McKinley Brumback
Physics is not my favorite area of science, but Professor Brumback's energy was contagious and made the course a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Her demos were always helpful and she was more than willing to give additional help outside of class hours.
I took this course to build a solid foundation in waves, optics, and thermodynamics. It ties together a lot of core physics ideas and shows how they apply across different systems, from light to heat to energy transfer. The course is split into three main parts. Waves focus on oscillations, superposition, and interference. Optics builds on that with reflection, refraction, lenses, and image formation. Thermodynamics shifts more into energy, heat, and entropy, and how systems change over time. Each unit connects, so understanding waves helps a lot with optics, and energy ideas carry into thermo. This class is very problem-based. You need to understand the concepts, but also be able to apply equations correctly. A lot of the challenge is setting up problems, choosing the right approach, and keeping track of units and signs. Lectures are clear, but things only really click when you work through problems yourself. Drawing diagrams is especially important for waves and optics. For thermodynamics, it helps to think carefully about what is happening physically, not just plug into equations.
I took this course to build a solid foundation in waves, optics, and thermodynamics. It ties together a lot of core physics ideas and shows how they apply across different systems, from light to heat to energy transfer. The course is split into three main parts. Waves focus on oscillations, superposition, and interference. Optics bu …Read more
Professor Brumback is so kind and such a great professor. Her slides and lectures are very engaging and informative. The labs were pretty tedious at times but some of them were really cool. The weekly homework and bi-weekly quizzes felt fairly graded. The final exam was a lot of just plugging in formulas and knowing when to use them.