PHYS110 is a fairly difficult first-year course. If you aren’t in engineering and can take PHYS102 instead, take it!!!!

Travis Martin is a great professor that made most concepts very clear by going through several examples related to the topic. Unfortunately, these examples do tend to lead to him getting a little sidetracked and begin explaining something that IS physics-related, just not course material-related. He also seemed to be uninformed about some aspects of the course, like a section of the textbook missing (DC circuit). However, I blame the course coordinator and author of the textbook for not including that.

Do all the assignments and optional teaching assignments. They’re including useful for studying.

The course is a big jump from Physics 11/12 but is not overly difficult. The exams are worth a LOT of your mark but with adequate studying it isn't too bad.

Physics 12 but with calculus

I had Dr. Laidlaw and Dr. Martin, both were good it just depends on how you like to learn. Mark posts lectures online that you watch prior to class, and in class is all examples. Travis is more traditional by presenting information for ~%40 of the class then examples for the rest. Both are actually quite nice and humorous, just a bit dry (especially Mark)

DO THE TEACHING ASSIGNMENTS! Lots of exam questions are from the homework or teaching assignments (extra homework). I had written down 3 types of questions I was not confident in and all 3 were on the final.

Somewhat difficult class, but not too hard to do well in if you study.

Content is mostly stuff seen in Physics 11/12, but with calculus.

Laidlaw's actually pretty funny (*extremely dry* though); course is on the harder side but he does a pretty decent job of teaching the material. If you come to class and do the homework you'll be fine; otherwise, you're screwed.

The material itself is not too difficult as it is just like the BC physics 12 curriculum, but the videos were full of proofs and the examples are too easy. The most challenging aspect is that there is no resource for similar quiz problems so you just find yourself redoing somehow easy problems done in lecture videos that don’t really correlate with the difficulty of the quizzes and final exam.

Laidlaw is nice in office hours and pretty helpful. However, he mostly replies with mean comments via emails. His response time to emails is very long so don’t expect fast response.

Critical knowledge for engineering, questions can be tricky but if you put your mind to it you can do it. The tests will put pressure on you but are doable.

Laidlaw is hard on his students, pretty dull, but also gets the job done, most people don't like him because he tells it as it is. If you have a basic understanding of Physics 12, this class is just Physics 12 (BC Curriculum) with a third dimension.

Make sure you understand how to do the homework questions.

Very time consuming course because there is a lot of content to cover. Some interesting content, but it's mostly review if you took physics in high school. Definitely recommend it because taking this class opens so many doors to further STEM courses.

Practice often and start on assignments early. The book of Worked Examples is your friend.

This class is TOUGH and it’s incredibly time consuming. If you have no physics background prepare to study you ass off haha. The labs are very long however if you start early they are doable. The lectures are not that bad tbh. I would argue some of the examples r fairly useful. However, the biggest issue I ran into were the tests amd grading scheme. You have roughly 6 minutes per question and once you submit the answer you cannot change it, or go back to the previous questions. NO PARTIAL CREDIT IS GIVEN. If it’s wrong, you get a 0 which makes for averages around 5/10 most of the time. Even if your off by a decimal or two, you get a zero.

Break this class up throughout the week and honestly spend as much time as possible on the material. This class sucks but it’s one of those you just have to deal with.

This was a very tough course if you aren't already a physics buff. You have to be very dedicated and genuinely interested. Tests were difficult. The textbook seemed to help somewhat. And the labs were quite difficult but asking for help is probably the best way if you have a decent TA.

Go to office hours. He's nicer than you think and will talk to you for hours about physics and other stuff. He was really helpful when I asked questions because I was dedicated to get through this course. He enjoys helping students. He comes off as arrogant sometimes, it's just his personality.

Proff is great, though barely saw him.

no need to go to class you can learn everything by yourself just repeat questions (subscribe to WNY tutor on youtube) VERY HELPFUL take this when your fresh from high school, not in your 3th, 4th year worst mistake.

Difficult course that is overly theory-driven. Laidlaw is clearly knowledgeable and wrote the course's textbook but does a poor job of relating the material to understandable examples. Most of the lectures were going over complex proofs rather than giving lasting physics intuition.

Do your best to understand the calculus and algebra behind each proof. Don't be discouraged if you do poorly; this course does not represent physics courses well (they get easier).

Laidlaw makes detailed videos and walks you through everything. Even though the course is online during the pandemic, he demonstrates the labs and gives out tips as he comes across challenges. The objectives are clear. The calculus is simple and straightforward. He shows different methods of solving scenarios. If you find yourself stuck, there's typically a solved example in the textbook to work from. Out of all my courses so far, I felt that this was the only course that was "taught" (in that all the materials and instruction I needed were provided). The biweekly quizzes are far less stressful than midterms. Btw the workload is nothing compared to Math100/101.

Physics makes way more sense with calculus. Skip 102, do 110 or 120.

Honestly one of the worst course I have ever taken. Laidlaw skips steps in his algebra in his lecture videos and overcomplicate things. Also the workload is appalling. Do NOT take this if you can avoid it.

Just don't take it.

It's a tough course with really low averages, but I thought Laidlaw was good, I liked hid vids, thought the quizzes were fair, and he was a pretty entertaining prof. The labs are way too long but they give out good marks for them if you do them right. The grading for the quizzes was tough since it was one-directional tests and not multiple choice, but they are scaled a bit.

Do ALL the review questions before a quiz. Start the labs ahead of time. No need to go to the live lectures.