[gsteinb88]

Thank you so much for this; you just described my undergraduate experience in physics perfectly, especially the endless nagging feeling that something isn't quite right -- I never managed to make that feeling go away. I ended up taking a bunch of maths courses towards the end of my undergraduate and can still remember one particular functional analysis lecture on dual spaces where I finally figured out what the hell those dual spaces in quantum were about. Sadly, this was after I had struggled through and finished the full quantum sequence.

Ironically though, I ended up drifting into the EECS department to do applied physics and I've found an environment much more similar to mathematics (and to the experiment-based approach you advocate) than to the physics department -- when you're trying to build systems rather than just solve problems, you can't just wave your hands. Instead, you have to pick apart your assumptions and figure out why you can ignore certain things and not others.