I went to a BSc lecture and it was much harder than my BA lectures

We all know a BSc student who loves to moan about how hard their degree is and of course, they think our BA degrees are 'pointless'. I went to a physics lecture (with my housemate who actually studies physics) as a history student to see how hard it really is.

The walk to Queen's Building is a difficult start to the degree

Physics is based in Queen's building so straight away I was a fish out of water. It takes twice the amount of time to walk to Queen's than it does to the John Percival building. The first difference I noticed was the fact the students don't get there a minute earlier than they have to, which is very different to us history students, it seems as if we all love to be at least 10 minutes early.

If you have never been to Queen's, it is an absolute maze. With corridors leading to different wings, it can be a place where even physics students themselves can get lost, whereas the John Percival building is pretty easy to get around.

Corridor upon corridor

The physics lecturer is just as good as history lecturers

Okay, so this is where the similarities lay.

When we entered, the class previously had written on the board their 'worries' about graduating as a physics students. The lecturer comforted his students by letting them know that "physics students are the most educated" and are likely to become very rich. Sorry but aren't all lecturers a little bias towards their subject?

Although this doesn't come as a shock to me, the lecturer's knowledge was outstanding and was good at explaining what was going on, a massive similarity to history lecturers. At least we can all come in solidarity to know our lecturers are actually passionate about their topic areas.

Although the rooms were similar, the view of Cardiff out the window was better than the classic Lidl view from the JP building

I didn't get a single thing in the lecture

This is when I was completely lost. Initially, I tried my hardest to understand what was going on but the last time I've studied physics was for GCSEs so I didn't have any chance.

But it was bizarre to hear students constantly whispering to each other throughout the lecture, there was never complete silence. This is the polar opposite to the history lectures, where everyone is completely silent or at least near silent for the lecture.

A massive shock was the break. In between the two hours, students got up and stood in a line to ask the lecturer questions. I don't know if this is just a physics or science thing to do, but apart from the odd person every now and then, I have never ever seen a line to ask a lecturer a question in my history lectures. We just send emails when we get home.

If you look very, very closely the bubble says 'I'm doing a physics degree and I'm scared for my life'.

My friend did inform me that seminars are not a 'thing' in physics whereas a seminar in history is just as important as the lecture. A history lecture is one hour of information then the seminar is where you discuss the topic.

Ok so seminars don't exist in physics but they basically do. The lecturer set exercises for the students to do and then asked for their answers and explanations. This is basically seminars so physics lectures are like a combination of lecture and seminar rather than a complete split.

As you can see, I was completely lost, but I wasn't even on track anyway

The conclusion

What did I learn? Absolutely no physics, shock. Although, I do think that us BA students do have a copious amount of reading, we don't have to learn greek, Latin and even German symbols that represent something. So, I am sorry guys, BSc is harder than BA but that doesn't mean that we don't have it easy either.

Maybe we should just take our reading week and shut up, for now.