<p>I am a Freshman Chem. Major who has been out of school for a long stretch of time. I am trying to decide which classes I need to take prior to Calculus I. The last math course I took was Algebra II and that was more than 10 years ago. I do not struggle with Math but I also don't want to struggle in the future if I don't have to. Can anyone advise which class or classes I should take before Cal I in Fall of 2015</p>
<p>Best thing to do first would be to take a placement test to properly assess what areas of math you may be lacking proficiency in. My advice would be to take the equivalent of Algebra II as the most common problems Calc students have are with algebra skills.</p>
<p>Here are some math placement tests that you can use to self-assess which math topics you need to review before taking calculus. These do not have a student wall or pay wall to use them.</p>
<p>[Placement</a> Test](<a href=“http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html]Placement”>http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html)
[Calculus</a> Diagnostic Placement Exam | Department of Mathematics at University of California Berkeley](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam]Calculus”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam)</p>
<p>If your highest math course was algebra 2 in high school, you will need trigonometry and precalculus at least before taking calculus, although you may need to take an algebra course to prepare for that if your algebra skills are weak.</p>
<p>You could probably pick up algebra again without a formal class (like riding a bike). Trig is far less intuitive. I would check out some YouTube videos (by PatrickJMT) and see how much you can pick up by yourself. If that doesn’t work then enroll in a Pre-Calc class which is basically College Algbebra and Trig in one class.</p>
<p>As stated, a placement test is the first step. You could be like I was - you could have all of the algebra down, but need the trig. Or vice versa. I actually ended up taking trig and calculus 1 at the same time because I was told the most trig would come in calc 2. That’s only because I had the algebra down. There IS trig in calc 1, but not so much that I struggled.</p>
<p>Oh, and for the record, make sure you know your logarithm rules. I had all but completely forgotten about logs when I went into calc 1, and we ended up using the natural log A LOT.</p>