My DD intends to be an EE major. Pitt has a predetermined 1st year engineering curriculum which looks demanding on paper. 1st Semester: calc 1, physics 1, chem 1, an intro engineering course and a humanities course; 2nd Semester: calc 2, physics 2, chem 2, an intro engineering course and a humanities course. My DD has several APs and college credit but it will only help for English and humanities, not the core classes. I have recommended to her that since she will have credit for both 1st year humanities classes to not register for anything in their place and take 2 - 14 credit semesters, rather than 17, especially since she is required to have 2 lab classes each semester. Others have recommended that she take classes to move ahead. I am interested in hearing what others would recommend for her.
Take this with a grain of salt and other parents of engineers will hopefully chime in, my D is not in engineering but taking two lab science courses as well and she is glad that she can take a bit lighter courseload with the help of AP credits.
My D came into her engineering program with a bunch of AP credit. It was hard to move ahead within the engineering sequence because everything builds on those first math, physics and chem classes. If there’s other gen Ed classes she can move into those empty spots it could help later. Whether it’s best to do that or take the lighter schedule in the first year just depends on the student.
My D isn’t in engineering, biological math. She is trying to decide whether to do Bio+Chem+math (Calc 3) 1st semester, or to just do 2 of those 3. She will take something else (like psych or anthro) too. On the Biosciences advice page, they recommend 6-8 credits math/science per semester. But Chemistry is such an essential building block for later courses, I hesitate to have her put that off.
I think Bio 1/lab and Chem1/lab in same semester is doable if you don’t have other time intensive courses. Not sure about starting right with Calc 3 though. My D only has to take Calc 1 and satisfied it with AP credit.
Hopefully the advisor can help with that.
The core curriculum will not allow engineers to graduate early. There is a core (major) sequence that is followed for each semester through 6 semesters after declaring major (end of frosh yr). So, you need to take I believe it is a total of 6 humanities courses across 4 yrs with 2 of those in same area. APs can only account for 2 of those electives. If you skip the freshman yr, to lighten the load and adjust to college, that is fine, lots of kids do that. They can also just use the extra room in the schedule to take a PE course for fun and to destress. The humanities course could also be the one that is the easiest in the schedule - give the brain a break from science/math and do something left-brain. The intro engineering course is programming mainly. So if they have a background, that is an easy course but if they don’t, it still isn’t as difficult as physics. They are all pretty demanding courses. I had two kids start at calc3 and they did fine with using those AP credits, one kid also placed out of chem and that was fine.
Thanks @amandakayak, good to hear that Calc 3 is do-able. My D did AP calc for Calc 1 as a junior, then did Calc 2 through University of Wisconsin as a senior, so I’m pretty sure she should be adequately prepared for Calc 3.
Yes, if she actually took Calc 2 as a college course she should be fine.
Hmm, now she is thinking taking the honors (Calc 235?) might be a way to ease in a bit. Anyone out there who can comment on how this course is?
Math honors courses were described as more theoretical - proof based. @awesomeopposum had some comments on her “ask rising senior…” thread on Pitt. Do a search maybe to look for that - I can’t do that from my phone. I would say this is not a good idea - honors on a&s classes maybe but def not calc.
My DD had taken AP Calc AB in HS. Her first semester at Pitt, she toke honors Calc 2 which I am assuming is honors Calc 235. We also thought it would be easy for her. It was not! I have never seen her work as hard in any class before or after than that class. It was theoretical based and approached calculus from a different direction than she had ever seen. She did say that class made the physics class much easier. A lot of the theory taught in the calculus class showed up there and most students struggled in the physics class. I don’t know if she would have done it differently but do expect a tough class.
Thanks for all the input. I’m torn as a parent. D thinks she wants to major in math, so I think getting the idea of what higher math is all about might be good for her. But everything I read said 235 is proof heavy, and she is not excited about that.
I think she will just do Calc 3 (non honors–but really, who takes Calc 3 that isn’t really good at math??). Plan is to discuss further with advisers this summer.
http://pitt.edu/~aly21/teaching/calc2/sp2014/calc2sp2014.html
This is one Calc II page, has an old 2012 Calc 2 final exam and quizzes.
@Booajo, one data point: my S14, who was a strong math student in HS, did the track your D is proposing. He took AP credit for 1 & 2 (5 on calc BC test) and then took non honors calc 3. He did well and did not struggle too much. He took BC as a junior in HS and calc 3 as 1st semester sophomore at Pitt, so there was an 18 month gap in between.