General Physics I

Description of Course Goals and Curriculum

Standard first semester general physics course in mechanics. Topics include 1, 2, and 3D kinematics, Newton’s Laws, work and energy, momentum, rotation, gravitation, oscillations, and waves.

Learning From Classroom Instruction

The once a week lectures are very general and only give a basic overview of the topics. Class is where you are given structured instruction on the topics and problem solving. The textbook is also a very good resource for this course for understanding the material, especially if you have some exposure to the topics form high school. The best overall learning strategy for this course is to attend lecture for a good overview of the week’s topics, then read the textbook for deeper understanding. Then utilize class time for problem solving practice and answering questions you may have on the material.

Learning For and From Assignments

Assignments in this class are online and mostly cover only the basic topics of the course for reading and lecture comprehension. The real learning comes from the weekly problem sets that are optional to complete. I recommend seriously sitting down and trying to solve these problems as they are similar to what you’ll encounter on quizzes and exams. Be sure to review these problems and make sure you know how to solve them before exams as they are very good study material. Some practice exams are provided before the midterm and final as well which I would recommend taking for pacing after going over the topics and problems from the weekly paper problem sets.

External Resources

TA office hours and problem solving sessions are a great place to go through the weekly learning guides and make sure you understand what’s going on before the quizzes and exams. I highly recommend utilizing these to get a solid understanding of the concepts presented in the packet problems rather than just looking at the answer keys as you may be missing key areas of understanding.

What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection

Standard, dry, engineering focused introductory physics course on mechanics. If you have a background from high school in AP Physics, this class will be relatively easy to keep up in but still challenging in terms of the level of difficulty of the problems you’ll be given. Would not recommend to take unless you have to for BSE or a physics requirement.