And a slightly different note: I took the CLEP for Calc 1 after self-study roughly equivalent to Calc AB (mine was less rigorous but was completed in a semester) and had no troubles in Calc 2. A friend of mine took Calc AB as a year course and didn’t struggle in Calc 2. Depends on the student.
Yes, students who had calculus AB (or a two year sequence to cover calculus BC) should realize that college math courses cover material at a faster pace.
However, trying the college’s old calculus 1 final exam is probably the best way for the student to check whether s/he is ready for calculus 2 based on knowledge of prerequisite calculus 1 topics that s/he should have learned in high school calculus AB.
Heartily agree with @Rdtsmith’s points, especially the one about knowing all the rules for their particular college, major, department, and classes. Check schedules to make sure they are as balanced as feasible in a credit intensive major, and not top heavy with multiple projects coming due on the same day at the end of the semester.
If professors are offering partial credit for late assignments, be wary of getting into the habit of submitting assignments after their soft deadline except on rare occasions. It is all too easy for lost points to add up, and even if the student learns the material to the point of mastery the grade will not reflect this. It might not matter immediately if the student passes the class and understands the material well enough to take subsequent classes, but later on it will matter for some purposes.
Be very careful about taking an incomplete instead of a W, if it is offered, especially in fall semester when there might not be enough time to make up the work while the material is still fresh.
I would add that if a student had an especially thorough grounding in AP classes and did not move ahead because the college discouraged this, they wanted to concentrate on getting adjusted to a new setting, or because they were not confident, the “hard stuff” might not hit until sometime during sophomore year.
College classes can differ dramatically in terms of work load, even classes that satisfy the same requirement. My kids also mentioned that lots of students take a buffer class (as mentioned in #38 in order to be able to maintain full-time status if they drop a class, and even outside of engineering, most students do not take more than three truly difficult or time-consuming classes at once. This is nothing like high school, where many students are taking a most rigorous schedule of 5 or 6 difficult classes at once. If a class will need to be repeated because of a bad grade, it is best if this can be done over a summer since a repeated enrollment will not count towards the credits needed for full-time status. Some classes are not offered during summer sessions.
Also - if there are IT problems such as getting locked out of websites, your child should handle these immediately. If they are in the habit of procrastinating they might not realize they have been locked out until right before an assignment is due or an exam is imminent, and they won’t have time to get things fixed. One more reason for submitting electronic assignments, in particular, ahead of time, aside from the possibility that they could attempt to submit at the last minute when a server is backed up.
Make sure every electronic assignment goes through, and every paper copy is received on time by the appropriate person.
They should be scrupulous about checking e-mail, especially if they have turned it off for several hours or even a day or two to concentrate on something. It is all too easy for an important e-mail from a professor or the registrar to get lost in a queue. Sometimes parents get permission to access a student’s e-mail in order to make sure crucial e-mails are not missed.
Students should be aware that textbooks can be stolen, and be careful about leaving them untended. This happened to each of mine, in one case the day before an open book exam.
A typical college course is probably about twice the pace and workload of a typical high school course (including most AP courses which cover in a year what the similar college course covers in a semester), though often with less class time unless it is a lab course. So 5 or 6 high school AP courses may be more like 3 college courses in terms of material covered and workload.
I think that dual enrollment is a great way to get high schoolers ready for college because it is college. I mean no slight to AP classes (I was home schooled, so I didn’t do those.) Taking several classes at the college pace while in high school prepared me very well for full-time college.
Thank you, OP and commenters, for one of the best threads on CC. Definitely bookmarking this one!
I will also add, if you end up being an, “I told you so” family, in general, try very, very, VERY hard to not actually say, “I told you so.” Of course this varies with your individual student and family dynamic – YMMV.
