<p>S is currently in his last exam of the semester - will have 1/8th of college completed when he comes home later today!</p>
<p>For freshman (or actually, even others) what was the “nightmare”, bear-of-a-class for your student?</p>
<p>For S, definitely Cal 2 - I surely have expressed on other threads what a struggle it was (and with a prof who didn’t seem to help). Even though S took Cal 1 and 2 in HS w/A’s all year and tested out of Calc 1 easily at his college during placement exams, we wonder if he should have started in Calc one. </p>
<p>His calc class started w/26 kids. 14 kids dropped out throughout the semester. He guesses a few of the 12 left will likely fail. He told me today at the exam, that upon receiving the exam, 2 students looked it over, and promptly walked up to the prof to turn it in blank - admitting defeat. I can’t get over this! Son is hoping to SQUEEZE out a “B”. We would consider that a major success! </p>
<p>Definitely his “nightmare” class for 1st semester.</p>
<p>Biochemistry. No background in high school as none is offered. Other kids seemed to already know the formulas and professor just assumed everyone already knew them. S would go to class…then look up everything on the internet to learn it…then study. Self taught Biochem is never good. (And he had 2 Biochem classes as a freshman! The other with a lab went fine.)</p>
<p>Calc 2 also for my S. Enough so that he won’t take Calc 3 next semester, as had originally been planned. Not sure if he will ever take Calc 3, although his advisor said that students generally find Calc 3 easier than Calc 2.</p>
<p>He got a 5 on AP Calc AB which got him credit for Calc 1. But like abasket, it made me wonder if it was a mistake to not start with Calc 1. Don’t know what the grade will be for Calc 2… I’m sure it would be better if he had made more of an effort to take advantage of the help that was available.</p>
<p>Ok, I am reading this thread with great interest. This came up in the Class of 2011/2015 thread a while back and it got my wheels turning. My daughter took AP Cal AB last year and it was a very easy class for her and she scored a 5 on the AP exam. At her school, AP Cal BC is offered as “second year” Cal and she taking that and doing well (straight 100’s on all exams) but after reading that part on the other thread and this thread I have to wonder if just taking good ole regular calc as a freshman would be a better bet?? Thoughts?</p>
<p>Collegeshopping (I WONDERED how many times Calc would come up in this thread - ha!),
S says that there are couple of kids in his class that scored 5 on the AP exam - my son did not! But he says that those kids are also lost in this class. He tried studying with one of those “AP5” kids a couple of times, but gave up because they knew no more than him. He has spent HOURS self-studying this semester - thank God he is pretty self-motivating.</p>
<p>None of them. There were rough patches here and there but on the whole D3 seems to have had a pretty good first semester. (Does this mean the other shoe will drop in the spring?)</p>
<p>My S’s bug bear class was chemistry. He didn’t feel he had good prep from his AP Chemistry class.</p>
<p>As for math, he’s feeling he might have set the curve for the class in his final. He had the horror of losing his notebook before the final but said he studied off his two mid-term tests and the book. He said he had other students asking for copies of his tests, since he set the curve on both of those, too. Hmm, I wonder if someone “borrowed” his notebook?</p>
<p>abasket - as someone who has taken all the calc’s, and taught Calc I, TA’d calc III and IV, I am curious about your son’s experience. Do you know what text they used? Also, was the professor a heavy theory type? </p>
<p>When I taught Calc I a number of years ago (only once!), I had 2 students (of 32) who dropped, and 2 more who failed. The professor in the room next to me lost about 1/2 his class. Same book, same material, same time of day, same building. IMHO many math docs can’t bring introductory calculus down to the level of the students.</p>
<p>30 years ago, Calc II was my nightmare class. Tell your son it gets better after that. Calc II is where most schools separate the pretenders from the serious students. I don’t think it’s by design, but it’s why many engineering majors change to business, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know the actual text used (I just paid for it!). S did say that the prof moved EXTREMELY fast and did not slow down if it was clear that the class did not understand a concept. He went to her office hours, but said that each time, there was a line up of students waiting for a turn to talk to her. He made a couple of individual appts., one of which she didn’t show up for and one where she “oops! forgot about a meeting” and only had 5 minutes to spend w/son. Personally, after hearing so much feedback from S throughout the semester, I have to put blame on the prof. </p>
<p>He is PLANNING to take Calc 3 next semester w/another prof. We are encouraging him to meet with someone else in the math dept - maybe the chairman of the dept. - to advise him. </p>
<p>Like my husband says, no wonder our country is in dire need of math teachers - the colleges are scaring them all away!</p>
<p>collegeshopping: For what it’s worth, my D took AB Calc her senior year in HS, got a 5 on the AP Exam; took Calc 2 her first semester at college, and worked hard, loved it (and the teacher), and did very well. Linear Algebra and Diff EQ the next term was harder. The killer this fall has been Introduction to Proofs. This coming spring she’ll take Calc III. From what others have said here, I hope it’s easier than proofs has been!!</p>
<p>S1 took AP Calc. AB as a junior in h.s. He scored a 4. Took AP Stats sr. yr. Decided to retake Calc. 1 first sem. freshman yr. since it had been awhile since he had calc.
It turned into his nightmare class. He had a foreign prof. he couldn’t understand and the material he was presenting bore little resemblance to his h.s. class. Upon the advice of his advisor, he dropped it. No need to take a bad grade in a class he already had credit for. Bit the bullet and signed up for Calc. 2 for Spring sem. Much better prof. S attended all office hours for homework help and finished with a B.</p>
<p>For me it was Quantum Mechanics II. A few hours after the exam I went to the Physics advisor to talk about my options if I failed the class, and it turned out she watched as we left the classroom. She compared the exit of students to a funeral.</p>
<p>I was a student just a few years ago myself - calc killed me! I scraped by with a B- but only because a tutor would write me cheat sheets before every exam (they were allowed) horrible, horrible class!</p>
<p>D1 had AP CalcAB as a high school junior, and AP Calc BC as a high school senior. Scored a 5 on each AP test. She got credit for Calc I and Calc II at college, so started with Calc III. Had no trouble – got an ‘A’ in the class. So it can be done!</p>
<p>Course began with 70 students and ended with 12. Prof said she didn’t care if “everybody failed”–it was her last semester before retirement. Changed all her grading policies from the previous years. No quizzes, no papers, no projects, no curves. Only 2 exams in a very strange format. No final.</p>
<p>And the kicker? It’s a required class for her major which won’t be offer again for 2 years.</p>
<p>Arabic. Even though he took an intensive Arabic course over the summer, he managed to forget most of it during the second half of the summer. In addition the book underwent a major overhaul. He’s not flunking or anything, but it’s still been a huge amount of work with mediocre grades. </p>
<p>He’s also taking another seminar/symposium course (on nuclear issues) which has been a huge amount of work. Participants were warned not to take the course if they were hoping to get an A. The students are from every grade level so freshmen are competing with seniors. I have no idea what grade son is going to be getting, but I do know he got an A on at least one paper. He’s had opportunities to hear from leaders in the field and is spending winter break (mostly) on Tuft’s dime doing field research on one of the important issues of our time.</p>
<p>abasket - if there are more than one professor for calculus III, I would suggest S quietly ask around the other students as to which one is the best. Not the easiest, but the most able to get the material across. Students often complain that the professor goes too fast, but they are required to cover a certain amount of material and often cannot just slow down for fear of not getting it all in. But some professors are definitely better at getting things across. Personally, I thought Calc III was the most difficult of the first 4 calculus courses. But then, I had a theory guy that semester.</p>
I can’t get over this! Son is hoping to SQUEEZE out a “B”. We would consider that a major success! </p>