calculus and sociology

kaygar09
Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:04:13 +0000

Yes, CNS calculus is different from business (regular) calculus in that CNS calc has both quest homework and problems from the book assigned. Book problems are like how you had to do before college-- show your work and all of your work (the steps you wrote out to get the answer) is graded. Quizzes/tests have short answers where you have to show your work. Irwin definitely does all of this.

Regular calc classes only have quest homework and all tests are in quest format except on paper/scantron without the multiple attempts of course.

I believe CNS calc is strictly for science majors. They do have more homework of course because of the book work. I took just the normal calc with Radin for M408K even though I was a bio major and it counted just fine.

I, as well as many of my peers, really like Radin. She’s very helpful if you go to office hours and of course go to your TA sessions. My TA worked out problems from the homework the entire time so we got at least half of our hw done in session. Her class times are around noon, give or take an hour so they’re not too early and not too late in the day. She has a northeastern accent but she’s perfectly understandable and doesn’t have a monotonous tone or say things like “Mmmk?” every 10 seconds. She knows more about the curriculum and grading procedures than the other professors. In add-drop periods, I was having trouble getting into a calc class and attended classes for Berg, Zheng, and ended up in Allcock’s class. I had put myself on 2 waitlists to get Radin and went from 38 to 2 on the waitlist by the time add-drop closed. People who have had the other professors talked about how they preferred her over the others and went to her for help. Even my own professor told me to talk to Radin about the grading scheme.

Bottom line-- if you’re taking CNS calc, then probably go with Irwin (although in my case, I didn’t, and it was fine) but if not, then go for Radin. Even in M408L, her class had some of the highest test averages out of the 5 classes for regular calc. Neitzke is also another good professor (M408L). He’s new to UT but he’s very helpful and explains things well in class. He also actually shows his class graphs of the grade distribution after tests and how his classes fared with everyone else in the course. Most of the 408L class test averages are failing (50s and 60s each time) and low grades are expected each year which is why L gets a bigger curve than K at the end of the semester.