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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 7/2/2011
Posts: 15
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My underlying purpose in life is to become a Physicist, I know it, but I hear that the courses I want to apply to make it impossible to do so. What's your opinion on the difficulty of UofT's Math and Physics Specialization course and UW's Mathematical Physics course? I've heard that it was outrageously hard, as in 99 average kids barely passing. I feel as if i'm a mathematically inclined person, and I could wrap my head around any concept with time and practice, but i'm no genius who can reiterate special relativity and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism on command, at least not yet ;) So for anyone who is in the same boat as I am, or currently in the course, i'd LOVE some input (:
Btw, I've heard from physicists themselves that the job outlook is rough as well. Less than half of the kids they give PhD's to don't get a job in academia or in the industry, and there's no way that i'm settling for less then a physicist/astrophysicist. Again, input would be appreciated.
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Rank: Student Council
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 320
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Hi, I'm in UTSG math and physics. This website is a better place to ask your questions: http://www.physicsforums.com/
Don't be intimidated by "horror stories". Universities design their courses and programs to train you and make you learn, not to fail you. Also, that you even know Maxwell's equations probably put you ahead of most of the freshmen here... From talking to some of the profs here it seems that whether you can get a good job in academia depends much more on your grad school and area of research rather than your undergrad. But I'm not authoritative on this.
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 7/2/2011
Posts: 15
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HAHA, I use it as well!! The world of physics really is a small world!
Anyways, what's your feel for the course? If it's the only course that I can apply to at UofT, I hope that it's worth it.
@Hamster, AHA, we shall! Are you in grade 12 as well? Well we'll definitely be a formidable force :P
@Xiao, How do you find the course? I also second hamsters questions on the average of our class. How are you doing? How do you find it? I'm really interested on hearing your input because I have a funny feeling that it won't be a horror story of any sort (:
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Rank: Student Council
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 320
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Hi. It's only been a little over two weeks in school so my opinions on the difficulty of this program may soon change.
I cannot give an average GPA for my program because everyone is taking different courses. I can tell you about some of the courses I'm taking though. In your first year you are expected Mat157, Phy151/152 and optionally Mat240.
Mat157 is very difficult in terms of content. We derived the cubic and quartic formulas in the week first of class. There are no calculation-type problems, and we do not cover how to take limits and derivatives of things in class. You are expected to be able to pick those up on your own. However in terms of evaluation the course is not difficult. The test questions are not very difficult and in fact a large number of them are taken straight from the textbook, and ample time is given- usually 2 hours for 5-6 questions. I was an average student at math in high school, but I have over 100% right now in the course thanks to bonus assignments.
Phy151/152 is sort of a joke. If you went to a non-crapty high school, then you will find almost the entire course to be a review of high school mechanics. If you were good enough to place in things like POPTOR or CAP then you should be able get 100% on the exam without ever showing up for class. The only thing I should mention is that the labs are stupid, and if you have a crapty TA then you can expect to only get 70s in the labs no matter what you do because the expectations are dumb. You have to design and carry out an experiment, perform rigorous statistical analyses of results, write a full lab report and answer questions all in under 3 hours, while having to deal with crapty equipment. Luckily labs are only worth 25% of your mark.
Mat240 is extremely difficult. In fact I think U of T should probably stop allowing first-year students to take this course straight out of high school. In this course you will deal with very abstract mathematics. However the grading is lax and I think past averages have been in the B to B+ range. If you can ace this course then you would probably do well in in the Putnam. Incidentally, I have found that the more difficult a course is, the higher the average GPA tends to be.
Anyway I encourage you to follow your ambitions. Do not be scared by those "horror stories". The Math and Physics program isn't pre-med, the university isn't trying to weed you out. Besides, in every program there will be people who skip all their classes and still get 90s, and there will also be people who are working hard and still failing. Chances are you will be somewhere in the middle and that means doing work and passing with a decent GPA, which is just fine.
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 11/29/2010
Posts: 19
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why dont you just go into engineering? kinda like physics
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 7/2/2011
Posts: 15
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@Xiao - Thank you so much! You've really helped me to see that they really aren't trying to fail us. I hope that we can keep in touch afterwards, as I would love to hear more about what you'd have to say as the year goes on. Anyways, i'm going to get a head start on studying for those classes :P Talk to you soon!
@hard07, To be honest, I cannot see myself doing anything but physics/astrophysics, and only theoretically. I've considered engineering, but the only type that has remotely interested me what aerospace engineering from the get-go. Even with that interest, I believe that it will only remain a slight interest, and nothing more. I'm not trying to do anything for the money, just to be happy (:
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 9
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Xiaohaha wrote:Hi. It's only been a little over two weeks in school so my opinions on the difficulty of this program may soon change.
