Physics Lab: Ever feel like you don't know what the hell is going on?

[speg]

Ever feel like you don't have a clue as to what is going on, BEFORE you even get into the lab. I'm reading over the lab, and I don't have a clue what they're talking about. I was hoping this semester would be better than last, but it doesn't look like I'm off to a good start

This was my least favourite class last semester, made me feel real dumb and stuff. Ugh, on top of that I've already missed two classes today, and I'm sick.

Today sucks.

 

[MrScott81]

Just go with the flow, you'll find that in most labs, nobody really knows what's going on either, even the TA's....do what I did, find someone's lab book from the last semester and use it as a reference

 

[Triumph]

Labs are generally poorly structured, with poorly written lab manuals written by poorly trained Indian grad students with poor english.

What parts of the lab don't you understand?

 

[AMCRambler]

I loved Physics lab in college. We had the coolest professor, no grad students teaching his labs. Sorry to hear you're having a hard time.

 

[Ranger X]

All of mine were taught by grad students and they were the WORST!

 

[AvesPKS]

My favorite physics lab was where our group determined that gravity was 9,500 m/s^2. We lost half a point for accuracy.

 

[bolido2000]

Mine were taught by professors. Labs are a PITA but no midterm and final makes up for it

 

[MrScott81]

Originally posted by: bolido2000
Mine were taught by professors. Labs are a PITA but no midterm and final makes up for it

No midterm or final? Lucky! We had no midterm, but we did have a final....but hey, it was the an exact replica of the practice test he gave, so as long as you went to class the last day you did pretty good

 

[shekondar]

Originally posted by: Triumph
Labs are generally poorly structured, with poorly written lab manuals written by poorly trained Indian grad students with poor english.

I got a Russian lady who knew exactly TWO WORDS of English for my first semester physics lab...:disgust:

 

[speg]

Well that was an absolute waste of 3+ hours. I did get a grad student. His english was poor, he asked me a question when I came in and I misunderstood him so I said yes. I should have said no, oh well. Then the actual lab was an absolute mess, he lectured us for 20 mins about this that and the thingy over there. Like we can remember all that.

Then I had no clue what we were doing during the lab, but I did find out I have TWO physics ( lecture and programming ) assignments due tommorrow. I was also starving to death the last hour, my stomach hurt so bad, I was in pain.

*sigh*

 

[Electric Amish]

Mine sucked as well.

Everything they teach you occurs under ideal situations then you try to demonstrate in a lab that occurs in real life where there are things like air resistance.

 

[silverpig]

They seem hard when you first start them because you have to learn the equipment (as it seems you're learning how to use the oscilloscope). Once you know how that works, how to get a display and read it properly, how the DMMs work, the breadboards etc, then it becomes easy.

Thing is though, once you're comfortable taking decent data, you then have to learn how to make a program like mathematica give you nice fits and what not to that data. It's a nice pain in the ass. Furthermore, once you've got mathematica down, you then have to learn LaTeX.

 

[bigalt]

Originally posted by: AvesPKS
My favorite physics lab was where our group determined that gravity was 9,500 m/s^2. We lost half a point for accuracy.

laugh, in one of my engineering labs we had to measure the depth of water in a bucket using inertial properties and we got like 5 attometers or something like that.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: bigalt

Originally posted by: AvesPKS
My favorite physics lab was where our group determined that gravity was 9,500 m/s^2. We lost half a point for accuracy.

laugh, in one of my engineering labs we had to measure the depth of water in a bucket using inertial properties and we got like 5 attometers or something like that.

5 attometres is much much less than the width of even a single electron

 

[bigalt]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: bigalt

Originally posted by: AvesPKS
My favorite physics lab was where our group determined that gravity was 9,500 m/s^2. We lost half a point for accuracy.

laugh, in one of my engineering labs we had to measure the depth of water in a bucket using inertial properties and we got like 5 attometers or something like that.

5 attometres is much much less than the width of even a single electron

yeah, i'm pretty sure we were a little bit off.

 

[kag]

I had a physics lab in my first year too, in the Electricity & Magnetism course. I was teamed with my best friend and sometimes we would just sit there and I'd have absolutely no clue on what to do. I felt bad because I thought he was pissed that I didn't know sht. I would walk at the other end of the lab and look at other people's stuff and come back and tell him how to do it. Only last year did he tell me that he had no clue about on what to do either, but he didn't want to tell me at first heeheh. He said he was so happy that he teamed with me instead of someone he didn't knew and also when I'd go peek on other people's work. hehehe good old times

 

[Ranger X]

Try taking a physics lab taught by a grad student with a heavy accent. :Q

 

[ErmanC]

Been there, done that. Seen pretty much all of what these guys describe. I think I got about a 53% average in my Physics II class. Wound up getting curved and I made a solid "A". Just do what you can and get through it. Good time to start talking to your lab partners and other groups and stuff too. If noone understands, then you're probably ok. Then again, some professors just fail people because they can.

Either way, Good Luck!

 

[zephyrprime]

I did great in my physics lab. It typically made sense and my Russian TA was a lot of fun.

 

This is why I'm a Political Science major - I'm just not good at physical sciences, but I love writing and reading!

 

[Gibson486]

yeah, i remember my physics labs. I had no idea what was going on and in the end we all just asked each other what to do. I remember when i had to do a lab and the TA started yelling at everyone for not knowing how to derive some equation. AH man, it's funny seeing soem feoreign guy yelling at the top of his lungs because he thinks we are all stupid.....

 

[Gibson486]

yeah, i remember my physics labs. I had no idea what was going on and in the end we all just asked each other what to do. I remember when i had to do a lab and the TA started yelling at everyone for not knowing how to derive some equation. AH man, it's funny seeing soem feoreign guy yelling at the top of his lungs because he thinks we are all stupid.....

 

[Darien]

my lab TAs were good. They were all graduate students. They all knew how to speak english and understood every lab.

The lab manual, on the other hand, kind of sucked.

 

[CanOWorms]

Most people are like that!

I once had a course named network theory and a graduate student signed up to be one of the lab TAs for it. He thought it was about computer networking. Unfortunately it was about circuit networks and he didn't know anything related to the class or lab. The average lab consisted of going to lab, sitting for 30 mins, and then him telling us to find another lab group's data, email it to him, and he'll email it to everyone else.

Then I had another TA that would let us out early so he could go watch mud wrestling.

 

[Storm]

You're not the only one who didnt know what was going on in those labs. Having grad students that could not grasp the english language sucked...

A friend of mine in college... listed ingredients(in the part of the lab where you list what you used for that lab) on how to cook a tasty turkey for thanksgiving. Instead of lab directions he made up cooking instructions for the turkey.

Finally in his conclusion he stated the turkey or chicken tasted great. Guess what he got for his lab report? A Check Plus lol.