Difficult course that is overly theory-driven. Laidlaw is clearly knowledgeable and wrote the course's textbook but does a poor job of relating the material to understandable examples. Most of the lectures were going over complex proofs rather than giving lasting physics intuition.

Do your best to understand the calculus and algebra behind each proof. Don't be discouraged if you do poorly; this course does not represent physics courses well (they get easier).

Honestly one of the worst course I have ever taken. Laidlaw skips steps in his algebra in his lecture videos and overcomplicate things. Also the workload is appalling. Do NOT take this if you can avoid it.

Just don't take it.

Very time consuming course because there is a lot of content to cover. Some interesting content, but it's mostly review if you took physics in high school. Definitely recommend it because taking this class opens so many doors to further STEM courses.

Practice often and start on assignments early. The book of Worked Examples is your friend.

The course is a big jump from Physics 11/12 but is not overly difficult. The exams are worth a LOT of your mark but with adequate studying it isn't too bad.

Physics 12 but with calculus

I had Dr. Laidlaw and Dr. Martin, both were good it just depends on how you like to learn. Mark posts lectures online that you watch prior to class, and in class is all examples. Travis is more traditional by presenting information for ~%40 of the class then examples for the rest. Both are actually quite nice and humorous, just a bit dry (especially Mark)

DO THE TEACHING ASSIGNMENTS! Lots of exam questions are from the homework or teaching assignments (extra homework). I had written down 3 types of questions I was not confident in and all 3 were on the final.

Overall pretty good class; labs are pretty interesting.

Pretty heavy courseload, all new material not seen in previous classes.

Laidlaw's a pretty good prof; if you actually study enough things usually go ok.

The material itself is not too difficult as it is just like the BC physics 12 curriculum, but the videos were full of proofs and the examples are too easy. The most challenging aspect is that there is no resource for similar quiz problems so you just find yourself redoing somehow easy problems done in lecture videos that don’t really correlate with the difficulty of the quizzes and final exam.

Laidlaw is nice in office hours and pretty helpful. However, he mostly replies with mean comments via emails. His response time to emails is very long so don’t expect fast response.

Critical knowledge for engineering, questions can be tricky but if you put your mind to it you can do it. The tests will put pressure on you but are doable.

This was a very tough course if you aren't already a physics buff. You have to be very dedicated and genuinely interested. Tests were difficult. The textbook seemed to help somewhat. And the labs were quite difficult but asking for help is probably the best way if you have a decent TA.

Go to office hours. He's nicer than you think and will talk to you for hours about physics and other stuff. He was really helpful when I asked questions because I was dedicated to get through this course. He enjoys helping students. He comes off as arrogant sometimes, it's just his personality.

Compared to PHYS 110, this course is much more focused on a general topic. This is still first-year physics, so not a super specific topic, but everything was somewhat more related than in 110. This made the course easier in a way, since there was a fair amount of stuff later in the course that was directly related to what was covered earlier in the course, which helped me understand some of the topics better. I had to take this course a few times to get the grade I needed, and I absolutely preferred the format of the course for the summer term over that of the spring term. For the summer there were four midterms, one every three weeks, which I found to be somewhat lower pressure than having two bigger midterms six weeks apart because the content covered was fresher in my mind. The class ...read more

The course mainly covers waves. Harmonic motion, soundwaves, light waves, this waves, that waves. It was kind of cool to find things related to harmonic motion that also related to light waves, or light waves to soundwaves. The material isn't particularly easy, but staying on top of the homework and paying attention in lectures was enough for me to do well. The labs in this course generally lined up with the material covered in lectures fairly well, although the format of the course for the summer term sometimes meant that the lab covering what we were learning in lecture was a week or so later. The labs also weren't particularly easy, but my TA was pretty good and gave very helpful explanations to help us figure it all out. The lab manual was also usually very thorough, so between my TA ...read more

Laidlaw was phenomenal. His explanations were super thorough both while discussing theory and while doing examples. I really appreciated how he handled examples, giving any background knowledge necessary to complete the problems, then allowing students to try before walking through the problem himself. He was also super funny, sprinkling in jokes and stories or reenacting movie scenes to illustrate points. He was also easy to contact and responded quickly to any issues. I wish I had taken the course with Laidlaw in my previous attempt, because I truly think his teaching method is what got me through. I'm not really a fan of how he has the course organized, particularly in the spring term, with exams having so much more influence on the final grade than assignments and labs. It feels incre...read more

Do not slack off on the early topics. If you're doing well for the first few weeks you'll probably be fine, but if you don't understand what's happening you need to get help or just drop the course. It never really gets easier and there's not really time to play catch-up when you fall behind. Before exams, make sure you're really prepared. They're worth a lot of your mark, so doing well on them is essential. Your formula sheet can have notes, problems, and formulae, so while you're preparing that sheet don't be shy about adding what you need to do well.

Laidlaw makes detailed videos and walks you through everything. Even though the course is online during the pandemic, he demonstrates the labs and gives out tips as he comes across challenges. The objectives are clear. The calculus is simple and straightforward. He shows different methods of solving scenarios. If you find yourself stuck, there's typically a solved example in the textbook to work from. Out of all my courses so far, I felt that this was the only course that was "taught" (in that all the materials and instruction I needed were provided). The biweekly quizzes are far less stressful than midterms. Btw the workload is nothing compared to Math100/101.

Physics makes way more sense with calculus. Skip 102, do 110 or 120.