Would a Ti Nspire be allowed or prohibited? Is there a list out there that you can look at and see?
Now I can’t answer this question specifically, but I think it’s always good to have a CAS, as well as non CAS (probably a four function) calculator just to ensure you are prepared for all types of classes.
I’m not entirely sure what your situation is regarding classes, but your first two semesters will be full of gen. eds. It may be beneficial to keep this calculator for when you start enrolling classes more specific to major, but I can tell you as a current freshman at UW that 99% of my syllabi say “Only calculators which may be used on the ACT or SAT are allowed.” I’m not familiar with the Nspire, but if you couldn’t use it for any of your standardized testing, then you can’t use it in a majority of your college courses (at least for exams, but you should also be doing your homework with the tools that you will have for the exams). Personally, I always keep my TI-84 and scientific (non-graphing) calculator in my backpack.
Hope that helps!
@CollegeMan91
I definitely want one with CAS and I think a great scientific one would be the TI-36X Pro if graphing calculators aren’t allowed.
@BaseballBucky
Thanks for the help!
Seems like the SAT accepts TI-Nspire with CAS but ACT doesn’t but I should still be able to get one with CAS since the syllabus says “Only calculators which may be used on the ACT OR SAT are allowed.”
And I already finished my gen eds in high school so I should be diving into my major at the start of the Fall semester so I want to make sure I buy the right calculator.
I knew a lot of college friends (not necessarily UW students) say that some college professors prohibit them use calculator or sometimes graphing calculator in general.
I guess it really depends on certain professors at certain schools within certain majors
I had a calculator with CAS. It helped on homework once in a while. I would recommend having a scientific calculator or a non-CAS graphing calculator in case there is a professor that doesn’t allow it. My engineering professors didn’t care. The rest of the classes didn’t allow a calculator most of the time, but I think there was one that required a scientific calculator. Never heard the ACT/SAT rule.
Honestly though, it’s not a big deal if you don’t have one with CAS. Wolfram alpha can solve most of the algebra you need. The really hard stuff is probably going to be too cumbersome on a calculator anyways. So use something like Matlab or Mathematica. Excel can do most things if you have a computer around and use solver add-in.