Oh yay... I'm starting Physics later this year (assuming my exams have been good enough), but maybe it will be slightly easier in the UK though I am not counting on it

Huh, so I guess the laws of physics are simpler in the UK?  Who knew!

Different systems might make the strain easier...

That's why Newton did so well, they were just plain easier to observe and understand here because they are simpler.

Surprised I'm the first person to say this, but I think it all heavily depends on what your specific strengths and weaknesses are, as well as your interests.

You're going to have a harder time in a subject that you have little interest in. You're going to do better and have an easier time in a subject you have much interest in. The more you wrap yourself around the subject and the more you make it a part of your life, the easier it will be for you.

The calculus and physics classes I took in college were some of the most fun classes i've ever had. And I did very well in them because I really wrapped myself in it and dived to learn it. On the contrary, I've never done well in history or english writing/literature classes because I have very little interest in them. I don't put a lot of effort into them because they don't interest me.

Then again, that only applies to grade-school. The 2 history classes I had in college were done by an amazing professor with a unique teaching style, and I absolutely loved it. Passed the class with flying colors, and the exams were all essays. We had to write at least 10 pages, but 15 was prefferred, during our 2 hour exams. It was so incredibly fun though. During class he would tell us history like he was telling us a campfire story, almost. And he sometimes brought his guitar in to show us some songs people used to play. It was all incredibly inspiring....and I did extremely well.

So my point is, it depends on your interest in the subject as well as your interest in the teacher's style. There will be some teachers you perform better with and some you don't, and it all depends on how they teach the class.

It'll probably still be plenty hard in the UK, but I haven't once regretted the decision to go into it.  No risk, no reward...

Amen to this!!! I finished my bachelor degree in Physics in 2008, and I have to say that those 3 years and a half were heavy, heavy, heavy stuff. I've always been good at school (And still was), but it has been years of only doing impossible homeworks (3 per week minimum) where you take 3 hours just to guess how to start the problem, 50 pages laboratory reports and attending classes were you take 10 pages of notes in less dans 2 hours (this may not seem so much, but fill those pages with complicated physic laws and triple integrals and it becomes really fun), all of this almost every week for more than 3 years^^'.

Reaching graduate studies was really a relief, I had control over my project, my schedule and I was paid!!! I finished my master degree this april and I started my first ''real'' job two weeks ago, and I would never go back to my undergraduate years ^^ It was fun, but extremely painful at the same time lol

So, to the future Physic undergrads........if your program is anything like here in Québec, good luck, and have faith in yourself ;)

Voilà^^

I've heard Physics is a living nightmare. Congrats on surviving.

Living nightmare......Yeah, I think it fits pretty well^^ When you're in it, you seem to be stuck in time. However in the end, it went really fast, I can't believe I'm done with University, it seems to me that I started it yesterday.  I miss the video game nights that I organized at the university with another guy from my program, 6 hours of NES, SNES, N64 and gamecube with 20 physicists lol on friday night (the one that we had free^^) .One of the most stunning fact about one of those evening was that at one moment, there were 8 persons left and everybody was playing Mario Tennis, 4 on N64 and 4 on Gamecube..........I would never have though that this would happen ^^

Water flows upwards in the UK?  

Awesome, I know where I am going for my next vacation.