Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Business calculus and engineering calculus are very different. The calculus it take in high school is business calculus.

This is false. Business calculus does not require trigonometry, which AP/engineering calculus do. That's why even MIT accepts AP calc credit.

It may be false. Regardless, it was written FOUR YEARS AGO.

My son is a sophomore in MechE. He says so far no weed-out or particularly difficult classes except computational fluid dynamics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes calc II and III, physics I, II, III. Also statics and dynamics. This was at UMD more than 10 years ago.

And these are vastly harder than AP Calc BC and AP Physics C? Do these classes prepare you at all?

Somewhat. My son has always been getting easy As in high school math, went beyond AP calc to multivariable calculus and differential equations, never been tutored, etc.

And then he took Calc II-III as a math major in one of the top schools. It was brutal. Half of the math majors switched to something else, like economics, as a result. I'd imagine the same thing is happening with Engineering majors.

Yup. IME for good math students, math continues to be easy until you get a course and BAM! Suddenly it’s not. It’s like you’ll find where your brain reaches its limit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes calc II and III, physics I, II, III. Also statics and dynamics. This was at UMD more than 10 years ago.

And these are vastly harder than AP Calc BC and AP Physics C? Do these classes prepare you at all?

They allow you to skip them, which is awesome. You can do just fine in calc 3 with a BC background so long as you learned the material properly. Taking calc 1 and 2 from a weeder program doesn't teach you the material better, it just gives you a lower GPA.

You are responding for a four year old post.

And giving terrible advice. Don’t skip them. Retake them.

Anonymous wrote:For my child at Northwestern, it was Physics in the Integrated Science Program. My child took Calculus BC and Physics C in high school, and the ISP Physics course she took fall quarter completely kicked her a$$. One of my majors was physics, and I was astounded at the level and depth of questions in both the course and on the exams

There’s nothing serious about integrated science

For my child at Northwestern, it was Physics in the Integrated Science Program. My child took Calculus BC and Physics C in high school, and the ISP Physics course she took fall quarter completely kicked her a$$. One of my majors was physics, and I was astounded at the level and depth of questions in both the course and on the exams

Anonymous wrote:Business calculus and engineering calculus are very different. The calculus it take in high school is business calculus.

This is false. Business calculus does not require trigonometry, which AP/engineering calculus do. That's why even MIT accepts AP calc credit.

Calculus III is a big step up from Calculus II when instructor gets to curl and divergence. I still don't quite understand it to this day, although I didn't get weed out

As another poster mentioned, it isn't the difficulty of the classes themselves but the time required for each. Many credits are required for engineering compared to majors in other subjects, and students take many hard and time consuming classes all at once. Another aspect of engineering is that grading depends not only on exams, but on deliverables. Many classes have associated lab sections or require projects. A circuit class could require a functioning circuit, and constructing the circuit could be an incredible time suck when you are already busy. A programming exam could be to write and test a program that must compile, or you get a zero. And so on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes calc II and III, physics I, II, III. Also statics and dynamics. This was at UMD more than 10 years ago.

And these are vastly harder than AP Calc BC and AP Physics C? Do these classes prepare you at all?

They allow you to skip them, which is awesome. You can do just fine in calc 3 with a BC background so long as you learned the material properly. Taking calc 1 and 2 from a weeder program doesn't teach you the material better, it just gives you a lower GPA.

You are responding for a four year old post.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes calc II and III, physics I, II, III. Also statics and dynamics. This was at UMD more than 10 years ago.

And these are vastly harder than AP Calc BC and AP Physics C? Do these classes prepare you at all?

They allow you to skip them, which is awesome. You can do just fine in calc 3 with a BC background so long as you learned the material properly. Taking calc 1 and 2 from a weeder program doesn't teach you the material better, it just gives you a lower GPA.

My student is a freshman engineering major and really struggling with Calc 2 and Chem 1. Both are considered weed out classes at their school. They mentioned that most of their classmates already received AP credit for these classes and are retaking them because some medical schools don’t accept AP classes. My student feels like they’re at a huge disadvantage because it’s their first time learning the material. There also doesn’t seem to be a curve.

Anonymous wrote:Would life be less terrifying if you got a BA in CS and is a BA in CS less marketable than a BS in CS?

A little bit. CS has its own weed-out classes. Both the BA and BS have to take essentially the same core requirements. AP CS might only prepare you for the intro programming class. But you will need to pass discrete math, data structure and algorithms, Algorithms with proofs, and OS architectures. These are not easy classes especially at top schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t freak out if your kid got a 50% on a physics or calc test, chances are there will be a curve and 50 —> 80.

Why would you know your kid's test scores? Land the helicopter.

Back in the day I had the top score on an exam in quantum physics with a 34%, which got me an A. Curves are real.

Because they call you crying because it’s the first time they’ve gotten anything below and 90. Most kids don’t even know what a curve is. They also don’t know you can drop a class at a certain date and it doesn’t show up on your transcript.

All my engineering profs put the curve up on the screen when they handed back the exam. They literally plotted the student scores and drew lines to show the cut offs. I can't imagine any engineering student calling home because they didn't understand a curve.

Business calculus and engineering calculus are very different. The calculus it take in high school is business calculus.