Deciding to pick Physics

[Frozone]

Hello everyone,
I was just wondering how hard is physics if you pick it up during unit 2 or even unit 3?
Im thinking of changing to Physics as i seem to be really interested in the subject.
Ive looked over my friends Sacs's and they are not as difficult as they make it seem.

Any input would be appreciated!
Thank You

[pi]

Don't do it.

[thushan]

Don't do it.

Do it. Trust me on it. One of the best choices I ever made.

[LazyZombie]

It's not hard to pick up at all - my school offers accel physics and we only cover unit 2 in year 10. (3&4 this year for me). But then we do make a point to cover the stuff that the accel physics kids miss out on. But I think its definitely doable.

Pick it if your school has good physics teachers

[pi]

This is an accurate and unbiased review that I've stumbled upon that may help [Review] VCE Physics 3/4

[availn]

Physics is a whole heap of fun. What you learn in Units 1&2 only really helps in Unit 3, so you won't be at any significant disadvantage. It could be harder if you start in Unit 3, but it's still easily doable if you put in the effort to quickly go over what you missed. I definitely would recommend you give it a shot.

[Planck's constant]

If you want to do proper physics, do Specialist Maths at VCE and then do Physics at Uni.
But don't do VCE Physics unless you enjoy pictures of playgrounds and see-saws

[Lasercookie]

If you want to do proper physics, do Specialist Maths at VCE and then do Physics at Uni.
But don't do VCE Physics unless you enjoy pictures of playgrounds and see-saws

I would think that not doing VCE Physics would make uni physics quite a struggle, especially seeing that Specialist Maths only really focuses on statics/dynamics emphasising the maths and not the concepts. You'd be missing out on understanding a lot about newtonian mechanics, about electricity, about electromagnetism and about light etc.

Doing specialist maths if you want to do physics at uni is probably a good idea though... as far as I can tell with my limited experience of 5 weeks into first year physics anyway.

Physics is a whole heap of fun. What you learn in Units 1&2 only really helps in Unit 3, so you won't be at any significant disadvantage. It could be harder if you start in Unit 3, but it's still easily doable if you put in the effort to quickly go over what you missed. I definitely would recommend you give it a shot.

I'd probably agree strongly with this. Spend an hour or two looking over the entire textbook quite closely yourself (try out a few questions etc.) and then decide if VCE Physics will be what you think it is and go for it. It does have quite a lot of flaws (e.g. see pi's 'unbiased' review/why people would tell you not do the subject), but for the most part there is a lot of interesting stuff that you can learn about in the subject. For the most part you'll find that the interesting stuff (well for myself I found reading about all the concepts/theory and trying to understand it being the interesting part) is up to yourself to study though, with the textbook explanations being often... quite dense and a lot of exam questions (and hence the focus of the course) being... not as interesting.

[Planck's constant]

laserblued,

I am a Physics fan, did VCE physics, did well, I will reluctantly admit that I half enjoyed it.
But I will bag it, as a protest vote, for the shit study design and the shit textbooks and the general boring shit which surrounds VCE Physics.

[Planck's constant]

laserblued,

If you can get near the Jacaranda Physics textbook without feeling physically ill, you are a better man than I am, my friend

[FlorianK]

Just do it.

[Lasercookie]

laserblued,

I am a Physics fan, did VCE physics, did well, I will reluctantly admit that I half enjoyed it.
But I will bag it, as a protest vote, for the shit study design and the shit textbooks and the general boring shit which surrounds VCE Physics.

laserblued,

If you can get near the Jacaranda Physics textbook without feeling physically ill, you are a better man than I am, my friend

You couldn't make me get near Jacaranda Physics even if you paid me. But yeah for the parts of VCE Physics that are enjoyable, I think it's worth doing.

[Yacoubb]

I dropped Psychology for Physics at the beginning of the year, and I honestly think that it is the best decision I've made. I think its quite an enjoyable subject, though Nuclear Energy is extremely boring.. I literally sleep in class. I suggest you do it I know that doing Physics now has made me honestly very happy. Although everyone says not to care about this, Physics scales up

[deleted]

Missing out on units 1/2 doesn't matter at all.
Heck, I'm doing units 3/4 right now and I don't remember 80% of what we did last year, haha.

But the teachers always ensure they teach the basics of each unit, so it's all good. XD

[Conic]

If you pick it up in unit 2 you can easily self teach the parts of unit 1 that are important for 3&4 physics (basically only electricity).