I’m an incoming environmental engineering freshman at UT Austin, and I’ve heard that it’s heavily recommended to take physics 1 and 2 over the summer through a community college. However, I’m afraid of shoving both physics 1 and 2 into the same summer, so I was thinking of taking the first one after my freshman year and the second one after my sophomore year. The problem with this plan is that I know I have to start jumping on experiential opportunities quickly, namely after the sophomore and junior years. Would taking this class over the summer impede my ability to get an internship/experience? Would it be unnecessarily stressful for me to take both physics 1 and 2 in the same summer?
Do you have an advisor at the college you could talk to? That would be best, since hopefully they know the workload of the classes. Since you are an incoming freshman you have some time to talk to an advisor and make a game plan.
That being said, summer internships/co-ops are normally 40 hours a week, and it is important to do a good job in them. Only you know if you could handle a full-time job and an accelerated summer class (that I assume would be online asynchronous?).
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Who recommended this?
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Op- meet with an advisor ASAP.
Delaying physics II until AFTER sophomore year may or may not impact the rest of your schedule. So don’t make any decisions without hearing directly from your advisor.
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I agree talk to a counselor. Make sure that the course is transferable and get it approved by the Engineering Dept at UT Austin in advanced. Not all Physics is the same. Do they require Algebra based Physics or Calculus based Physics. I would assume as an engineering course it would be Calculus based Physics. Does the Community college offer this?
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Lots of engineering majors who have experienced this firsthand.
I believe the physics here is Calc-based, but plenty of people have taken it through the community college.
I missed the part where Bearcat asked if this was an online course. Do NOT take online physics as an engineering major!
The fun part of physics is the hands-on, figuring out the world piece of it. The less fun part of physics is understanding how the theory and the endless calculations and formulae intersect with the actual, functioning world. What falls down. What stays up. What moves and what is stationary.
You will be a step behind in your engineering studies if you are learning it from your kitchen table. You need a solid foundation on the hands-on and theoretical which will be VERY hard to achieve in an online course.
You are paying for UT-- a top engineering program. Why not take physics at your actual college???
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This would be my suggestion. The two engineers in our family never took physics or any other course in the summer before starting freshman year. DD took a summer OChem course (don’t do that either) at her college (which didn’t accept any courses from other colleges once you were matriculated there) the summer before senior college year.
In my opinion, you should not need to take courses at a CC during any summer.
@MaineLonghorn might be able to shed some light on UT Austin.
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To go back to your original question - there isn’t a chance my D could have managed her full time internship or co-op and taken a high demand, required for her major, compressed class.
Keep in mind that for some internships there may be travel involved and meetings that might conflict with classes (especially if it’s an international company where employees are spread out in different time zones).
And aside from that, there has been good advice given by other users that I want to reinforce based on my D’s experience as an engineer at another school - foundational physics is the pre-req for a number of classes. Taking physics 2 after sophomore year would have been much too late. And for sure talk to your advisor and make sure that whatever you take in the summer, is transferrable and figure out how they handle the grade and it’s impact on your UT GPA.
I’m also in the camp that it’s unnecessary to take summer classes. The four year plan of study incudes all those necessary intro classes in the school year. You are better served getting work experience in the summer and saving classes for the academic year. For engineering, work experience is super important in landing your first job.
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So my advice will be somewhat different. First off you may not be able to take any college classes before actually starting college that will transfer. Also make sure they actually transfer through a transfer advisor.
Take things in sequence for engineering. The summer after my son’s freshman year he took a physics 2 and Calc 3. These are shortened and not much “easier” then at his school since his summer classes were accelerated and he took it with kids from GT, Michigan (his school), Berkeley, etc etc. I would suggest physics and a math if you wanted. He wanted to have at least one minor but ended up with 2.
No, don’t attempt an internship plus a class. Stay in sequence. At Michigan you can’t take online classes for credit transfer for science /math so check your school and you will have a “live” "lab as well.
I also agree with not taking physics 2 after sophomore year. Just don’t. Your getting good advice here.
As someone who took physics at UT Austin as an architectural engineering major, I recommended to my son in 2010 that he take physics over the summer. I can see why people suggested that to the OP. UT’s physics classes are known to be weeder classes. I had almost a 99 GPA in high school, with tough classes, but on my first UT physics test, I got a 40! And there wasn’t that much of a curve. I got my first C in my life in that class, even with the help of a tutor. I squeaked out a B second semester. I went on to graduate with high honors, so it worked out, but ugh.
You would need to talk to your advisor to see when you should take the physics classes. They might just say it would be too hard to fit them in during the summer, but I would try.
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I think the OP needs to do more due diligence before determining that a community college physics class (the current plan) is adequate preparation for an engineering program at UT.
