I always liked science in general and physics in particular.

I, along with some others in our class, were allowed to start Yearling (Sophomore) physics in the spring of our Plebe (Freshman) year. One needed to have had an elective course already available. In my case, I had advanced Math (3 instead of 4 semesters), advanced German (3 instead of 4 semesters), and advanced Engineering Fundamentals (1 instead of 2 semesters).

One somewhat unfortunate consequence of taking this course was that there was only one section and it was scheduled with a time of the other regiments. So I encountered other students in some of my classes and was not in the company area it times when the rest of my company was, etc.

The Department chair, Col. Saunders, taught the class. I always remembered something he said in class.

Col. Saunders stressed, on more than one occasion, that your answer to a real world problem should always match reality. He said that "If you work out a problem and your result is that a baseball pitcher is throwing the baseball 100,000 miles per hour, then something should tell you that you did something wrong".

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This was one of two courses in which I, to a large extent, knew more about a lot of the material than the professor. In both cases, it was an electrical engineering course (this one and computer architecture in graduate school) where the electrical engineering professor was drafted, apparently at the last minute, into teaching a course in which he had little prior knowledge or experience while I had numerous courses or extensive experience in that particular subject matter.

In this class, the captain did very well, but I noticed that when he was talking about something of which he was not completely sure, he would often look my way, to see if I had any comments.

On one quiz involving quantum wave functions and potential wells, I was confused as the setup of the problem, when adding another physics principle, made the problem to appear unsolvable. I finally wrote something to the effect that, given the other physics principle and equation, the problem assumed infinite energy in the universe, and so had no well-defined answer. Next lesson, he admitted the issue (on my quiz) and I got full credit for the quiz. It was annoying, though, that those who provided an incorrect answer along the lines that he had intended, also got credit for their answer.

I took two electives in German. In the course on military and scientific German, taught by Oberst Leutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Leiberich, I did my term paper on what was (publicly available) knowledge of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) including risks and consequences. In German, of course. Sadly a lot of this public information is not mentioned much even today.

I did my term paper on the promotion, potential use, and economics of the technological development and use of solar energy in the United States.

I did my senior term paper on the technology and decisions to use or not use the neutron bomb, which was to be soon decided by the Carter administration.

My social science professor did not want me to do this paper as, he said, there were no decisions to be made and nothing to discuss. He said it was an easy decision that would be approved and deployed so there was nothing to write about. After requesting multiple times, he was annoyed at me but let me do it. I wrote the paper, provided reasons and discussion. Then President Carter made the decision which was along the lines of what I was saying and reasoning about but was opposite to what this professor had insisted. So he was wrong in this respect while I was correct. He gave me a poor grade and said my analysis and discussion was lacking. I guess he got back at me for not going along with his point of view. I never liked those touchy-feely courses that ignored reason and logic.

The spring of my senior year, the physics department selected me to attend a academic science conference in Albany. year. The previous year it had been on micro-electronics, which would have been very interesting. The year I attended, it was on experimental biology, which, to me, was not as interesting a topic.