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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was a bit gobsmacked to find UMich accepting a whole list of Nova CC classes for credit. UMich Reddit is clear about avoiding lower level UMich math classes. [/quote]

Why gobsmacked?  Math is math.  The curricular content is clear and objective.  The answers are either right or wrong.  The grading is transactional.  And you can get great teaching and nightmarishly bad teaching down the hall from one another at any institution.  You are in fact far more likely to find _less_ attention paid to lower-level teaching at a research-intensive university.  And PhD's don't come with any guarantee of pedagogical excellence.[/quote]

UMich Ann Arbor accepts a fair number of well-qualified in-state transfer students.  This is partly for logical, socially worthwhile equity/affordability reasons.  So early courses need to be transferrable. There is also an excellent community college right in Ann Arbor that preps a lot of transfers. Reddit indicates that some engineers take math there as a hack to balance workload insanity.  I would expect that a NOVA course and student transferring such a course to Umich would have acceptable prep.

Also, in lower-resourced school districts, high school kids who take calculus or higher might take it at community college because their school cannot field a live class.

I took calculus at a different state flagship.  It was lecture-based and I happened to pull a bad TA.  Someone very bright but literally having a personality meltdown that semester.  I tried using the free student tutoring service but the work-study student tutors weren't very effective.  I got an A but it cost me a lot of time and anguish, and I haven't ever had to use calculus again.  Just to know vaguely what it's about.

I will not mock anyone for taking calculus away from their home institution to ensure more favorable learning or grading circumstances for themselves.  Math geeks can be very snobby sometimes and that further lessens other people's interest in the subject.  I find that it takes me 2x as long as a math geek to get to the same level of comprehension.  But I can do it.  The problem is that classes get faster and faster as the difficulty level rises, and any small gaps in fundamental skills or problem-solving speed become disastrous.  Essentially, college calculus is a mini-weed-out. Hacks like transferring in cc credits could reduce the agony while still providing the same long-term result.  [/quote]

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