Failing a college class

[jessmarimba]

This is so silly but...the happy ending brought a little tear to my eye.
I'll definitely tell my daughter this story. She's been struggling with high school physics. She's thinking about going into engineering and I think she'd be great at it, and she likes physics, and she likes the teacher, so it's a little puzzling that she's struggling. Then she was explaining that he gives a test every week but never assigns homework, and covers a new chapter every week. She & I had a talk about how in college, a lot of the time you have to assign yourself your own homework. And that college classes go at a much faster pace.

She read the chapter, worked through the problems at the end, and did much better on the next test. I am thrilled that this teacher is doing it this way because so many smart kids who never had to study in high school really struggle when they get to college.

If only I could convince her to overcome her shyness and TALK TO THE INSTRUCTOR. Maybe your story will help her!

I think a lot of the problems with physics is the combination of concepts that make sense with math that doesn't (yet). It took a lot of college calculus (as an engineering major!) and really knowing the math backwards and forwards before I could look back on high school physics concepts and really see WHY things work they way they do. It doesn't help that a lot of physics "teachers" aren't really born teachers - it's hard for them to look back and figure out how to explain things in layman's terms.

And great news, ACG!!

[Koronin]

Melalvai, your daughter sounds so much like me with high school Physics. I took it my Jr year and truly enjoyed the class but got Cs in it. Never could figure out why I couldn't get a better grade out of it. Any lab project I aced, but just struggled with the quizzes and tests. What frustrated me was that typically if I liked a class I could pretty much get an A or a high B and not have to work at it or study much. Actually that went for both high school and college. Of course in college both my degrees are BA degrees so I didn't have to take any science lab or math classes. I mostly took geology classes that were lecture only classes and got A's in those.

[soprano]

I think a lot of the problems with physics is the combination of concepts that make sense with math that doesn't (yet).

I agree. Physics and calculus go hand-in-hand.