Ever feel like you’re in a room with a whole lot of people who have not idea what’s being discussed? :p
I’mma calling in backup! (hope ya’ll don’t mind!)
RadioAstronomer was banned. He's over at Darwin Central.
Sorry. Since so many of the science posters have been banned, there's no help for it anymore.
I disagree with Tipler. I took courses in general relativity as an undergrad (under Max Dresden at Stony Brook) and as a graduate student (under Lay Nam Chang at Virginia Tech), but those were elective, and should have been.
At the undergraduate level, few students have the math background to approach it. Very few students who take a B.S. in physics will ever need it. They'd do better to take an advanced course in quantum mechanics, or a course in computer programming.
At the graduate level, typically two years of coursework are required, but those two years are wall-to-wall mechanics, E&M, and quantum mechanics, and it's barely adequate. After that, the student may elect to take more courses, but not too many: he really needs to get cracking on his research. There's no time to waste.
I took the GR courses because the subject interested me, but I've never had to use my knowledge in any professional capacity. The courses I took in the Standard Model were relevant to my specialty, but weren't (and shouldn't have been) required.