I cannot give an average GPA for my program because everyone is taking different courses. I can tell you about some of the courses I'm taking though. In your first year you are expected Mat157, Phy151/152 and optionally Mat240.
Mat157 is very difficult in terms of content. We derived the cubic and quartic formulas in the week first of class. There are no calculation-type problems, and we do not cover how to take limits and derivatives of things in class. You are expected to be able to pick those up on your own. However in terms of evaluation the course is not difficult. The test questions are not very difficult and in fact a large number of them are taken straight from the textbook, and ample time is given- usually 2 hours for 5-6 questions. I was an average student at math in high school, but I have over 100% right now in the course thanks to bonus assignments.
Phy151/152 is sort of a joke. If you went to a non-crapty high school, then you will find almost the entire course to be a review of high school mechanics. If you were good enough to place in things like POPTOR or CAP then you should be able get 100% on the exam without ever showing up for class. The only thing I should mention is that the labs are stupid, and if you have a crapty TA then you can expect to only get 70s in the labs no matter what you do because the expectations are dumb. You have to design and carry out an experiment, perform rigorous statistical analyses of results, write a full lab report and answer questions all in under 3 hours, while having to deal with crapty equipment. Luckily labs are only worth 25% of your mark.
Mat240 is extremely difficult. In fact I think U of T should probably stop allowing first-year students to take this course straight out of high school. In this course you will deal with very abstract mathematics. However the grading is lax and I think past averages have been in the B to B+ range. If you can ace this course then you would probably do well in in the Putnam. Incidentally, I have found that the more difficult a course is, the higher the average GPA tends to be.
Anyway I encourage you to follow your ambitions. Do not be scared by those "horror stories". The Math and Physics program isn't pre-med, the university isn't trying to weed you out. Besides, in every program there will be people who skip all their classes and still get 90s, and there will also be people who are working hard and still failing. Chances are you will be somewhere in the middle and that means doing work and passing with a decent GPA, which is just fine.
It's not that difficult once you get familiarity. I saw lots of people struggling but I didn't even sweat. Takes only 1 day (i think at most 1 or 2 hours) to finish skeleton (main ideas) of each assignment. If you say this is hard, wait till you get to 257 or 347. I'm taking those and you need to have much more maturity for those courses (although we start from everything for 347, it gets hard really fast (i didn't get into hard part of the course yet, but I can tell how hard it will be)). If you want to know more stuff about those, come to math union tea time each friday at Bahen 6th floor lounge at 4:30pm. UofT St.George
Math Specialist & Computer Major
Class of 2014
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 7/2/2011
Posts: 15
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@Chan, want to meet up? (:
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 9
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Sorry BigDreamer19, I do not give out face-to-face personal advice to grade 12's unless I personally know you or something. But I can talk a bit here: If you are confident in math, another way to do physics is to become theoretical physist by becoming applied mathematician. For applied mathematician, you need to know a lot of theoretical math and know to apply mathematical reasoning into other subjects (physics for instance). Or if you come to math union tea time, I think I can give you some advice, but if you want to be a physist, it's better off taking to others, because I myself is Mathematician (with CS as backup). UofT St.George
Math Specialist & Computer Major
Class of 2014
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Rank: Student Council
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 320
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chhan92 wrote:Xiaohaha wrote:Hi. It's only been a little over two weeks in school so my opinions on the difficulty of this program may soon change.
I cannot give an average GPA for my program because everyone is taking different courses. I can tell you about some of the courses I'm taking though. In your first year you are expected Mat157, Phy151/152 and optionally Mat240.
Mat157 is very difficult in terms of content. We derived the cubic and quartic formulas in the week first of class. There are no calculation-type problems, and we do not cover how to take limits and derivatives of things in class. You are expected to be able to pick those up on your own. However in terms of evaluation the course is not difficult. The test questions are not very difficult and in fact a large number of them are taken straight from the textbook, and ample time is given- usually 2 hours for 5-6 questions. I was an average student at math in high school, but I have over 100% right now in the course thanks to bonus assignments.
Phy151/152 is sort of a joke. If you went to a non-crapty high school, then you will find almost the entire course to be a review of high school mechanics. If you were good enough to place in things like POPTOR or CAP then you should be able get 100% on the exam without ever showing up for class. The only thing I should mention is that the labs are stupid, and if you have a crapty TA then you can expect to only get 70s in the labs no matter what you do because the expectations are dumb. You have to design and carry out an experiment, perform rigorous statistical analyses of results, write a full lab report and answer questions all in under 3 hours, while having to deal with crapty equipment. Luckily labs are only worth 25% of your mark.
