Question

I am just curious as a non-US person:

how does undergraduate physics course progress in U.S. colleges?

Do they go right into classical mechanics books, or do they teach introductory courses first, then specialize on classical mechanics, electrodynamics etc. in the second year?

First-year, second-year, third-year distinction would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

You can get this information usually by looking at the physics department website of the U.S. college in question.

Here is how it worked for myself: Newtonian Physics & Basic EM -> Modern Physics (an overview class), Experimental Physics, Quantum Physics (bad naming here, really should be something like QM I), Classical Mechanics + Electives (e.g. Computational Physics) -> Quantum Mechanics, Classical Electrodynamics, Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics + Electives (e.g. Elementary Particle Physics)