Current Events > Have you ever taken Calculus?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Took calc 1 and calc 2 many years ago. I generally enjoyed the material from calc 1. Calc 2 is x5 harder, made me hate math, and I stopped taking math classes.

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foxhound101 posted...

Took calc 1 and calc 2 many years ago. I generally enjoyed the material from calc 1. Calc 2 is x5 harder, made me hate math, and I stopped taking math classes.

any of you think calc 2 is trash? i mean that it's hard but it's not even legitimately hard? like it's garbage?

Wagger_25 posted...

yes I took cal 1-3

Never buy books in college unless you have too for a homework code.

you can find a pdf online for 99% of books

that absolutely depends on how much of a dick your professor is. if your professor insists on assigning the newest version of a book, one that's less then a year old, then you're going to have a bad time trying to finding that version on the web.

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1-3 plus Diff EQ

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Calc 1 was easy until the last chapter. As in 0 studying, just homework and attending class and I had a solid B, maybe a B plus. Then the last chapter fucked everything up, no one understood it. But then we're checking previous exams for the final going back like 4 years. Was only ever 20 percent of the exam, which was 20 percent of our grade or some ish. We still didn't get it but I'm just like fuck, I'm still likely to get a B, maybe B plus so nothing should change so instead of wasting time understanding this, I'll get a solidify the foundation I already have and be good.

Mother fuckers made it 45 percent of the final exam on that one chapter. I got everything wrong from that. And since it's 45 percent of an exam worth 20 percent of our final grade, that means I lost 9.5 minimum off my final grade assuming I got everything else right. Still passed with a C but my God I was furious when I saw that shit.

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foxhound101 posted...

Took calc 1 and calc 2 many years ago. I generally enjoyed the material from calc 1. Calc 2 is x5 harder, made me hate math, and I stopped taking math classes.

That's that infinite series bullshit right? Never took it but I heard infinite shit about infinite series from all my friends who did.

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My high school offered AP Calc AB and BC each as separate year-long courses. That was was the perfect pace for me and I came away with a pretty good understanding. Trying to cram these into semester-long college classes is probably a harder path to take, imo. I didn't hit too many hurdles until the big reset with Linear Algebra-- that's where I really had to start re-reading chapters and studying. It looks trivially easy on the surface but you can't get through it just memorizing routines while being shaky on definitions.

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I never even had algebra

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Makeveli_lives posted...

That's that infinite series bullshit right? Never took it but I heard infinite shit about infinite series from all my friends who did.

All of calculus is about the convergence of infinite series. That is like the heart of calculus and it took the smartest people in the world hundreds of years to figure it out. So yea it's pretty bullshit lol.

One guy famously used an infinite series to show that 0 = 1 and that was his proof that god existed. Later we learned about the concept of absolute convergence and his proof was wrong.

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Shadow Don posted...

This is some serious shit you are about to take btw. Way different level than calc 1-3, ODE and LA. I had to go to office hours at every opportunity. My professor was awesome but if you don't get an amazing professor this class can potentially be your worst nightmare. I would seriously suggest you study way ahead of time. There are some cheap ass dover books on the subject that are excellent. PDE's by Stanley J. Farlow is an excellent example. Get that book and read it.

@Shadow_Don

Thanks for the heads up. It's one of the last classes I have to take, so it's just gonna be that last push to get through it.

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Gwynevere posted...

@Shadow_Don

Thanks for the heads up. It's one of the last classes I have to take, so it's just gonna be that last push to get through it.

What's your major? If you are doing Engineering or Physics and want to do a PhD you should seriously learn this shit.

Fortunately PDEs are a little different in that you don't need to learn the whole subject, it actually depends on your field. So like if you want to do research in Quantum Field Theory you would dive into Schrodinger Equation or if you wanted to do Fluid Dynamics or Aerospace Engineering you would learn about Navier-Stokes Equation.

With PDEs there are entire fields devoted to learning about a particular Partial Differential Equation.

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Shadow Don posted...

What's your major? If you are doing Engineering or Physics and want to do a PhD you should seriously learn this shit.

Fortunately PDEs are a little different in that you don't need to learn the whole subject, it actually depends on your field. So like if you want to do research in Quantum Field Theory you would dive into Schrodinger Equation or if you wanted to do Fluid Dynamics or Aerospace Engineering you would learn about Navier-Stokes Equation.

With PDEs there are entire fields devoted to learning about a particular Partial Differential Equation.

Majoring in both Physics and Mechanical engineering. PDE is only required for the Physics major side though

I'm probably at (or past) the point where I need to start really learning this stuff and not just trying to pass classes

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Gwynevere posted...

Majoring in both Physics and Mechanical engineering. PDE is only required for the Physics major side though

I'm probably at (or past) the point where I need to start really learning this stuff and not just trying to pass classes

Don't worry about the math stuff. You are probably at the point were it doesn't really matter if your are taking a course in PDEs. If you are even contemplating a course in PDEs then you are already a math GOD.

Learn to code. Learn SQL, Python, R, SAS, etc...

I guarantee that there is a course in your university that is called something like "statistical programming w/ SAS" or "Linear Regression w/ R"

Take those courses immediately.

You need to take classes that teach you those specific programming languages like right the fuck now or you won't get a job.

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I second the coding language. Even if you're getting a grad degree, having a basis in coding will probably help a great deal.

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Aced Calc BC in HS
5 on AP test
2 As and an A+ in 3 trimesters of college calc

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Barely made it through Calc 1. It was the only one I needed. Math and I dont get along

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Aeriis posted...

I took Calculus I twice and I still don't know wtf it's about

I hate math

This. If I understand what something actually means, I can figure it out. Calculus is just converting a bunch of gibberish bullshit equations into different gibberish bullshit equations through dozens of random steps. Like... just tell what is actually happening here and what it means. I'm gonna fuck off if I'm just asked to manipulate numbers and symbols without actually understanding what is going on. Probably didn't help that the classes were taught by TAs who didn't give a fuck. That was one of the reasons why I completely lost interest in college and lost all faith in it as a process and institution.
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Yes.

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Machete posted...

This. If I understand what something actually means, I can figure it out. Calculus is just converting a bunch of gibberish bullshit equations into different gibberish bullshit equations through dozens of random steps. Like... just tell what is actually happening here and what it means. I'm gonna fuck off if I'm just asked to manipulate numbers and symbols without actually understanding what is going on. Probably didn't help that the classes were taught by TAs who didn't give a fuck. That was one of the reasons why I completely lost interest in college and lost all faith in it as a process and institution.

truer words have never been spoken, great post. just turning gibberish equations into other gibberish equations.

KazGT6 posted...

truer words have never been spoken, great post. just turning gibberish equations into other gibberish equations.

The first thing they taught was limits. I didn't get what the hell the point of any of it was... but then I realized it and a switch went off in my head and I was like "shit... I understand this completely now." Didn't have that epiphany with anything else so nothing else ever clicked.

Physics was the same way. I got a D in the lecture portion and would have failed if I didn't cheat off a buddy of mine during exams. In the separate lab component, I understood stuff because we were actually doing the experiments so I could see what was happening. I didn't cheat at all and got an AB in that course (the college I went do didn't use +/- grades, just combination letters between letter grades, so AB covered A-/B+ range).
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machete, so you deny that you have to be bright to do well in upper level math?

Balrog0 posted...

Yeah I did calc 1-3, I was bad at it and barely remember it

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