<p>I'm going into college this fall as a freshman and will probably be majoring in either CS or EE. I have taken BC calculus in high school and multivariable at community college and got an A but am worried that the CC curriculum was too simple (we used the james stewart textbooks btw).I am trying to decide if I should take Differential Equations this summer to get my main math reqs out of the way or just wait until next year. It would also give me a way to keep my math skills sharp over the summer. What makes me hesitant is my fears that the class at CC might be overly simplified and not prepare me for a possibly rigorous 4 year degree course. I don't want to screw myself later on by not getting a solid math foundation. Can anyone here offer their comparisons with CC and university courses? The college I will be going to is UMBC.</p>
<p>I really don’t think your math skills will atrophy very much during the summer, so that shouldn’t be a consideration. As for diff eq, I have a ChemE degree and we used diff eq in deriving formulae. It wasn’t anything too difficult. I really don’t think you will screw yourself. If it makes you feel any better, I took calc 2 at a CC and found it much tougher than Calc 3 and Diff Eq at a major university and there was a long time lag in between.</p>
<p>I am familiar with the UMBC math program and any of the Maryland community colleges are good as far as comparable lower-level math courses. MY question is WHY DiffEq is you are going to be a CS major?..unless you are going to emphasize computational mathematics within your CS program.</p>
<p>CCs typically model their courses on those found at same state public universities. If there is an articulation agreement between your CC and UMBC indicating that UMBC accepts your CC’s course, then it should be fine to take the course at the CC. Grading may be one difference, though – CCs may curve lower, but have weaker competition in the curve.</p>
<p>Note that the Stewart calculus books are commonly used in universities.</p>
<p>I took diffy qs at a CC and I’m just about to start the quantum sequence and the e&m sequence (I’m engineering physics) and just finished the classical mechanics and mathematical methods sequence, and so far we have only used a portion of what we covered in my diffy q class at CC. What I’m saying is that I think that my class there prepared me adequately, so far I haven’t come across anything diffy q related that made me go “whoa, we didn’t cover this!”</p>