<p>So my daughter has hit her first rough spot in college. She’s struggling for a ‘C’ in calculus 2. She says she studies and studies and thinks she understands the concepts, but come test time, she’s stumped by questions in which the professor “throws in some twist.”</p>
<p>She’s not a math person, per se. She needs this class for her major. She’ll probably pass it (hope hope) but the grade will drag down her gpa. And there’s the specter of physics 2 she also needs for her major. That will be another toughie. Which means, another tough period for her – and her mom, who is a few thousand miles away and certainly unable to help. </p>
<p>katliamom,
I feel your pain. I’m sure she has tried the obvious…getting a student who is doing well to tutor her, etc. What about trying to find someone who did well with that prof in a previous year through facebook or friends? </p>
<p>I am not a math person at all, let alone per se. I still have nightmares of my high school geometry class and that was more years ago than I can count…</p>
<p>If she can pass or get a C, be happy! My son-in-law’s sister is a 6th year college student due to her inability to pass Calc 2. She can’t move on to the remaining two courses she needs to graduate until she does.
My co-worker’s daughter failed Calc 2 at an Ohio state school and if she doesn’t get it passed this summer she has to take a leave of absence because her ROTC scholarship (and the requirements of her major) require that she have it passed before she starts junior year.</p>
<p>Calculus 2 is the hardest calculus class, according to pretty much everyone I’ve talked to. I am a math person, but I got a D in Calc 2 the first time around. Luckily, I was able to retake the class and “erase” the original grade. I had a friend who needed to take it three times in order to pass it. Your daughter isn’t alone! If she hangs in there and does the best she can, she’ll get through this.</p>
<p>We were happy our daughter squeaked out D+'s in Organic Chemistry I & II. She is a Chemical Engineering major but organic was not her cup of tea. She has done well everywhere else and we anticipate P Chem to better. It is a character building exercise to learn how to ask for help and overcome adversity.</p>
<p>Every kid I know (Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Georgia Tech, Harvard) got their first midterm back in advanced calc and thought they were finished. Some of them were a lot more worried than a “C”. All of them ended up passing advanced calc and doing just fine in college.</p>
<p>S just finished Calc2 with a C (2nd semester freshman year). All his other grades were A’s and 1 B. He worked so hard to get that C that he felt pretty good about it. He attended study groups and sessions with the professor. Now, on to Calc3!!!</p>
Just letting you know you are not alone (as you can see from the above who have chimed in) and that there is likely light at the end of the tunnel. DS struggled, after Calc II (and III) in some really tough engineering courses. Once in each of two semesters. It was a real stress on him (and his mom). As others have said above, we celebrated the C+s he earned in those two courses. Yes, it harmed his GPA.</p>
<p>But he now has a very respectable GPA (close to 3.5) in a very tough major. And he learned a lot about ways to seek help (ofc hours, new study partners, outside texts which worked better for him…), not fold under pressure, stick with his chosen major even if there were rough patches.</p>
<p>It’s not fun, it will have some consequence for her GPA, but it will also have other results. As I told my S, and have repeated here, acing a test is not a life skill. Learning how to handle this situation, deciding to “make it work” … that is a life skill.</p>
<p>We were happy when D2 placed into CalcII first semester freshman year. Opened up a whole new course for spring semester. BIG MISTAKE. She struggled to get a C and it not only blew her GPA but her self-esteem that first semester in college. Had I known how to read between the lines in the school’s placement, I would have pushed her to repeat what she got in AP Calc AB. If they don’t let you drop down a level after the first test: beware! They have evidence that many kids get in over their heads but they can’t fund enough classes to let them move back if high school Calc wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>I think so. Different schools call it different things. It’s what ever you place into with a 5 on the Calc AB exam, basically skipping the entire first semester of college calculus.</p>
<p>It’s a shocker because it catches out kids who were all-stars in high school math.</p>
<p>Calculus II is Integral Calculus. Calculus III is Multivariable Calculus. Sometimes called Vector Calculus. I took Honors Multivariable in my freshman year and had a hard time keeping up with it. I think that we spent about half of every class doing proofs.</p>
<p>Our son took it and I recall that about half of the students were gone by the end of class. I know that some of the students couldn’t hack it after two weeks (they fell behind and were getting further behind with every class).</p>
<p>There are a lot of topics in Calculus II and you’re expected to learn them and also be able to solve problems that are a little beyond what you’re expected to know. Physics is like this too. Just learning all of the material isn’t enough - professors push you to think a little harder and sometimes outside the box.</p>
<p>The best preparation, as with a lot of math, science and engineering courses, is to preview the course before you have to take it. This can be in the form of getting permission from the instructor to sit in on the class before you have to take it. So when you are taking Calc I, you sit in on a Calc II class. Or read through the Calc II textbook before you have to take Calc II and work out some of the problems. Find a syllabus on the web for the book that you’re using if you want readings and problem sets. Or grab the Calculus videos at Princeton and watch those.</p>
<p>I personally think that Calc III is tougher than Calc II if you’re not a visual person. Much of Calc III is extending calculus to three dimensions (or more) and it can be pretty rough if you have trouble working with objects in three dimensions.</p>
<p>Our D got placed out of Cal I and II. She started with linear algebra, then multivariable. She is going to major in math and math has always come easy to her in HS. It was hard for her to have to struggle to understand the material, the pace, and coming down a bit on her expectations of her test grades.</p>
<p>Interesting enough, our D’s toughest class was a “very easy” Macro Economics class. The professor pretty much didn’t teach the material, but would give examin with 4 multiple choices. Each subsequent question was dependent on you getting the previous questions right. You could study very hard, and get almost everything wrong, or you could not study and get lucky. It was very hard for her to study for that class.</p>
<p>I remember a nephew telling me that when he was struggling in a math class in his engineering curriculum in college, in addition to attending his section of the class, he sat through another professor’s presentation of the same material each day. Hearing the same material presented twice by two different professors helped him learn it. I thought it was pretty resourceful of him.</p>
<p>One of the best pieces of advice my D got was to ignore the AP credit for Calc AB and retake it 1st semester. She needed a year of calculus.
She did very well in Calc I, and was more able to tackle Calc II the next semester, partially because she was bolstered by her success in Calc I.</p>
<p>I remember when she opted to re-take Calc I…I kind of encouraged her to take the AP credit instead. I’m so glad she didn’t listen to me!</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with taking a course you already did the AP for at the beginning of college. It eases the transition from high school and gives you a better initial GPA. And you’ll learn the material better the second time around.</p>
<p>One of the problems at my son’s college is that the lower level math classes are taught by terrible TAs. My son said it was a waste of time to go to the classes. Some of them had weak English and it was impossible to follow the lectures. He relied on self-study and a great tutor that one of the young posters on this forum led us to. He is planning to take his one remaining calc class online and rely on a tutor and/or my husband (if it is a summer course, especially).</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words and very comforting stories of surviving calc 2 – even with a C (or lower!) As an adult, I know that some struggle is good for the soul, that she’ll be OK even if she decides the whole premed track is not for her. But as her mom, it’s difficult to see her overwhelmed and down. Weird thing, her uncle is a math professor who’d be happy to tutor her, even long distance. But she’s too stubborn or proud or whatever to ask! Aaaargh. She’s been relying on study groups and some tutoring – but with disappointing results. Aaaargh again. Thanks for letting me vent.</p>