[lumost]

I was a physics undergrad who hopped into a few grad classes, and to be honest I was terrible at homework and great at exams (mostly due to some youthful obstinance on putting the time in on homework). At the time I believed that the exams showed who really knew the material and who applied time to solve the problem. With some time past I see that the larger/tougher problem sets were where the real challenge was.

I recall a few unique problem sets from Graduate QM such as

- Derive from first principles the color of the sky.

- Prove that charge must be Quantized if there is one magnetic mono-pole in the universe.

The exam questions were far simpler than the theory questions asked in the problem sets. The work for the first question easily totals > 20 hours of pen and paper time.

[kelnos]

> The work for the first question easily totals > 20 hours of pen and paper time.

I guess grad students generally take less coursework than undergrads, but how could a professor expect students to have 20+ hours on hand to solve a single question, given other demands on a student's time?

[lumost]

Grad students usually take 1-2 classes at a time, and the problem sets are spread out over 2 weeks.

A problem like the above would be given as a single problem for students to solve over 2 weeks.

[aidenn0]

I had an undergraduate lab where I spent 20 hours per week on the lab write ups.

That's what motivated me to switch away from a physics major.