Why the Physics 7 Series Sucks at UCD

As a Psychology B.S. major at UC Davis with the possibility of graduate school looming nearer, I have to take courses in four lower division science subjects: General Chemistry 2, Biology 2, Organic Chemistry 8, and Physics 7. Thank God I only need to take the first two courses instead of the entire three-course series that my unfortunate pre-med peers have to suffer through. While all of them are bad enough, the Physics 7 series is especially awful.

First off, there are five hours of discussion lab a week. You thought your three-hour chemistry lab was bad enough? Try doing that twice a week. At least chemistry lab entails an experiment and sometimes watching liquids change cool colors. In physics, we discuss concepts and review our homework from the previous lab. It gets boring, and I get sleepy. Thankfully I didn’t, but if you have a clueless TA, you’re screwed unless you happen to be good at learning on your own.

When I took Physics 7A, there was a quiz every week. I personally happen to like quizzes because it forces me to learn the material bit by bit throughout the quarter instead of putting it off until the week before finals. However, once a week is just a tad too often. But the worst thing of all? My professor tested us on what he was going to lecture on right after our 20-minute quiz. Really?! Physics 7 is set up in an already confusing way as it is, but to quiz us on something that hadn’t even been covered in discussion lab or a previous lecture? None of my professors up until that point (winter quarter of my third year) tested us on concepts that hadn’t been covered in lecture or assigned as reading in the textbook ahead of time. I felt it was very unfair, and I hated him for it. I’ll be honest though; he was a great lecturer, unlike many science professors here at UC Davis, but all that talent was wasted, because by the time he clarified a concept, I had already failed the quiz that I could have passed if only he had lectured the week before.

Speaking of lectures, there’s only an 80-minute lecture every week. Some people like it, but I don’t. Instead of getting more examples to illustrate concepts and equations, we are instead given more homework to work through a bunch of questions, which don’t always pertain to the lecture, on our own. Because there is only one lecture a week, there is only 80 minutes’ worth of examples to briefly explain a weeks’ worth of new concepts. In my Physics 7A class, there were only 60 minutes and a few examples to help me finish what was always at least three hours’ worth of homework.

If you don’t have to take physics, I highly recommend that you don’t. If you know that you don’t want to or don’t need it to go to graduate school, take Physics 10. If you are looking to challenge yourself or take a science course for fun, the Physics 7 series will just end up giving you a big headache—look elsewhere. But if you have to take the Physics 7 series to become the doctor your parents insist you must be, you have my sympathy, and I wish you the best of luck.