GOALS FORCOLLEGE PHYSICS I AND THE REASON FOR THEM:
This is an algebra-based physics course. Before you register for it, you should find out whether your major requires a calculus-based physics course. If so, you should register for engineering physics. You should check the requirements at the college or university where you intend to transfer.
Here is a short explanation of what is studied in physics. After the explanation, you will find more specific goals.
THE EXPLANATION
This course involves the study of forces and motion from many points of view. All sorts of things can move from one place to another. For example, a little solid piece of matter can move. This might be a grain of dust, a running human, or a molecule. It might even be a planet. From the point of view of the whole solar system, even a planet looks like a little solid piece of matter. A physicist would call these things, along with many others, "particles". Forces, of course, have an important influence on how they move.
Some things could move but are not supposed to do that. For example, a forearm holding a book that you are reading should stay put. Physics also includes the study of that situation. It turns out that all of the forces, such as those exerted by certain muscles on the forearm, have to balance. There are some other requirements, too.
The effects of such motion are not always obvious. A very large group of moving molecules might make up a bowl of soup, a dog, or a planet. We experience this molecular motion as the temperature of the object; if the motion increases so does the temperature. So when you study topics related to temperature and heat, you are studying motion. Of course, the group of molecules might be liquid or gas, and the motion of these molecules would be influenced by the pressure in the fluid.
Sometimes it is a disturbance in a medium that is doing the moving. That is called a wave. So the study of waves in strings, springs, water, or air involve the study of motion. So does the study of any kind of vibration, such as the vibration of an eardrum. So does the study of sound waves and light waves, although in the case of light there is no actual medium.
Anything that involves heat, temperature, pressure, elastic materials, moving objects, waves, sound, light, or any kind of vibration is based on physics concepts. This includes any life science, medical science, chemistry, geology, astronomy, engineering, and many other things. Therefore a study of physics is needed as part of the preparation for a study of these and other fields.
People often study physics for its own sake. The same basic laws of nature underlie all of the phenomena mentioned above. Physics itself is the study of these basic laws, and they involve Newton's laws of motion, momentum conservation, energy conservation, and more. Although physicists like the way that these laws unite so many phenomena into a single whole, you do not have to be a physicist to study them. It might be of interest to anyone to see how nature works. We all live in a universe governed by such laws.
THE GOALS