Our purpose as a department is to educate our students to better understand the concepts and phenomena of the physical world. We serve several constituencies:
- Non-Majors (students satisfying disciplinary breadth requirements of the Hamline Plan, or who express interest, beyond their own field, in physics.)
- General Physics course requirements for chemistry and biology students.
- Applied Physics Majors.
- Physics Majors
For non-majors, our goal is to give them the perspective seen by a physicist or natural scientist in problem solving and how to approach issues from a natural science perspective. In serving students from other natural science departments, our goal is to advance their understanding of physical principles and concepts through problem solving and active investigation. Each of these goals apply equally well to our majors. We also provide our majors with a background of knowledge and a set of skills that will allow them to function as physicists or engineers in the workplace or to be successful in graduate or professional school.
To accomplish these goals we maintain an environment of scholarship and inquiry within the department for ourselves and our students.
Goals
We seek to develop in every student who completes a physics course a set of skills and knowledge that will help them function more effectively in their lives.
Every student who completes any course offered in the department of physics should be able to:
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- Model a Physical situation.
- Apply a mathematical model to a physical situation.
- Find solutions to the mathematical model.
- Interpret the solutions physically.
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- Design an experiment to test a physical model.
- Gain familiarity with the use of experimental apparatus.
- Interpret experimental results physically.
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- Present the results of work to a variety of audiences