Yes, we did tell him so … many times, in many ways, over the years. But we haven’t said that to DS; for us, I think that would just end up building a wall and shutting down communication. When he has told us about things not going well, he has been genuinely upset and frustrated with himself. Us piling on would not help. Instead, we try our best to bite our tongues and listen. Let him vent. Eventually, probe what he thinks went wrong; guide him toward looking forward and figuring out his next steps. Don’t tell him what to do … let him at least start; then toss in other suggestions for him to consider. Keep the conversations short and give him time to think about it on his own. We do keep him honest if he strays down the road of finding excuses or blaming something besides himself (e.g., okay, yes, a 12 question MC final in deforms sounds completely horrendous, but that by itself is not the reason you failed the class; if you’d aced all the other tests that were not MC, failing the final would have dropped your grade but you wouldn’t have failed the class). I think this is the only way he ends up owning it and learning from it. It’s a delicate balance between letting them own it and take responsibility and have boundaries as they move forward, while still knowing you’re in their corner and even if they’ve failed, you don’t see them as a failure. And absolutely, no matter what, even if they no-kidding fail out of school completely … there is a path forward. Probably not to the same destination they’d planned, or on the same time schedule, and yes, that is something to be grieved … but there is a tomorrow and there are steps to be taken. The speech given by Sheryl Sandberg at a graduation this year is an excellent piece about bouncing back from hard times. She says in part, “Option A may no longer be available to you. So kick the **** out of Option B.” The speech is here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/05/15/it039s_the_hard_days_that_determine_who_you_are_382623.html
My son just concluded his second year in college. He is at a school that is very heavily dominated by engineering/STEM majors. When asked why he has been successful in school, he tells incoming college kids to go to class, seek out assistance for time management and READ THE TEXTBOOK! That read part is something his AP bio teacher said when he was a junior in high school. Professors cannot create new questions all the time about the same material that they have taught seemingly forever, so they may need to go to the textbook for question ideas for exams. When he finally listened to his AP bio teacher and spent time with the textbook, his grades jumped.
^That seems like a “duh” moment, but unfortunately a lot of students try to get by with a minimum of effort, expecting to get everything they need from the professor and then blaming the professor for their failures. The textbook is valuable not just because there are questions the prof might ask, but because it spells out the material in different words and examples. The student can ingest it at his own pace, and try to work any examples before looking at the answers. I always got a lot more from my texts than I did from lectures alone.
Re: #47, #48
Seems like the simple formula for better academic performance is the following:
Read the book(s).
Go to class.
Do the homework.
Start projects early.
Of course, even many students who know the above do not actually do them.
Engineering students can be a little hard headed and also of the mind that they want to do it all ‘on their own’. Sometimes it takes little steps of information. Important is communication and being open to finding out from those ‘in the know’ how to handle various things with that particular university. Sometimes a parent can help with finding out how to handle something administratively or finding out things for the student. The student’s focus on what post 49 and others have said. The more willing they are to share information with the parents to at least be a sounding board.
Some students have to get burned on something before they will ‘listen’ - hope it is getting burned on something minor.
Always helps to have other mentors giving good advice. Some judgment needed by the student as to what advice to listen to.
Sometimes one has to learn the material to what the instructor wants to grade. Can always study after the term ends to learn the info the student feels is valuable to learn.
Usually the first year is the most difficult year for a new engineering student. It is particularly difficult for students who were all A’s in secondary school courses where the school may have lacked some “rigor.” Through hard work and self-discipline they have learned to swim by the end of the first year. In the second year, they climb the GPA ladder and the problem is solved if they have figured out how they need to address their discipline/study technique issues. Prior to college, all A’s were achieved with three hours of homework per day. I base this observation on our engineering college’s own faculty studies and the personally observed development of my freshman roommate who went on to became head of research for Hughes within ten years of graduation.
A second type of student was honed by very strong prep schools. These students already were used to studying five or six hours per day as well as participating daily in mandatory athletics. These students often found the first year less challenging as they fell out of the more rigorous habits developed in secondary school and actually experience a drop in GPA in the second year. First year students are actually a closely watched nursery in the first year of an engineering college. In the second year, the reins are typically taken by their selected department.
Study habits are key here and a one size fits all may not work. I needed absolute quiet and periods of regular exercise as formerly practiced in secondary school. When I ran into challenges in my second year, my cross-country coach told me to NOT stop running as it would not help my academic challenges. The truth was, I had a breakdown of my study habits.
Engineering students have no time to waste, but still need to find a personal balance.
You offer many good suggestions. Now your son has to engineer his solution.
As I said good advice though for my very social engineering daughter the library was a BAD place to study. Her friends were all there and if she tried to study on a " quiet" floor she felt more like she was being noticed as excluding herself which made things awkward. Friends would seek her out for breaks. She found it was much much better to study in her room. Individual circumstances need to be considered as is always true.
Also she mentioned that for several classes studying from the book was a waste of time it was her notes from lectures only that were important.
TURN YOUR PHONE OFF – I love that one. In HS my step daughter (a very good student btw) would sit in the living room, on the couch in the middle of the house bustle with her phone beeping like crazy, the TV going and her book open and then lament HOW LONG the homework was taking… :((