How does someone find a course interesting? This may vary by the person, for example one of my friends told me that he tends to be able to find a small topic in a course that he finds cool, then expand that interest to the general content of the course. I sometimes wish I was like that since I would then put more time into the courses I give zero shits about. I think my enthusiasm and interest in a course is closely correlated to how applicable I see it being in the near future.
I have two courses that I enjoy this term(enjoy != being good at it). The first is quantum physics, I am kind of clueless on whats going on half of the time, and I have spent like 80% of my study time on this course(literally). I'm still unsure if I like this course or not, as I simply cant see how I will be using this stuff in the future, as in a job. Maybe for research on something but I hope to not be in that position 10 years down the line, no offense to researchers.
The second is physics and the solid state, which is essentially a course on metal alloys. This one is straight forward and quite applied, and it is quite great.
Rephrasing my first statement, I have one course I enjoy, and one course I spend alot of time on and consider it a good way to exercise the brain.
I'm taking two other courses + a full credit lab this term. BIOL/PHYS 280(Introduction to Biophysics), CHEM 254(Thermodynamics), MNS201L. Roughly 4 weeks of the school term has passed at the time of this writing, and I have probably put a combined 3 hours into phys280 and chem254 class. It's ok tho since my profs will probably never read this. I've also been skipping nearly every one of those classes besides the ones in the first week of school, because they're at 8 fucking 30.
I have 8:30s everyday, and I've been enjoying my extra amount of sleep a little too much. Safe to say I won't be going to them anytime soon. I will probably face the consequences of this relatively soon but I just cannot motivate myself to take any substantial interest in the bland, tasteless courses that I dearly dread.
I wish there was a path for uni programs that had the option to have flexible curriculums. The thing about my program is that I only have 1 materials science course per term, and the rest of filled with physics, chemistry or math. I have 3 free electives, which I plan on taking bird courses(e.g. Clas 104). In some sense it sounds ridiculous that I'm paying a full courses tuition to take courses that are utterly useless but I don't want to burden myself by choosing hard courses on top of my heavy courseload.
Some of the phys/chem program electives/requirements do not adhere to my interests, and I know that I will not be using them in the future. I would much rather take courses that are outside the concentration of materials science, primarily philosophy, psych or cs courses. I think some colleges in the US do this, and I sometimes daydream about how amazing life would look like if I could have more freedom to explore topics I take interest in.