Taking Cal1 before Trigonometry Negative Consequences?

College Search & Lists
1

Hello,

A little explanation before I go into the main question on why I attended two different colleges:

The first college I attended is Cuyamaca College. I chose this school instead of Southwestern College, which is in close proximity to my home, because of the general consensus of it being a better school with better professors. After taking my first semester at Cuyamaca, I decided to just attend Southwestern to save gas and travel time.

After taking courses at Cuyamaca for Spring 2019, I took Trigonometry at Southwestern in Summer 2019 but I ended up taking an incomplete due to personal issues that arose during the semester. I have one year to go take the tests I missed and I’ll receive a letter grade for that course.

Since I did not complete my Trigonometry course at Southwestern, I’m unable to take Calculus 1. I, however, don’t want to take any hiatus on math because I have a long way to go for my Computer Science degree.

I found out that I’m able to take Calculus 1 at Cuyamaca and I’m thinking of doing it.

Is this a good idea? I’m not worried about being behind on the material because I studied the rest of Trigonometry on my own and feel confident enough to move on to the next course-level. However, I’m worried this might impart negative consequences on my application come my transfer.

I don’t know the in-and-outs of course incomplete well enough so shed me some light, please.

If I finish Calculus 1 at Cuyamaca in Spring 2020 and take the rest of the tests for Trigonometry afterwards (sometime in the Summer of 2020), would the order of completion raise question and thus weaken my application in any way?

Since College Algebra and Trigonometry together or Pre-Calculus alone are prerequisites to Calculus 1, would the admission find it weird I finished Calculus 1 before one of its prerequisites? Is there a way they could deem this an academic dishonesty? Or as anything else that would warrant them to throw my application into the trash?

2

If the school permits you to take Calc1 without Trig, you won’t have any issues of dishonesty. It is not unusual for students to skip prerequisites or have them waived.

There are reasons for prerequisites, however, as many a student who has jumped ahead have learned the hard way. Calculus is often perceived as a weed out class. It usually has high rate of students who drop the course, do poorly, decide not to continue beyond the course due to the difficulty of the course material. Trig is an important component of a Calc1 course and not something I’d recommend someone to skip, or self study unless that person is very strong in mathematics and has a track record and the disciple to self study. Even so , I’d recommend that such a student like you, talk to the math department there and make sure your trig is up to what it needs to be to take the Calc course

You do not want to have 2 courses sitting there incomplete status or with poor grades.

3

How much of Trig did you complete before leaving, and how solid has your self-learning been? If you completed most of the class, and are confident you have learned the material, then it’s a matter of paperwork/timing and should be OK.

But Trig is important to understand when taking Calc. If you haven’t truly learned it, Calc could get difficult. And not until several months in.

4

You may want to try this quiz to see how ready you are for calculus 1:
http://math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi

5

In my experience people who do very well at ALL of the prerequisites for calculus, including trigonometry, typically do very well in calculus. People who are weak at any of the prerequisites seem to find calculus very difficult.

I would be very nervous about taking calculus before completing trigonometry.

6

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.