Yeah, it's pretty light, but look at the course number--it's a sophomore level course. Most physics students who'd be taking this course (likely as an elective

Yeah, it's pretty light, but look at the course number--it's a sophomore level course. Most physics students who'd be taking this course (likely as an elective or part of a focus/specialized track) are taking "Physics III" and "Calc III" concurrently, or if they're taking it in the second semester concurrently with something like undergrad classical mechanics. They won't have been exposed to PDEs (or, at least, only tangentially through the multi-dimensional topics covered in "Calc III" or the second physics course of their freshman year) or problems reaching the level of sophistication that would make, e.g. Monte Carlo "interesting" to use (in my opinion).