Physics or Ext2 Maths for Engineering? (1 Viewer)

[maxitaxi]

Hey everyone, i would love your advice before i choose my Hsc subjects for 09.

Is doing HSC Physics necessary at all if you intend to do enginneering at uni? And i don't mean whether i is a prerequisite or not, rather whether or not the course is actually useful or has any real connection to Physics at uni.

I've heard it is quite watered down compared to uni physics and so wonder if it is even worth doing instead of Modern History, which develops important thinking and argument skills, or so i believe.

Wouldn't Ext2 Maths be just fine, or even much better, in preparing one for engineering at uni?

Thanks so much for your time.

 

[dolbinau]

If you can do well, I'd probably chose Physics over Modern history purely for scaling+interest.

But I couldn't answer your question directly, sorry!

 

[Forbidden.]

回复: Physics or Ext2 Maths for Engineering?

Hey everyone, i would love your advice before i choose my Hsc subjects for 09.

Is doing HSC Physics necessary at all if you intend to do enginneering at uni? And i don't mean whether i is a prerequisite or not, rather whether or not the course is actually useful or has any real connection to Physics at uni.

I've heard it is quite watered down compared to uni physics and so wonder if it is even worth doing instead of Modern History, which develops important thinking and argument skills, or so i believe.

Wouldn't Ext2 Maths be just fine, or even much better, in preparing one for engineering at uni?

Thanks so much for your time.

At first-year uni you will learn Mechanics which is an Ext. 2 topic.
HSC Physics will only teach you the very basic concepts.

 

[sirfeathers]

maaaaths

 

[maxitaxi]

i would definitely recommend doing both ext 2 and physics. the physics course is watered down, but it still gets you used to very important physics concepts (eg. special relativity, motor effect, electromagnetic induction, magnetic and electric fields, photoelectric effect, semiconductors, hydrogen atom, mass defect, the standard model etc) experiments (michelson-morley, thomson, hertz, bragg, rutherford etc) and formulas (intensity, wavelength/frequency, snells law, ohms law, work and energy, gravitation, relativity, force in electric/magnetic fields, wavelength/momentum, heisenberg, alpha and beta decay etc) all of which ive covered in first year engineering.

the math side of things is far more important, which is emphasised in uni physics, but it would still pay to be introduced to all the topics during high school

But then would someone who had done only Ext2 Maths be at a real disadvantage or still be ahead of most?- For you said 'it would pay', as in it would help a bit but isn't really necessary.

And is engineering based heavily on physics, or does it it differ (apart from being more maths based) from school physics?

That is, if i am thinking of doing enginneering should i be really interested in physics concepts?

 

[n_otesguy]

Ext 2 maths is a good starting point for engineering because the integration topic will overlap with a significant part of the calculus strand for mathematics while the mechanics topic will set you up for the first few lectures for physics. So I recommend you do Ext 2 maths if you're good at it.

As one of my physics lecturer's put it, HSC physics is not physics at all...it's all about writing implication and social & ethical issues. In university physics there's none of that...most of it is calculation based and if they're kind they'll ask you to explain some situation.

Hope that helps with your decision.

 

[obimoshman1234]

lol hsc physics used to be more calculation based but it changed