<p>So it looks like my Calc 2 teacher is REALLY bad. I went to class on Monday and he has a thick accent which is hard to understand. I checked ratemyprofessors.com when I got home and almost every review is negative. They say the tests are insanely difficult and nothing like the HW. They say he is just not a good teacher at all.</p>
<p>There is a slim chance there is another professors (who has a good rating) course could open between now and Friday. The problem is it would require me to drop my Programming Concepts course. I have been waiting to take this class since I started to ensure that Comp Sci is the field I want to go in. This of course is all "what if" because who knows if the math class will open.</p>
<p>Dropping Calc 2 entirely (and not taking it this semester) will definitely put me behind. My plans were to take Physics 2 in the summer and I cannot do that if I do not take Calc 2 this semester.</p>
<p>What do you guys think I should do? Im so stressed right now because I thought I had a perfect schedule until I checked RMP.com.</p>
<p>Take RMP.com as a grain of salt most of the review is usually freshman that blamed their professor for failing. I had a chemistry professor that had an average rating of 2.2 with over 93 reviews and I thought he was pretty good and interesting. I managed to get an A in his class.</p>
<p>Yeah, but almost all the reviews are negative. There are only a few that are positive. Its hard not to believe it if its heavily leaning towards negative or positive.</p>
<p>You can get through Calc II basically on your own IF you study and do most of the problems in the textbook. Stewart’s Calc book isn’t that difficult (the exercises). I used cramster.com as a reference when doing the practice problems. Just study a lot and you can get through it. It just takes dedication and desire.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t have much of a problem doing that. I had to do it for Pre-Calc because my teacher was also pretty bad and taught it completely via PowerPoint! I worked my ass off. Harder than I ever worked before to manage an A. I just barely got it. Online tests were my saving grace in this class as they were essentially open book tests so it wasn’t too bad. I hear Calc 2 is the toughest of the three (Calc 1-3). </p>
<p>The problem is a few of the reviews of this professor on RMP.com. Many students mentioned the problems on the test were different and much more difficult than those in the book. How do I tackle that?</p>
<p>Calc 2 can be difficult. I’ve had professors give difficult exams, but the harder I studied the better I performed on the tests. You’ve got to work at all levels of Calc, there’s no real way around it because there are so many different types of problems. I think students tend to avoid the difficult practice problems, or don’t seek help when they get stuck on a practice problem. Then when they see the difficult problems on the exam they don’t know how to answer them.</p>
<p>The most difficult problems in Stewart’s Calc book tend to be towards the end of each practice set. Concentrate on those problems and they should prepare you for the exam. It took me about half way through Calc 2 before I finally realized how to study the Calc sequence and use Stewart’s book effectively.</p>
<p>I’m at UCF, so the Calc requirements are pretty much exactly the same as USF.</p>
<p>One other thing, I looked at his reviews and it seems the majority are from Calc I. If USF is anything like Calc I at UCF (which it probably is), then it is used as a “weed out” class for potential engineering/mathematics majors. They do make it super difficult. My Calc I class was a bear. Calc II was difficult too, but I got through it by studying a lot. The first half of Calc II is the most difficult part. Techniques of integration. If you perfect the techniques of integration you should do fine.</p>
<p>It gets easier after the first half, covering polar coordinates and sequences/series. Some students struggle with series, but I didn’t think it was too bad.</p>
<p>Yeah, Calc I was brutal at times. I absolutely HATED related rates. To this day I still don’t have it down 100%. I have always hated any form of word problems. I busted my ass in order to get a B. I likely could have gotten an A had I not procrastinated on my very first exam.</p>
<p>Most of the reviews didn’t seem to be from Engineering Calculus either. Mostly Life Science Calc and some Business Calc. Not sure how much more difficult Eng. Calc is compared to Life Science Calc if at all.</p>
<p>You would actually say Calc II is a bit easier than Calc I? How is Calc III? I always heard that Calc III is a breeze if you can survive Calc II.</p>
<p>If you can visualize things in 3-D space, then Calc III isn’t too bad. Double and triple integration isn’t that difficult. Most difficult part of it is setting up the proper region of integration. Vectors are pretty easy. That’s pretty much the majority of Calc III, vectors, double & triple integration (of course there are various subtopics with each major topic)</p>
<p>One thing in common with each Calc class I took; the more I studied the better I did. Every time I “relaxed” and thought I knew the topics it would seem to bite me at test time.</p>
<p>There are a lot of things that you can do to learn calculus if you’re willing to accept ownership of the learning process. You can start with iTunesU. A number of colleges have entire calculus courses available online. So you can actually “take” the class from a great professor, while taking the tests and turning in homework for the class taught at your school.</p>
<p>Studying is very important. You can search the web and find a number of websites with tips on how to study calculus. But the most important thing in taking a math or science class is not turning pages in the book or taking good notes, but working out problems.</p>
<p>There are books called “the calculus problem solver” or something to that effect that you can get from your local bookstore or online. These books have thousands of worked problems. The way to use them is turned to the section that corresponds to what your classes covering, then cover the answers and start working problems. Check your answers against the book, and keep doing this until you getting them right.</p>
<p>If you’re serious about doing well, you’ll have to put in the time. A good rule of thumb is to expect to spend nine hours per week studying the book and working problems.</p>