Calc 2, Geology 2, Organic 2 all made intentionally difficul

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Yes, Organic Chem 2 is the weed-out class for pre-med.

But even Psych 2.

Psychology 1 was an interesting class which was an intro to the field. But Psych 2 was research methods, which I agree is important. But it wasn’t just understanding research methods, it was also writing in the tedious APA style taught by a disinterested grad student.

APA = American Psychological Association

Anyone else have experiences in which it sure seems like the second class in a course of study is being made intentionally difficult?

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 22 Aug 2022, 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Each level is always progressively more difficult than the previous level, so if you think a "102" class is difficult, just wait until you get to the 200, 300, and 400 classes.

It is not a matter of weeding you out, it is a matter of building on previous learning.

Yes, but those 2nd classes seemed unnecessarily technical.

No question that the upper level classes included some challenging material, but they seemed quite a bit better paced.

I didn't really experience this. The next course usually seemed to build off of the previous one. Of course, professors do vary in their approach. Some are more challenging than others.

What style did you use in Psych 1? My college seemed to have the same standards as far as citation styles are concerned for every level.

Ironically, I used to have more trouble in the "intro" courses than in subsequent courses.

I can probably relate to that. One has to learn the expectations of new disciplines, including citation styles.

My previous education was so poor that I had to work really hard in intro courses to get caught up to everyone else. My first year or two of college was like high school and college combined for that reason.

I’m 59 years old, just for the record and all!

Yes, I’ve taken courses in my 30s and 40s. Although here, I’m mainly trying to contribute to a conversation useful for younger students.

I took Psych 1 in the Summer of 1985, and it had three multiple-choice tests, with no papers required at all.

Other Psych courses such as Abnormal Psychology or Social Psychology (which was one of my favorites!) did have a single paper and it required standard academic style, such as:

Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos, Thomas Petzinger, Jr., Westminster, Maryland, U.S.: Times Books, (previously published by Quarto Publishing Group), 1995.

* excellent book on the business side of commercial aviation

** and, harder to find this publishing data online than I thought it would be!

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Only “Methods of Psychology” seemed to have a few slight differences. I probably should not have stressed it so much. I probably should have just targeted that sweet spot between B+ and A-, which is the best ratio of time to grade.

And for the little mini-experiment we did in class and wrote up, “Methods” also had Abstract, Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion. And all of this is reasonable enough.

But the same problem I had with 10th grade chemistry (age 15). We mix two chemicals together, and they seemingly want ten pages of notes? ! ?

Or like 11th grade physics, we roll a steel ball down one incline which connects to another incline, with a sheet of regular paper, then carbon paper, then regular paper. And then the teacher wants us to spend like two hours writing up a graph? ! ? I’m laughing just remembering it. But maybe it was also a leak in my game. Maybe I’m just highly resistant to elaborate write-ups of simple experiments.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/h ... -1.422044/

About Calculus 2, from 2010:

Emphasis added.

And, I concur.

* the way in which calculus is taught seems to change at a glacial pace!