Calc BC vs College Calc???

Hi all,

One UT Austin EE graduate advised me to take differential and integral calculus even after calc BC in high school because it apparently went into more depth and prepared him better for future engineering.

Is taking college calculus better for college engineering and does it prepare you more than BC calculus does?

Calculus BC should cover all or most of the material in most college calculus 1 and 2 courses.

What you may want to do after you decide what college to attend is get the old final exams and syllabi for the college’s calculus 1 and 2 courses. Try the exams to check your knowledge and check the syllabi to see if there are any topics you need to self study if you skip.

@ucbalumnus Even if I feel proficient with the information, would there be any advantages to being in college calc (other than a free 100)?

AP Calculus BC ostensibly covers all of the material that the Calculus I/II sequence at a university covers. The is more about the quality of that coverage. AP courses vary pretty widely in the quality of their instruction and the AP exams seem to be only loosely correlated with material mastery (likely because many AP teachers teach to the exams rather than for understanding/mastery). In other words, it is pretty much impossible to say whether an individual student should use their AP credit or not, in my opinion. I’ve come across plenty of students who skipped those two courses and were fine, and plenty who skipped them and were like a deer in the headlights when I tried to explain something to them using topics from those courses.

Of course, the quality of instruction at universities varies pretty wildly, too. Those early courses are often given to new professors or adjuncts, who vary quite a bit in their quality. That said, they still tend to be deeper and faster on average than an AP course.

Looking through old exams is a pretty good strategy for deciding whether to skip, but ultimately, you probably won’t know with 100% certainty whether you should until after you pick one option, take a few semesters worth of engineering courses, and determine whether or not you are struggling.

Do not assume that repeating AP credit will be an easy A.

I repeated both Calc 1 and 2 in college. I got two easy As and I can now do and recognize a lot of integrals in my head. The con is it set me back to where I had to do summer classes.

@10s4life But the course plan for engineering at my desired college assumes that you haven’t taken any calculus courses yet. Therefore if I repeat, nothing really changes (right?? Or is my understanding wrong).

Well my course plan assumes that too but I like to take 3 vs 4 classes per quarter. So the 4 year plans at most schools are overwhelming. Taking 3 allows me to have a lot of free time for fun while still getting out in 4 Years. Hence the summer session.

In most schools, the standard engineering major course plan assumes starting in calculus 1. However, if you do skip calculus 1 (or calculus 1 and 2) (after trying the old final exams and doing well on them), you will gain free elective(s) (possibly later) instead of the course(s) skipped. Also, starting in a more advanced math course can allow you to start physics a semester or quarter earlier, which can shorten the sequence of prerequisites that your major requires.

Extra free electives can be used to take additional advanced courses in your major later, or courses of interest outside your major, or take lighter course loads during semesters or quarters with unusually high workload courses (e.g. if you need to take several lab or project courses together).