I was placed in Pre-Calculus at UC Riverside.

State Forums
1

I want to take Calculus in the fall, so I want to attend a community college in the summer. Is there an online course I can do? How behind am I? There has to be a way I can start calc in the fall. I know about the summer school session at UCR but UCR is too far from me. Are there any other options? Thank you.

2

What math have you taken in high school, and did you take a math placement test?

http://arc.ucr.edu/mae/
http://arc.ucr.edu/mae/ucrmathflow.html

How far behind you are depends on what your major is. If you are a biology major as indicated in your other posts, being behind a quarter in math should be too big a deal, like it would be for a physics or engineering major.

3

I would recommend against taking a class at the community college. Since I’m assuming that you’re a freshman, if you take a class at a community college before you start taking classes at the UC they might not take you as a freshman anymore. I would just take the class during the fall, along with some general ED classes. If you aren’t a freshman, then you have not met the requirement for calculus and should take the class either way.

4

Don’t worry too much about not starting off in calculus, it might help you. Think of this way, you get a quarter to get used to college mathematics classes, so you’ll be better prepared to take on calculus when the time comes.

Take it from me, starting off at calculus in college if you’ve never taken it before is a recipe for disaster. So many people were unprepared for the subject along with the college structure. So…don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

5

What is your major? Starting with pre-calculus is only one course behind, and for many majors, it is not a big deal at all. You can see if you can take the course over the summer, but you need to check with UCR to make sure that it is allowed and that they will accept the credit. But even if you can’t, it’s not the end of the world. It shouldn’t affect too much, really, and even if it does affect your plans, you could take a math course next summer (when it would be easier to take a course at UCR or would be easier to navigate what courses transfer and such) to get back on track. It’s one class. It shouldn’t make you or break you, unless you are, perhaps, entering a math intensive major.