Mat240 is extremely difficult. In fact I think U of T should probably stop allowing first-year students to take this course straight out of high school. In this course you will deal with very abstract mathematics. However the grading is lax and I think past averages have been in the B to B+ range. If you can ace this course then you would probably do well in in the Putnam. Incidentally, I have found that the more difficult a course is, the higher the average GPA tends to be.
Anyway I encourage you to follow your ambitions. Do not be scared by those "horror stories". The Math and Physics program isn't pre-med, the university isn't trying to weed you out. Besides, in every program there will be people who skip all their classes and still get 90s, and there will also be people who are working hard and still failing. Chances are you will be somewhere in the middle and that means doing work and passing with a decent GPA, which is just fine.
It's not that difficult once you get familiarity. I saw lots of people struggling but I didn't even sweat. Takes only 1 day (i think at most 1 or 2 hours) to finish skeleton (main ideas) of each assignment. If you say this is hard, wait till you get to 257 or 347. I'm taking those and you need to have much more maturity for those courses (although we start from everything for 347, it gets hard really fast (i didn't get into hard part of the course yet, but I can tell how hard it will be)). If you want to know more stuff about those, come to math union tea time each friday at Bahen 6th floor lounge at 4:30pm. l0l actually i might show up. i'm still undecided as to my future directions and math is a possibility for me.
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Rank: Student Council
Joined: 11/13/2011
Posts: 347
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BigDreamer19 wrote:My underlying purpose in life is to become a Physicist, I know it, but I hear that the courses I want to apply to make it impossible to do so. What's your opinion on the difficulty of UofT's Math and Physics Specialization course and UW's Mathematical Physics course? I've heard that it was outrageously hard, as in 99 average kids barely passing. I feel as if i'm a mathematically inclined person, and I could wrap my head around any concept with time and practice, but i'm no genius who can reiterate special relativity and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism on command, at least not yet ;) So for anyone who is in the same boat as I am, or currently in the course, i'd LOVE some input (:
Btw, I've heard from physicists themselves that the job outlook is rough as well. Less than half of the kids they give PhD's to don't get a job in academia or in the industry, and there's no way that i'm settling for less then a physicist/astrophysicist. Again, input would be appreciated. Pursuing physics is a good idea only if you enjoy doing physics. As in, like your work enough not to care about making no money. Your choices are pretty rough: Professor Quant or other advanced math job High school teacher Coupled with the fact that a physics PHD is very hard to get... I reiterate: I seriously hope you really, really love doing physics.
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Rank: Student Council
Joined: 12/21/2010
Posts: 320
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[quote=hamsterpower7]uhh heads up if you were thinking of going to u of t http://forums.redflagdea...erred-out-uoft-1106000/[/quote] People who do bad at U of T are the vocal minority. I'm in U of T math & physics (technically), and after writing midterms in all my courses my average is around 92% atm. Most of my friends in various programs have something between 75-95% averages and they play way more than I do. And people do have a social life, or at least 5-10 hours of free time every day. I do know people who are struggling, and the averages for the tests have indeed been in the 60s, but the tests themselves really weren't hard. I have a feeling some people were just ill prepared by their high school, or played too much instead of studying for their midterms.
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Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 58
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hard07 wrote:why dont you just go into engineering? kinda like physics EXCEPT ITS NOT AS COOL!!!! :P
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 7/2/2011
Posts: 15
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Aha, everyone can join, as long as your dedicated :P
How's high school for you so far? I can see that you got accepted, so I can assume that all is well. Are you set on UofT though?
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Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 1/18/2011
Posts: 117
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The term "good idea" is relative. To do anything in physics or to end up with a job that does not involve teaching, you will need to go for the PhD. Pay isn't that great either until you get tenure, which may or may not happen. You will essentially spend your 20's and 30's in academic serfdom and will most likely leave the field altogether (most physicists never get tenure). If you don't like physics that much to go through all of that, then no, it wouldn't be a good idea to pursue physics. UTSG Physics specialist/computer science major 1T5.
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Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/7/2011
Posts: 51
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BigDreamer19 wrote:To be honest, I cannot see myself doing anything but physics/astrophysics, and only theoretically. (Out of curiosity). What exact area of theoretical physics/astrophysics are you interested in?
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