Skills physics majors will have by the time they graduate and when these skills are taught:
- How to read and summarize physics textbooks. (begins in 100-level courses)
- How to find and evaluate information on the web. (beginning at 100 level courses)
- How to use information ethically with proper citations and no plagiarism. (begins in 100-level courses)
- How to read and summarize physics articles in popular magazines, such as Physics Today, Optics and Photonics News, and Scientific America. (begins in 200-level courses)
- How to search standard databases, such as arxiv.org and Google Scholar (begins in 200-level courses)
- How to read the abstract to a scientific paper and unpack the key points in journals such as Science, Nature, American Journal of Physics, and Physical Review A - E. (begins in 200-level courses)
- How to read physics articles in journals, such as Science, Nature, and American Journal of Physics. This involves getting through technical material, looking up extra information as needed (in texts, physics encyclopedias, and handbooks), and "reading around" passages they are having trouble with instead of just giving up. (begins in 300-level courses)
- How to summarize, synthesize, analyze, and evaluate the validity of the claims made in scientific journals, such as Science, Nature, and American Journal of Physics. (begins in 400-level courses)
We asses these skills multiple times throughout major courses.