I am not a fan of the current “avoid weed out classes” fad. A strong foundation (whether it’s Orgo for a kid who plans on med school, physics for an engineer, statistics for a marketing major, etc.) means LESS stress later on, not more.
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S24 is enrolled in calc based physic 1 for this summer. The class is 8 weeks and along with lab is 2 days a week, from 9am to 3pm. Before you say there are 5 more days in the week, remember besides actual class room commitment, you will need time to study. Physics isn’t easy.
To answer your question, there probably isn’t enough time during summer to take a physics class (in person) as well as either another physics class or an internship.
The thing with internship is that you need to give it 100%, otherwise it will be a waste of everyone’s time. So while it may be possible to take a time heavy class and try to make it work, it won’t be like pouring coffee at Starbucks where what people think of you won’t matter. The whole point of an internship is to gain experience, exposure, and later be recommended for a position – Screw that up then you risk unemployment.
None of my kids were engineering majors, but they all worked part time in college, full time during summers, and took CC classes over the summer. Dd21’s internship doesn’t even start for another week or two, she’s so bored she’s working at the garden center she’s worked at since 14. Took calc 3 last summer because she needed it as a pre requisite, has 121 credits completed as a rising senior, her study group just decided on taking the 4th actuary exam in October so I expect the studying to start soon. All of my kids have taken summer classes online at CC in college over the summer, much cheaper (and yes, easier).
I have learned during my school years, find an upper classman in my field of studies and ask them. Go with what they would recommend. Unlike most school advisors, the students’ info are “usually” more accurate and high yield.
Did he do this while doing a full time internship as well.
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No, just battling a serious mental illness. It’s incredible he made honors both semesters his freshman year. He did research in the biomedical engineering lab, too.
Hopefully it’s improved, but my UT physics classes weren’t great. The two professors I had were probably the worst I experienced all four years. It was clear they didn’t want to be teaching freshmen. I would have no problem recommending a kid go to ACC. UT engineering wouldn’t accept the credits if they didn’t think it was sufficient. My dad thought it was fine, and he was head of an engineering department at UT at the time.
I did work full time two summers that I took summer classes (government at ACC and a difficult class putting together a complete drawing set for an office building). It was challenging but doable.
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Summer classes are condensed and faster paced. For some summer sessions getting behind a day is like a week in a semester. Balancing a summer job with demanding courses can be tough.
You will probably not be able to delay physics 2 all the way to the time you are a rising junior since it may be a prerequisite for other courses.
Hopefully you will meet an advisor at orientation who can guide you or reach out to the department for guidance.
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This is really just my opinion, however…
I do not think that a student attends a great university such as UT Austin in order to find the easiest way to take a core class that is important to your major. Physics is such a class for an environmental engineering major. This is worth learning well.
Also, internships are important in multiple ways. If you have an internship, you should make an effort to do very well in the internship. An internship is a full time job.
I would take the first year of physics at UT Austin during the normal school year.
By the way, I took two years of physics (through special relativity and quantum physics) at a different highly ranked university. I will admit that quantum physics is probably not useful to an environmental engineer, and I am dubious whether special relativity would be useful. However, the first year of physics, which is what we are talking about, will be important. I think that it is worth learning this well even if the classes at UT Austin are academically challenging. Also, physics with calculus to me is significantly more interesting and more useful compared to whatever physics a student might have had previously without calculus.
And I agree about discussing this with an advisor at UT Austin before signing up to take physics at a community college.
This sounds right to me. The first year of physics classes are likely to be prerequisites for other required classes, which implies that they will want to be taken at the normal time, and not postponed to some future summer class.
I am also wondering whether freshman year physics might be a corequisite for any other classes that the student will need to take at the same time. I will give an example. I attended a high school that did not offer calculus as an option. Therefore I took calculus as a freshman in university. Calculus when I took it was a corequisite for physics. This meant that I needed to either have already taken calculus, or take it at the same time that I took physics. The professors were obviously coordinating their classes. They would teach something in calculus, and then use it two or three days later in physics. I had to keep up with calculus if I wanted to understand physics. This worked out really well. For example the value of what we were learning in calculus became very clear very quickly.
I think that you might want to check to see what required environmental engineering classes will have your freshman year physics classes as either a prerequisite or a corequisite. However, just taking the required classes in the normal order might be an easier way to get through the material and learn it well.
And remember that you are attending UT Austin to get a great education and to learn this stuff very well. You will be learning things that you will get to use multiple times (probably including during your internships, which should themselves be quite interesting). UT Austin is a very good university, and will in general have a lot of very good professors.
Also, congratulations on having gotten accepted to such a strong university!
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