<p>For my son this quarter it was calculus and chemistry. He had taken calculus as a junior in high school and had done well. Our high school didn’t offer Calc BC so he was a year removed. The professor was ridiculously hard, he studied A LOT and felt like he could do any calculus problem on the planet, except the ones the professor put on the test. He passed, but barely. The “rate your professor” websites all said this professor was a nightmare, but he didn’t give that information enough consideration. For chemistry, our high school does not offer AP chem, and so the only chemistry he had was sophomore year in high school. Even the kids who had AP chem were struggling. For next quarter he did some research and hopefully picked better professors. I really don’t think it is the class because my daughter had a great calculus professor at her school and she loved it and has excelled.</p>
<p>S2 would probably say his religion class was the toughest because the teacher was difficult to understand and didn’t use power points or handouts to reinforce the lecture. OTOH, he sent me a copy of the paper he wrote which counts as the final and it was darned good. He also started sitting in front (easier to hear and pay attention) and talked to the prof outside of class, too.</p>
<p>Econ took some getting used to, as he was in a huge lecture and that’s a new experience. He had a a 5 & 4 in Macro and Micro, and needed double 5s to exempt. He said most of it has been review. Hope that’s reflected in his grade! </p>
<p>He’s taking Russian 1 and says it hasn’t been too bad. Don’t think he’ll be getting an A, but does not sound like he’s killing himself over it. </p>
<p>mathmom, S2 has no idea how he’ll do in that time-consuming class, either. But he tells me every time we talk about how much he loves it and how terrific the people are (and that the prof warned them about not expecting As).</p>
<p>Well, for my D, a senior, I think it was just biting off more than she could chew.</p>
<p>Don’t know any grades yet, still 2 finals to take, but 6 classes in 4 different languages, 2 pt on campus jobs plus off campus tutoring, plus deciding to continue her athletic EC (but that is really 2nd semester),and she lives OC. At mid-term they were As. She was dragging all the time. When she comes home on Thursday, I think she’ll just sleep for 3 weeks.</p>
<p>I advised against one of the jobs and one of the classes, but she is a true glutton for punishment.</p>
<p>^^^makes me tired reading about it glo.</p>
<p>Me too, but she has promised to take only 5 next semester. 2 majors, 2 minors.</p>
<p>gloworm: Your daughter, and in a way, my son. The classes were all right, but he said he never will schedule four classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays without a break for more than five hours. He often ate a PB&J en route from one end of his campus to the other. He did fine in each class, but he does admit to being very tired. (He has three majors and a minor)</p>
<p>He also was involved in research, student government, the academic team and the honors college activities. </p>
<p>In the spring, he does have more of a break on those two days, so he will eat better.</p>
<p>For my D it was Chemistry. Although she had an A at mid term she struggled with some of the recent exams and told me the final was “mad hard” today. She (and we) are nervous for Organic Chemistry is in the spring. Yikes.</p>
<p>My son started with 6 classes this semester and was a little overwhelmed with the workload. He had an political science freshman seminar that required a lot of reading and intense writing assignments. He loved the class and professor, despite the workload. He also had Calc 2 and Honors Chemistry which were very time consuming. He ended up dropping the Calc class and he was much happier after that. He just had his chem final today. He said the exam was 3 1/2 hours and he never looked up from his paper until it was over. He only signed up for 5 classes next semester.</p>
<p>Evidently when the freshmen moved into the dorms they gave everybody a “rape whistle”. My son and his friends were joking that they should have blown the whistle in the middle of the chemistry test because it was so hard.</p>
<p>It’s funny. My S skipped over first year calculus, chem, lab, and foreign language because of AP and placement scores, and although ochem is definitely tough, the one class that is really vexing him is his one “freshman class” - computer science. It’s a weeder and I guess my son was lucky enough to avoid most of those. It breaks his heart because he really likes it, feels he understands it, and works his butt off in it, but there’s no payoff in his grades. A whole bunch of kids dropped it halfway through, which doesn’t help the curve. Although he’s having a bunch of success in hard classes, his inability to crack this one after killing himself over it is getting him down. I’m so happy he’s done with it after today.</p>
