[assemblyman]

I came to the US for college from Asia to study physics (and mathematics). I actually came to study astronomy because I found it fascinating but didn't really like physics or math. My first physics encounter in college here transformed my life. There was no memorization. Instead, we had short quizzes in each class (first 5 min), weekly individual assignments, weekly group assignments (two students each), four "midterms" where one could get densely written "cheat-sheets" as well as weekly physics lab that often went on far beyond the time slot.

In high school, physics was mostly based on memorization. There were a few problems but all based on some patterns. None made you think extremely hard.

I also found that many American students (who were extremely good in my experience) seemed to have a much better practical sense.

One of the key steps in the development of a physicist is the transition from solving textbook problems to creating your own problems. In essence, the skill one learns in graduate school is defining/crafting problems that are solvable and interesting. The primordial phase starts in college as one is solving many problems. Initially, the new problems are straightforward extensions of existing ones (e.g. add an air resistance term for parabolic motion). Eventually, one (hopefully) develops good taste and essentially is doing research.

Interestingly, I also find very different attitudes to physics in the west (at least in the US) and other parts of the world. In US universities, physics is still seen in glowing terms. In many other places, physics is what you study if you couldn't do engineering. Young people (well, all people) are impressionable and this subtle bias affects what kind of students end up studying the subject.

[kafkaesque]

> physics is what you study if you couldn't do engineering

This reminded me of something from my alma mater.

At my (Canadian) university, there was a running joke that engineering was what you studied if you couldn't get into computer science. In fact, the Engineering and Computer Science faculties would semi-frequently prank each other because they were next to each other, I guess. Each faculty focuses on different things, of course, but the "running joke" was that engineering courses were just easier, not as rigorous, and therefore getting in engineering was seen as easier (and so they had more time to do such elaborate pranks).

Again, I don't think this had any truth to it, but it was just one part of a fun tradition the university had.

Also, this was a long time ago. I'm not sure what the current state of this is now or if it even still exists.

[Thorrez]

I have a BSE (Bachelor of Science in Engineering) in Computer Science.

[macbr]

> physics is what you study if you couldn't do engineering

Wdym "couldn't do"? Nobody here is studying Physics for the job opportunities but I'd say everybody who makes it past semester 4 genuinely loves Physics otherwise they'd be studying something easier.

[assemblyman]

As one example, I met quite a few graduate students from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) who ranked high enough in the entrance tests to study computer science/engineering or electrical engineering but really wanted to study physics. They all had significant pressure from their parents to choose the engineering branch and had to fit in physics electives where they could. My understanding is that the priority list was:

computer science/engineering > electrical engineering > mechanical engineering > ... > things like metallurgical engineering > ... > physics (and maybe other sciences)

Some of this is driven by job prospects while some of it is prestige driven because one's major lets one infer one's rough ranking in the entrance tests.

So it's very common to infer that if you weren't studying engineering, you didn't rank very high and barely made it past the cutoff ranks and had to study physics or metallurgical engineering.

When I was younger, I thought these rank-based systems (very common in Asian countries) are better than the fuzzier American system of grades + extracurriculars + reference letters. But my opinion is the opposite now. As soon as ranks are involved, a notion of prestige gets assigned. Once prestige is involved, people will climb over each other to get through the doors and suppress their instincts to earn social credits. I have seen enough people who are successful by traditional metrics but are miserable because they didn't spend time pursuing their interests (modulo concerns about jobs and money).

Edit: I'll add that my IIT friends were generally extremely bright, curious, creative and generally wonderful to work with. But they also had a competitive streak which could turn counter-productive. Against their own better instincts, they sometimes got locked into a path where outcomes could be measured vs exploring areas less traveled. If they saw a topic or area that attracted top minds (e.g. see AI at frontier labs today), they felt pulled in that direction because "that's where the smart people were going and they themselves were smart and therefore, should go into the arena". This is true of Asian Americans in general. After all, that's why there was an uproar that students with perfect SATs and GPAs of 4+ (5?! i.e. A++ grades) were sometimes getting rejected by Harvard. I agree with Harvard in this case. One doesn't want cookie cutter/prescriptive paths into top universities. Instead, there should be some randomness as long as students meet some decent baselines. I don't mean race-based or group-based selection. Just really random selection at least for a small fraction of students.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

> In many other places, physics is what you study if you couldn't do engineering.

What places are these?