SF Physics, Maths (Natural Science)

Squigs

Howayis,

Does anyone have any advice about SF physics and maths? I'm hoping to do schols in both subject but have heard some nightmare stories esp about Stalkers Calculus lectures. Is there anyone out there who sat schols in these subjects last year? Anything you would have done differently? I'm ridiculously geeked up about this year, roll on the 6th.

Thanks!

TX123

hi i did schols last year in these subjects. physics is fine as long as u learn every proof from lectures especially in optics and do math type questions in past papers. im maths calculus and mechanics are fine u just have to study as normal but stalkers maths is a nigtmare hes the worst lecturer and the course is soo abstract. u need to have alot of time to grasp realy tough concepts. best pf luck in your second year

antiselfdual

Might be useful for physics: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mathsoc/wiki/Category:SF_physics_courses

Squigs

Thanks a million for that, the link is very useful

Gallardo

Hey, I'm starting second year tp and I was wondering if any people could tell me about their experiences of it. First year was a struggle and I never understood alot of stuff but luckily got a 2 1 overall. How does the workload compare with first year? What are the different subjects like? Also I was wondering about how much extra work would be needed to study for schols. If I didn't get the scholarship would all the work be a good preparation for the summer exams? I'm sure going from first to second year won't be as shocking as leaving cert to first year but I'm curious and interested in going back. Cheers everyone.

antiselfdual

Gallardo wrote: »

Hey, I'm starting second year tp and I was wondering if any people could tell me about their experiences of it. First year was a struggle and I never understood alot of stuff but luckily got a 2 1 overall. How does the workload compare with first year? What are the different subjects like? Also I was wondering about how much extra work would be needed to study for schols. If I didn't get the scholarship would all the work be a good preparation for the summer exams? I'm sure going from first to second year won't be as shocking as leaving cert to first year but I'm curious and interested in going back. Cheers everyone.

hmm let's see how much I remember about second year, it's been a long summer...

2nd year is generally better, the subjects are more interesting and in-depth. My workload was an awful lot heavier, but that was entirely due to Schols. You do have Mechanics sets every week which seem to take hours. You only have to do 6 labs though (+2 computational) and you write the report yourself (LaTeX ftw) which is much nicer than having to fill in those same stupid boxes every week.

So the subjects: Physics is the usual mixed bag, Thermodynamics is interesting, Nuclear Physics is good because Finch is hugely entertaining, Electrical Circuits is just like... why?, and Quantum Physics is this horrible horrible powerpoint presentation... Optics and Oscillations are alright I guess (I didn't really go to the former and just used the online notes though). Overall I don't think any of it is terribly hard, it does however require a bit of effort to go through (because you're basically learning from printed off powerpoint slides).

On the maths-side, ODEs is probably the easiest course once you realise that everything Stalker does in the lectures is completely irrelevant and that the problem sets are the important thing. Still worth going to for his dry asides though...

You'll have Sinead Ryan not Conor Houghton for methods, that'll probably be okay...

Mechanics is difficult as usual, get Landau+Lif****z (haha amazing censorship there)... However Frolov has set basically the same exam every year now so it should be very easy to predict. He also gives you a list of about 50 questions (most being problem set qs) and he'll only ask from that. So the exam's not that bad; actually understanding the material in the first place is trickier of course. If you make the effort with the problem sets originally then studying for the exam is much easier.

Geometry is awesome. And a big course. And hard. And you need to know everything (well for Schols that is, he marks the annuals easier I think). Again the exam is kind of predictable if you look at past papers.

I can't comment on Complex Analysis having not really attended...

If you're serious about doing Schols you should probably start studying over Christmas (by "start studying" I mean "learn the first term's Geometry"), and then just don't leave the library after that... The best advice I think I can give (not just for Schols) is that you should study in a group, having other people to ask questions of and answer questions for is really useful (also staying in the library from 9am to 10pm for weeks on end with only breaks for lectures and food would be awful without having friends around ) Everybody in my class who got exemptions studied en masse on one side of the library so I think it does help.

Some people did just do Schols as practice for their annual exams, I'm sure it is good preparation (quite a few of the annual exams are just Schol exams with some extra topics thrown in, or if you want quite a few of the Schol exams are just annual exams set earlier in the year, as opposed to being the super special extra hard exams they're made out to be. A lot of the difficulty comes just from the fact you're learning new material right up to the week before). I'm not sure how worth it it would be, depends on the effort you put in and your expectations I guess. Even if you're not doing Schols though it's vital you make the effort to keep up with your lectures and occasionally review things. TP is probably the only course where there were people studying in the library during Schols who weren't actually doing them...

Wow I talk too much

*goes back to lurking

rjt

antiselfdual wrote: »

On the maths-side, ODEs is probably the easiest course once you realise that everything Stalker does in the lectures is completely irrelevant and that the problem sets are the important thing. Still worth going to for his dry asides though...

We're actually getting Pete this year for ODEs.

</aside>

antiselfdual

rjt wrote: »

We're actually getting Pete this year for ODEs.

</aside>

Oh well that probably doesn't actually change anything I said about the course, based on my memories of Pete's 121.

Gallardo

Thanks for all the info. It's great to know whats coming this year. By the way what are the labs, projects and group tutorials like? Does it take long to prepare them all. Didn't really have to do anything for the group tutorials in first year. Cheers and good luck this year.

antiselfdual

Labs are better than first year, you work in threes and most experiments take two or three weeks to do. You're encouraged to type your reports (again, use LaTeX not Microsoft Word) which I thought was enjoyable enough. I probably spent longer on them than most people so that I could make nice-looking diagrams and stuff... Overall they're not too much of a hassle and they're more lenient about when you have to hand them in. As for the experiments themselves I got through most of them without having a clue what I was doing. You can also choose what ones you do to an extent - Logic Gates, Rutherford Scattering and Geiger Counter are meant to be the easiest. Some of the marking is done by interview, but that's not too bad, it depends who you get as an interviewer.

The project is kind of fun, it doesn't require an awful lot of time and can be interesting. Because there'll be four of you you won't have to write that much, so probably only need a couple of hours researching the topic to get enough information...

I know I stopped going to group tutorials pretty early, they only happen before each physics test (there's one test at the end of each course, they're actually a very good way of making you learn the material, probably worth putting the effort in)... again it can depend on who is taking the tutorial (if they're any good), also sometimes you might be able to do all the tutorial questions yourself and so not need to go, it sort of depends on each case and so on...

Gallardo

Thanks antiselfdual, I'm glad I came here for help. It's gonna be a great year. Good luck with third year, hope you enjoy it too.

antiselfdual

Gallardo wrote: »

Thanks antiselfdual, I'm glad I came here for help. It's gonna be a great year. Good luck with third year, hope you enjoy it too.

Seeing as I'm now dropping out of TP and into Maths, I also hope I enjoy third year . Glad to be of assistance...