Calc III in college.....hard?

koalaroo
Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:43:31 +0000

Hi,
I attended ASU years ago (1982-1987, graduated bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering) but I assume my experience isn’t too different from what you’d find today. I had taken calculus and had advanced placement credit for Calc I…when I attended, there there were two ‘tracks’ for calculus for engineers. There was 290/291 which covered everything in 2 semesters and 270/271/272 which covered the same stuff in 3 semesters. My AP credit counted for 270, so I started with 271, which I found to be mostly a review of high school calculus, but with introduction to some additional topics such as infinite series. 272 is definitely harder, but not anything too hard for engineering students. Still, even though I was academic top 10 at my high school I found everything at ASU to be more difficult even than the advanced placement classes in high school. If in doubt, I’d recommend going ahead and taking the 271 class. One extra semester is worth it if it gives you a good foundation going forward. In upper level Electrical Engineering classes, I used a lot of what I learned in 272, so was glad to have learned it thoroughly.

Regarding advanced composition/Barretts honors…I’m not sure what the Barretts honors thing is but when I attended, I had a choice based on SAT/ACT scores to take either english 101 and 102, or just 104 which was called advanced freshman composition. I opted for 104…and it was the best english class I’ve ever had. I learned a LOT about writing which I didn’t know and didn’t have to go through basic grammar review…we jumped right into very interesting writing projects. Overall, I don’t believe it was much more work, but it was WAY more interesting.

Good luck!