This thread is interesting to me. My is a freshmen in engineering school and she took Org Chem I last semester and Org Chem 2 this semester. She did struggle a little bit last semester in Org Chem I and Calc 3 to keep the grades above B. She seems to do a lot better in the second semester in Org Chem 2 and Calc 4 though. So it may be just a transition problem between HS and college for OP too. Unlike post #16, retaking a math course is not that common among the engineering students I know in the past 15 years. Nevertheless, many freshmen choose to retake Calc 2 even after AP Calc BC.
Op,
There are many reasons why a person would do poorly in Calc 1 during fall frosh year:
- Too much partying
- Not attending class
3, Needing to learn how to structure their study time now that they are independent and studying has no handholding; needs to attend office hours - Bad teacher
- Teacher has a foreign accent
- Many/most kids have had Calc 1 in HS and are basically retaking it, so the curves on the test are very high
- Poor aptitude for Calculus
My grades during my frosh 1st quarter were shockingly low (due to 1 and 2) even though my aptitude in the subject matters was high. No big deal to retake to find out if the problem is truly aptitude or not.
I’m not a huge AP fan, so that colors my opinion, but I think a lot of kids ‘re-taking’ Calc 1 figure they’ve had it in high school so this is just a review. IMO, AP classes are not just like college classes. Students don’t know what they don’t know. My daughter never had AP calc and did just fine because she studied like crazy. She was so afraid that she was behind everyone else who had had Calc AB or BC that she did every problem, went to every extra session, did the practice tests, talked to the TA. DD did take AP chem, but she still worked the program in college (but enjoyed that it was easier than most of her courses). Her friend, however, sat in class texting and not taking notes because she knew it all. The friend left at Halloween because she had fallen so far behind.
While a bad teacher or a bad curve can hurt (although my daughter said her teachers don’t curve), I think numbers 1, 2, and 3 are more likely the cause of the problems.
I’d want to know what’s going to change this time, and how hard the student tried last time. If the student tried hard, that’s a bad sign. If the student didn’t do the homeworks last time, or didn’t work extra problems to make sure they understood, and work through the fundamental theorems to understanding, then they can do better this time if they work.
I disagree that if the student tried hard it is a sign he can’t do well the next time. Someone can row a boat hard and just go in circles, but once shown the correct technique can make progress. I have a daughter who is not good at math. When she is tutored, she can make progress, sometimes even getting A’s but always at least a B. If she isn’t tutored, rowing in circles. How hard she works doesn’t really matter, because she just doesn’t understand what the next step is.
Hopefully, if a student repeats a course, he will know from the beginning that he needs help and not wait until the midterm or final.
Hmmm, I do not recall that being true when I was in college. Indeed, if “almost every” engineering student needs to repeat at least one of the four math courses due to D/F grades, that means that half of the engineering students in each math course got D/F grades, the chance of getting a D/F grade was not that well correlated with how well one did in the other math courses, and the engineering students who got D/F grades in math stayed in engineering instead of deciding to do a less math-intensive major.
Whether the individual student in question can succeed on a repeat of calculus 1 depends on the reason for doing poorly, and whether that reason can be corrected (e.g. if the reason has to do with study habits, will the student improve the study habits?).
What kind of college is this student going to? Is this an engineering tech school? I know at DS’s school the math and physics classes are weed out classes. The one thing they are told by other students is if you did well on the AP exam, take the AP credit. Even if you got a 5 on the AP exam you could end up with a C in the class. A lot depends on the Professor. Did the student take Physics or any other engineering type classes? If so how did they do in those classes?
Opening up this thread to put in my 2 cents. D failed calc because she booted the final which counted for a major part of her grade. She got mono the last week of school and just wasn’t able to pull it together enough to make it through the test though she did try (emergency room visit was fun, good times for all). She had somewhere in the B spectrum going in (probably low B, everytime I type B minus I get a snarky, sunglass wearing emoticon), failed the final and voila’, big fat F. Big life lesson there, s**t happens, ya move on. :o3
If their first exposure to calculus is an engineering-level class at a strong technical university, then I wouldn’t be surprised at all that the student had difficulty. I do think you’re being unduly harsh. It’s a much easier step to take AP calculus in high school then repeat it in college, and even then you could expect to get a B or C.
I’m actually kind of surprised that someone set on engineering would land up in an engineering program without having taken calculus in high school. I think it’s more of a case of an unprepared student than an incapable student. Let him retake Calc 1 and see how it goes from there.
Engineering degree programs start with calculus 1, with high school precalculus as the prerequisite. Calculus in high school is not required.
The whole idea that students need to take calculus in high school and then repeat it in college (and still get only a C grade) is strange. Perhaps the underlying assumption is that many students in accelerated high school math should not be, or the high school math instruction is poor.
It really depends on the particular class and college. I struggled to get a B in engineering Calc 1 even though I had AP calc in high school (and even took a quarter of Calc at GA Tech in high school) and I’m decent at math. Next semester I switched over to a liberal arts department so I was able to switch to the liberal arts version of Calc 2. I snoozed through that class and got an easy A. So all college level calculus is not created equal, even at the same college.
My daughter did not have Calc in high school but got an A in calc l. Many kids in her class (like half) had had some kind of AP calc or dual enrollment in high school but didn’t get A’s; it is an engineering tech school so almost 2/3 of the freshman class is taking calc. My nephew did not have calc in high school but got a D+ and had to retake it and I think got only a C (big flagship top engineering).
I think it just clicked for her and not for him.
She wasn’t doing as well in calc II and asked me in March if she should drop it. I said not if she thought she was learning the material. She dug in and got a B which I think is great but she’s not as thrilled about. I think a lot of students do drop classes when they hit a wall or do poorly on a test and then have to retake it, putting them behind in the sequence.