<p>Ok, so right now I’m a senior in HS and am going to college for Finance. I would have liked something like Engineering but I’m really bad at Physics and the sciences. But my sister tells me that it doesn’t matter what I learned in high school because college it’s totally different. It might be “Physics 1” but it’s really learning a whole new subject. Is this true?</p>
<p>Should I not consider certain subjects/majors/careers just because I was bad at them in high school?</p>
<p>What I would suggest is that if you really don’t know what you want to do or what you’re good at is to take some intro level classes from a wide range of subjects first semester. Though I would say that some subjects are more difficult in college, in general if you weren’t good at something in high school, you probably won’t be any better in college, unless you put in more effort (office hours, studying,etc) or prefer self-studying.</p>
<p>To be honest, if you don’t like physics (or aren’t very good at it) there’s not much hope of being an engineer. Classes are definitely more difficult, but the concepts are still there. Newton’s force equation is and will always be F = ma…</p>
<p>Subjects in college are definitely harder and that can really change how you perceive a subject. This is especially true in science classes. You may want to note that science and engineering majors have you constantly working around the clock because the curriculum is rigid and leaves no room for electives. Having problem sets due every week or even every two days will suffocate you if you’re not organized.</p>
<p>So yeah, if you’re bad at science in high school, chances are it’s not gonna get any better in college.</p>
<p>short answer: HELL no</p>
<p>don’t limit your college options just because you didn’t do so well in a certain subject in high school. in my opinion, the way materials are presented in college is much different than in high school. you have lectures, discussions, gsi’s / ta’s that you can talk to, etc etc. also, in my experience there are a lot more mechanisms for student support in college, be it study centers or w/e. </p>
<p>absolutely try everything in college. </p>
<p>i know a big thing for me was that in college i could strategically plan out my classes for a particular quarter, and plan out my day to day schedule to match my needs, vs in high school where it was 8am-3pm M-F, 7 classes every day. </p>
<p>anyways for what its worth I failed a ton of math classes in high school, whereas in college I found math to be one of my favorite subjects (I’ve maintained at least a B in all of my lower-div math classes). </p>
<p>goooo for it.</p>
<p>All of my (intro) college classes went into much more depth and covered more material than any of their HS AP counterparts.</p>
<p>I don’t know about that–I’m in Freshman Chem II, and there’s nothing in class that wasn’t covered in my AP Chem class. It’s pretty easy for that reason. (I’m still kind of amazed at just how easy Freshman Chem I seems, according to a friend of mine in that class–the teacher is terrible, but the concepts are really pretty basic as far as Chemistry goes. (And it’s definitely worth taking sciences in high school if you think you might need science classes in college. The material isn’t /that/ different, and most intro-level science courses in my college need to accommodate students who may not ever have taken that subject before, or who may have only taken it in high school at the general level two years ago.) </p>
<p>Perhaps it depends on the university/high school?</p>
<p>Well, the reason I brought up Physics wasn’t that I wasn’t good at it, but I had a really bad teacher. I mean, it’s not the stereotypical excuse “I had a bad teacher” This guy really didn’t teach anything. So without a good background will I be able to handle Intro Physics?</p>
<p>It hasn’t proven true for me. I’m taking bio and chem, and a lot of it’s review for me, since I remember most of it from high school (at least so far). I like these classes though, and I liked them in high school. </p>
<p>You shouldn’t not consider classes just because you were bad at them in high school, but say, for instance, you don’t like/are awful at math, you shouldn’t major in something that’ll bring you to a math-related career. I have some math requirements for vet school (and I hate math), but I’m not going to switch my major from pre-vet just because I’m not going to like the other math course I have to take next semester.</p>
<p>I’m taking Bio I right now, and I took Bio (Honors) freshman year in HS, never took AP. It’s remarkabely similar. The college class definitely goes more in-depth, but at least so far, things I remember from freshman year of HS come up quite a bit in my college class.</p>
<p>With something like physics, you have to consider your high school preparation if you were to take a college class. </p>
<p>I’ll take myself as an example. I took honors physics in high school, and now I’m in the beginning physics class here for engineers. Nearly of the students in it have taken some form of AP Physics (most took AP Physics B, a couple of AP Phys C here, but most of those people use their AP credit to pass out) and due to that, the class is very hard for me. It’s not that I don’t do homework or study, it’s just that when many of the students have seen the concepts before and you’re just seeing it for the first time, obviously they will have an advantage.</p>
<p>Aside from that, if the quality of your hs physics teacher affected your outlook on the subject, I would look at how you did in math. Do you like math/do well in it? If so, they college physics should be fine for you.</p>
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<p>It depends on the amount of effort you put into studying it yourself and how well your professor teaches it.</p>
<p>The stuff in high school barely scratches the surface when you get to college. And physics here is ridiculously hard.</p>
<p>I’ve found that college physics is substantially harder, but chemistry remains straightforward.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. But you should try to get an “early read” on how prepared you are relative to the other students. It might be that you need some remedial work to get you up to the level of academic performance you want. Explore options such as taking a lighter load, and using the extra time for more study, practice, etc.</p>
<p>Well I wouldn’t consider going into Engineering if you are bad with sciences in general… If you didn’t like it, you’ll never like it… I suggest you try and see how it goes but I don’t think there’s much hope here.</p>