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semesters



Larry wrote in part:
___________________
Here in Utah the legislature recently mandated that all state institutions
of higher ed switch from quarters to semesters. The change-over is proving
to be a nightmare. As far as the physics curriculum is concerned the
state-wide committee I serve on seems to be stuck on the introductory
calculus-based university physics that most engineers have to take.
Currently there are a variety of implementations across the state; here at
Snow we teach one 3-quarter sequence (Fall-Winter-Spring) of 5 quarter
hours each, including the lab (total of 15 quarter hours; 4 lectures per
week, 1 two-hr lab per week). We assume that we'll just keep on doing the
same thing under the semester system and have two semesters of 5 semester
hours each (including the lab), but the bigger schools in the state are
having a bigger struggle. One university is considering chopping up the
course into 5 half-semester blocks, and different brands of engineers would
take different subsets.

Could those of you on the semester system tell me about your curriculum
(particularly the engineering calculus-based physics)?
______________________

First my condolences, I've been a student under both quarters and semesters
and have taught semester. I strongly prefer quarters. You simply can't
cover in 1 year under semesters, what you can cover in 1 year under
quarters. Roughly one standard quarter course = one standard semester
course. Here is what we do for our engineering/science calculus based course
with semesters.

1st semester Mechanics and thermodynamics

(I omit fluids and two body gravity, and often some of thermodynamics, this
semester it was the 2nd law that the students missed in thermo)

2nd semester
Electricity, magnetism, and optics

(I omit AC circuits, magnetic materials and the end of the semester usually
sees me doing a bad quick job on interference and diffraction due to time
constraints.

We do have an introductory modern physics semester that physics majors take
after the 1st year of intro physics. None of the engineering programs
require that third semester here.

I too don't recommend it. I had my intro physics year under the quarter
system and consider my experience to be all the better for it.

Joel Rauber