I wish I could say that things have stayed the same since the last reviews of this course, but things have changed since then. I really genuinely tried to enjoy and love this course... This course was challenging even though I did fairly well in high school physics. Things felt disorganized and incoherent. First off, EdX. The website was glitchy and had a ton of technical issues that were barely resolved. The EdX readings were infinitely long but explained relatively little for its length. There were never-ending workbook/practice questions (all counted for marks), and they only tell you if your inputted answer is right or wrong with no explanation. Personally, I learn better when I can read explanations so I can take note of how they expect us to approach a question. I think the only *ex...read more

The content itself was actually interesting - physics is interesting in general! The material probably wasn't as complex as it seemed, but the structure of the whole course made it 10x harder to learn. You probably have a better chance of learning the stuff from YouTube videos, though they can only get you so far.

Prof Karczmarek is very intelligent and knowledgeable, super nice person too! She knows her stuff. I can see how great she is for upper level courses, but I think she overcomplicates her lectures a bit for a first year course. It also feels as if she's not always prepared for her lecture? She'll start going at a physics question but will stop halfway through telling us to scrap everything she just said. Pretty much all the time you're watching her solve the given question for the first time. I guess people can appreciate it if they like seeing her thought process, but it mostly feels like a good chunk of lecture time was wasted waiting for her. I was lowkey always lost in her lectures. Maybe it's because I didn't have any calculus background and was also having a hard time keeping up with...read more

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This is a very interesting course, although admittedly probably the hardest second year physics course at UBC.