Honors Calculus versus Honors Analysis

alpha8
Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:45:57 +0000

I did math specializing in CS and econ at Chicago. I took 160s my first year, honors analysis my 2nd year. In high school, I did differential and integral calculus junior year, and no calculus my senior year, only ap stats.

A few thoughts:


All math at Chicago is theory based. Learn how to do proofs, it will serve you well. I spent the first two weeks in 160s learning how to prove stuff with my TA.
You should take honors analysis if you believe you are ready. It’s an awesome course, and really will teach you a lot. I took it and enjoyed it quite a bit. You learn a ton of stuff that will crop up in other classes (e.g. complex analysis, PDEs, topology, functional analysis etc.). Even if you place into regular analysis, you can ask the instructors for honors analysis very nicely and they may let you try it out for the first few weeks.


So my advice would be: see if you can register for honors analysis, and sit in for at least 2-2.5 weeks. After 2 weeks decide if you want to continue or if you are more comfortable transferring into 160s. IIRC, you can still transfer or drop classes upto the end of week 3.

I’d recommend 160s calculus over regular analysis though, and then take honors analysis the following year.

Also - don’t buy rudin for honors analysis. It’s a damn expensive book and a waste of money. Spend $10 and get Kolmogorov and Fomin and then pick up a few other nice cheap books (I probably bought 5 different books for honors analysis that cost ~$8/piece).


If you are a math major at chicago, econ is easy. I never spent more than an evening on a problem set in econ (except for honors econometrics)…
Take econometrics early…ideally in your 2nd or 3rd year if you can. It helps for doing econ research.
The subject matter has a big influence on the class, but the professor is even more important. If you can take a class from Fefferman, I’d highly recommend it - I had him for two courses. Sally is also pretty good, although he proceeds at a slower and more methodical pace.


Anyway, honors analysis was awesome, I highly recommend it. But I wouldn’t do specialization in econ and an econ degree, it’s sort of a waste. You’re better off taking classes in stats or maybe CS to give yourself more breadth.