As someone who’s taking her class and doing far better than I did in PHYS 2010, Physics II is definitely abstract and requires much more time and dedication than Physics I. She’s very friendly, and she really cares about your success. This year, she provided a lot of practice exams and practice midterm exams that definitely helped improve my midterm scores.


I got an A- in this course and what helped me get that grade was a tremendous amount of preparation before the exam, usually a five day preparation of solving all practice midterms given, and re-doing all the in class worksheets. When I say all I mean ALL.

Physics 2 was definitely more difficult than Physics 1, and I took both courses with Grouchy. I was way less familiar with these concepts and I found them more difficult to grasp than those in Physics 1.

However, Grouchy does provide a lot of grade padding for this course. You get one drop in the exams which includes the final and there is an opportunity for up to 1.5% extra credit on your final grade at the end of the semester (Although she notes that it is difficult to receive the full 1.5%).

If you want to do well in this course some things I would recommend are starting the homework earlier in the week than Sunday (which is when they are due) so that you can have the TA's check for correctness. This will ensure you receive high grades in the homework components of the grading. Additionally, I found redoing practice from in class worksheets to be helpful before exams to remind myself of each unit of content. Running through Grouchy's practice exams also helped and was very comparable to the actual difficulty of the exams.

Only take this class if you need it for your major or pre-med. It is a ton of information--the final exam formula sheet was three pages long front and back. The way to do the best on the exams is go through the formula sheet and make sure you know how to use each one. Know what all the variables are, the units for each, what kind of problems they are used for. You can do well in this class if you complete all the assignments and actually do the practice problems. Assignments are given a lot of weight in your final grade and Grouchy always offers at least one really easy extra credit/grade drop option (typically the class survey). Each weekend there are three assignments due, this semester they were all due at midnight on Sunday. They take a decent amount of time so if you don't want to spend your entire Sunday evening doing physics I suggest starting a few days early. Since the assignments are a large percentage of the final grade and they easily balance out exam grades, it is a good idea to get a TA to check or work through problems you are stuck on. I really enjoyed her in class demonstrations, but the course felt pointless because I am never going to use the information I learned. You can do well if you put in the time, but don't take the class unless you have to!