<p>Re: the math being doable
There are definitely people who can come in doing just fine, but the purpose of Math 1 seems to be to get all the frosh “on the same page”, which makes sense since we’d do both ourselves and a few brilliant people in the world a major disservice by only admitting students with a strong math background. </p>
<p>That’s not to say that these classes teach <em>only</em> how to do the math involved. I had taken multivariable calculus, but had very little experience with linear algebra in high school. This being the case, Math 1c was still quite valuable to me; there were concepts and proofs I enjoyed learning about that really put calculus into context. Almost everyone had taken single variable calculus, but the purpose of that class is to teach students how to make rigorous formal proofs. I was certainly more comfortable learning how to prove stuff by starting on things I was already familiar with, and I’d bet this is probably the case for most students.</p>