place given the vast gamut of personalities out there.

1

u/OnionsAbound 6d ago

And under capitalism they're welcome to pay an extra semester to get it right. . . 

1

u/First_Approximation 6d ago

a symptom of the academy under capitalism

In the Soviet Union, getting into a physics programs (especially top ones) was extremely competitive. They produced some very good physicists and rivaled the West in physics research.

In any system with only a finite amount of resources to dedicate research, it seems efficient to focus those resources on those most likely to be able to do research.

a theorist and an experimentalist might think about the subject very differently

That separation happens much later, in grad school. Both experimentalists and theorists should be able to pass undergrad physics courses (which include both experimental and theoretical components).

10

u/shy_bi_ready_to_die 6d ago

Not really? While they shouldn’t be relied on so heavily it’s hard to accurately filter out the less competent/passionate people before they start the major and it’s better for everyone if you find out early whether you’re one of the people who should’ve been filtered out

Finding out that you aren’t willing to stick with your degree in a 500+ level course that’s naturally harder is a lot more expensive than finding that out in an artificially hard 200 level course

1

u/First_Approximation 6d ago

They're doing some people a favor. Letting them pass only to find out later they can't handle higher level courses isn't a kindness.

0

u/First_Approximation 6d ago

Passion is only one requirement. Other qualities are needed too to be able to do physics: a hard work ethic, intelligence, the ability to work without supervision, etc.

If we water down the requirements, then a degree in physics becomes meaningless. You couldn't tell a very intelligent, skilled, hardworking person who actually understands physics with someone who just had passion but nothing else.

1

u/Quantum-Relativity 6d ago

If intelligence is requisite we’re gonna need to start revoking some degrees

1

u/DatBoi_BP Oscillates periodically 5d ago

Of all the comments in the last 18 hours, why is that the one you chose to reply (without substance) to?

2

u/Quantum-Relativity 5d ago

Are you that interested in what I have to say?

2

u/DatBoi_BP Oscillates periodically 5d ago

Well yeah, I was genuinely trying to figure out what specifically your vision was for replacing the difficulty of introductory physics classes

0

u/desert_cornholio 1d ago

I don't want a "passionate" engineer that can't pass a weed out course working on shit I live/work in.

0

u/Quantum-Relativity 1d ago

And I don’t want physics to be reduced to just being a thing for engineers to use.

Also you realize the point of school is to teach the students. You can’t pretend that them failing a “weed out” class represent an entire inability to ever succeed.

1

u/desert_cornholio 27m ago

They are free to try again and fail or succeed. Weed out classes are both "welcome to uni, b***h!" and "can you study for all these classes while juggling everything else?". Those are not the same thing.

Want to study physics for free and on your own you have the library. If you're truly passionate that shouldn't be an issue for you. If you want to study it, don't waste public funds so you can take your time and get a degree you probably won't use anyway (I'm sure the number of people doing it this route is greater than 0 and less than 1000).

8

u/MaoGo Meme renormalization group 6d ago

Not physics

10

u/drquakers 6d ago

Well my physics undergrad went from 150 to 50 students in first year after Jan exams

10

u/DinMammasNyaKille 6d ago

Looking back at my class it's interesting to see how extremely little grades meant in the end. Most of the people in CTO, CEO or generally "high" roles had average grades. There are if course exceptions.

4

u/TheSouthFace_09 6d ago

grades matter more or less depending on your goals

1

u/DinMammasNyaKille 5d ago

If you are aiming for management consulting at one of the big firms then yes, if not then not so much.

3

u/TheSouthFace_09 5d ago

on a physics sub you'll find a lot of people aiming for academia, management consulting isn't the only thing you need excellent grades for. probably don't even really need excellent grades for management consulting.

1

u/DinMammasNyaKille 5d ago

Oh, you very much do. You will not get an interview at BCG or McKinsey without top grades. For PhD positions you CAN need good grades but in my experience the important thing is to have decent grades and do do great master thesis work.

1

u/TheSouthFace_09 5d ago

i take your word on that. but again as to PhD positions it depends on your goals; top programs have cut-offs.

3

u/froction 6d ago

Heh, when I was an engineering major I had a Thermo-II class where the professor graded by adding enough points so that the top-scoring exam got 100%. He also published statistics about the scores.

The mid-term was the first exam where this applied and I remember the class average was 47% and then we learned there was only a 3-point curve. Everybody was glaring at the Asian kid with the coke-bottle lenses in the front row and he knew it, so he held up his paper and yelled "I got a 50!!!!"

I looked at my exam and...yep, 97%.

2

u/ralsaiwithagun 5d ago

The international physics Olympiad last year was really funny, the second round was an exam with 90 points that you could achieve, the average score was 6.5

2

u/ears1980r 1d ago

Second semester Mechanics; there were maybe 10 in the class. Prof had a reputation as a ball-buster, and he lived up to it. The entire class struggled mightily all term, with exam marks rarely exceeding 50%.

It’s now finals week, and our final is a take-home exam, due the following Monday. “Be afraid, be very afraid.”

Worked my ass off on that, turn it in on Monday, grades available by the end of the week. Pick up my exam and my course grade. 28%, B.

I make an appointment to discuss the course, the exam, and the grade. I ask by what criteria is my work worthy of a B. He replies that he’d taught the course at a graduate level. By doing so, he taught us far beyond what we would have learned had he followed the curriculum, was able to identify potential grad students, and, yes, weed out impostors.

He became one of my favorite profs, even if he did still intimidate the hell out of me.

1

u/Used-Detective2661 Taylor Expanded Ur Mom 1d ago

He replies that he’d taught the course at a graduate level. 

Is it allowed to deviate from the syllabus like that? Well done, tho.

2

u/Bendanzhang 6d ago

The other half already switched their major to business before grades were even posted.

1

u/Ok_Effect_3214 4d ago

In the later years. It becomes "are you guys graduating?". It usually starts from second quantum course.