My big challenge in preparing my General Physics I syllabus is to figure out what to cut, when the majority of the students are pre-health. I cut thermodynamics, because we have learned that it is taught also in chemistry (and other places). I then wanted to add more material about fluids and elastic solids (pretty relevant to medicine, it seems), so what to cut? I ended up cutting most of rotation, spinning, and angular momentum. Why? To understand the body, you do need to know about torques (how does your arm work, static structures, and so on) but you don't really need to conserve angular momentum. Or do you? The centrifuge spins, but it doesn't have angular dynamics.
(I will be doing the centrifuge.)
I am a student in Professor Hogg's General Physics lecture, and I can really see how this effort has payed off. The result is that our learning is presented as being USEFUL and RELEVANT in our future lives. This is so much more stimulating than a dusty idea that we're suppose to forget as soon we hand in our final exam for the course. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that unfortunately many NYU professors feel very differently about this. In the Chemistry Department, many professors made it clear that they resent our goal of Medicine and only care for the students who plan to attend Chemistry Grad school (maybe 2% of the class). Some Chemistry professors actually have a policy that pre-meds are not accepted to work in their labs. If these teachers actually care about 98% of their students, what effect you they think this has on our attitude?
So hurray for NYU Physics and hurray for Professor Hogg!
Yonah Z.