<p>I am filling out my class schedule this week for senior classes. The "good" Calc teacher only teaches AB. GC said BC teacher flunks a lot of kids out and is really harsh with grades. She doesn't recommend this teacher. Will I be poorly prepared for Eng. major without BC? I could also duel enroll at the Community College and take Calc I and Calc II. Any advice?</p>
<p>I think you'd be fine with just taking AB, since a fundamental calculus class is all you'll need for your early engineering classes. If you don't mind taking classes at the CC, it might not be a bad idea to do that, since having your first year of calc done before you start college is a huge boost.</p>
<p>Thinking back to freshman year, maybe 1/3 of my friends were able to skip freshman year calc that were in engineering, maybe a handful skipped just calc 1 but not 2.</p>
<p>AB or BC doesn't matter...nothing does, really, unless you get a 5 and really understand what you're doing. no one's taking engineering classes 'til sophomore year anyway, and by that time you'll be just about done with math whether or not you pass AP Calc.</p>
<p>in other words, take what you feel like taking and don't worry about being behind.</p>
<p>I took AB and have been doing well in calc II and III as a chemE.</p>
<p>Has anybody here taken precalc and was it worth it? I know some students skip it. High school student has a choice of either precalc + AP Calc AB or AP Calc AB + AP Calc BC. Now that you all are past this point, what would you advise?</p>
<p>I would definitely take precalc. As for the original post, BC might be a good idea because it would eliminate a year of math. I am a second semester freshman in Calc 2 now. I wish this was my last semester of math.</p>
<p>I wasn't given the choice of taking pre-calc or not, that was just the "advanced" track at my school in tenth grade. It was a really easy class, and definitely a huge confidence booster for me after I nearly got put back into the standard class from how poor my geometry grade was (somewhere around an 80% while my precalc grade was a 99%).</p>
<p>Easy class, but definitely made Calc AB make a lot more sense once I took it next year.</p>
<p>You're only in HS, and you're already worrying about the engineering courses in college?</p>
<p>I would take the AB course. You can't learn anything if you have bad teachers; this is the case with my Mechanics course. In college, you always want to go for the professor who gives the best lectures. Now, what I do is attend another lecture; this now helps me to follow along with the material and I am getting something out of it, and learning more. I would probably fail if I stayed with the other professor. It would be bad if you went into engineering without a solid foundation in Math; not to mention that you might not do well enough on the AP exam to pass it.</p>
<p>You could go with your option of the community college; just free up your HS schedule with no math and it may work.</p>
<p>Thankyou everyone for helping me make a decision. I signed up for Calc AB with the same teacher I have this year. I think from the other Calc post that I would then sign up for Calc I rather than Calc II in college. Lil_killer129, your right, I should be worried about what color my prom dress is or something more fun, but most of us have heard how hard engineering school is and are intimidated that we might be missing something. We should definitely chill!</p>
<p>If you like, you can also self-study for the BC exam. There's actually a lot of overlap between AB and BC--iirc the only things the BC test has that the AB test doesn't are series and polar/parametric.</p>
<p>Well, I heard the same thing. I'm currently in a good engineering program, but I never took calculus in HS. In fact, I stopped after algebra 2 (Math B in NYC) in my Junior year. I didn't take any math classes my senior year. I can tell you I'm doing quite fine in college right now, so don't stress. I'm not telling you to not take AP Calc in HS. Taking it is actually good, because it'll be easier in college if you choose to retake it.</p>
<p>If you take Calc AB and take the AP exam for Calc BC and skip calc BC so that you take multivariable calculus, does it look bad? Besides EPGY and CTY, where can I take multivariable calculs?</p>
<p>BC, gives you more college credits and looks more impressive</p>