<p>For my son it’s been his freshman writing seminar class. Lots of reading and writing - he took a while to get a handle on it. He’s in Calc 3 and loves it (he’s always been somewhat of a math nerd). He’s also doing well in his intro Engineering course.Next semester he’ll be busy with Physics, Differential Equations, Econ and an Engineering class. Yet he’s happy that there’s no English class (using AP credits to place out)</p>
<p>ready, one of the 2 on campus jobs D has is in the Writing Center. Lots of kids needing help.</p>
<p>Jingle, even though I was a math major student I did not get it in USA, so I do not know what is the difference among Cal I, II, or III. S’s Cal is vector-based multivariable calculas. After reading OminousRun’s explanation, I know that it is called Cal III here. The next level of Cal course in S’s college is theory-based Cal which is required for math major.</p>
<p>My first semester I took Organic Chemistry, Calculus 2, C++ programming, and Game Theory, and two mini-courses (my college charges the same rate until you take more than 18 credits, so I filled up 18 credits). Definitely of those the beast was Orgo. This is just because of the competitive nature of premed I think. The classes are all pretty much graded on a curve (not always a strict X% get A and so on… but some sort of a “curve”) and thus makes the difficulty of the class based on the average grade given, the competitiveness of the others in the class, and how prepared you are to take the class. I’d rather be in a class full of engineers than one full of premeds and BBAs.</p>
<p>When I was a freshman years ago Calc killed me. Both DDs had no problems with that. DD2 doesn’t like econ since there isn’t enough math (and maxed Game Theory, generally one of the harder classes in school). DD1 as a senior has an issue with oil painting (studio arts minor). Apparently the instructor doesn’t give the students enough time to get projects done due to paint drying time!</p>
<p>Calc2 was the nightmare class for my freshmen DD because the emphasis was completely on proofs. It was more like an analysis class. The TA couldn’t help with the problems; he didn’t know what to do! My daughter and few fellow sufferers organized a study group and then searched for very, very smart math kids to help them. Eventually they started getting the hang of it; and now she says she thinks she will get a B or B+. </p>
<p>She is going to take Calc3 next fall; she decided to take a break from math next semester because she will be taking…honors organic chemistry!</p>
<p>yorkyfan,</p>
<p>I think she should take calc 3 next semester while calculus is fresh in her memory. Many of the integration techniques she used in calc 2 will be needed in calc 3. </p>
<p>I know orgo is a pain, but calc 3 isn’t that bad. Many kids in my calc 3 class struggled because they hadn’t taken calc 2 in a year. I felt I had an advantage because I took calc 2 in a summer session and went straight into calc 3 a month later.</p>
<p>I agree with not waiting so long between calc classes. That was part of ds’s struggles.</p>
<p>We have both volumes of Apostol’s Calculus and I had a look at one of the chapters recently. Basically the section was mostly theorems and proofs and maybe one or two examples in the whole section. I believe that this book was used at CalTech several decades ago. The second edition was published in 1967.</p>
<p>In a normal text, there are eight to twelve examples that are usually directly related to the exercise. In Apostol, those examples would be the exercises - you figured out how to do the applications on your own. It’s a wonderful set of books (covers calc I, II, III, differential equations, probability and linear algebra) that are ridiculously expensive now. I got both volumes for $20 back in the early 1990s. Then the internet came along and people found out how good these books are and now they are very expensive.</p>
<p>D got a B in Calc but the bear class was Chinese. Took up the lion’s share of study hours - hoping for an A- in the class but quite a few dropped and some that stayed in will probably fail. Signed up for the Mandarin channels on Direct TV over winter break. Probably would have had an A in Calc if not for the time demands of Chinese…but the study hours followed the course that was of more interest…</p>