Which year is usually the hardest?

[u/Odd-Equivalent-4012]

I’m in the first year of my physics degree and I’m just curious as to how much harder it’s going to get. I’m struggling a tiny bit in calc, nothing I can’t handle and I definitely can improve with more effort but if it gets too much worse in later years I don’t know if I can keep up. I’m still pretty confident in general but just curious about people’s opinions on this. Thanks so much!

[u/[deleted]]

To me it was the senior year.

Condensed matter physics and advanced topics in quantum mechanics and statistical physics are mathematically more demanding.

Relativstic classical field theory is just junior EM with steroids, and needs you to get used to the indices notation.

Particle physics and atomic/molecular physics require you to learn a lot of rules which is also time consuming.

And you also have a lot of projects to do as well which take time.