IMMEDIATE help needed!

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Okay, here's the deal:
My HS integraes Trig and PreCalc into one class. I chose to take Stats over PreCal with the intent of taking PreCal over the suummer at my local CC (My program suggests Calc in first year, which comes with UM's PreCal as a prereq in the course catalogue). I went to register today and take placement test. The problem is, my CC requires you take Trig before you take PreCalc. Having never taken Trig (only know COHSAHTOA), I was placed into Trig. Tonight when I looked at the course catalogue for UM, they to integrate Trig and PreCalc into one class. What should I do? Take Trig and not get any credit? Just not take it?</p>

<p>Advice and help much appreciated.</p>

2

<p>Only reason to take it is so that you'll have a leg up when you take preCalc at UM in the fall. College math classes can go with lightning speed. </p>

<p>Or you can just go with PreCalc at college. But I would definitely NOT take calc that first semester.</p>

3

<p>Deleted - How did I manage to post the same thing twice? Skill? Or lack thereof?</p>

4

<p>You may want to find out what topics the precalc course covers. Way back when (long time ago), when I took precalc in high school, it was a fluff course which didn't do anything to prepare me to take calculus. I recall working more with probability than anything else. When my son took precalc a few years ago, it was combined with trig. The precalc part was mostly an algebra review, so largely a yawn. If you look at the syllabus, you may discover that you have already learned the precalc topics in another course.</p>

5

<p>Wolf - Speak to the CC PreCalc Instructor. Tell her/him you're attending UM in the Fall, and you want to get a "leg up" on Calculus by taking her/his PreCalc course at the CC. Ask if s/he'd be willing to waive the Trig prerequisite for you. Chances are excellent the answer will be "yes." </p>

<p>I heartily endorse taking PreCalc. As Ellemenope wisely observed, college math courses seem to go at lightning speed. It's EXTREMELY difficult to "catch up" if ever you get behind.</p>

6

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<p>The thing is--at many high schools, there really is no seperate "trig" class nowadays. How do you "prove" to them you've "taken trig?"</p>

<p>At our school, simple triangle trigonometry (the SohCahToa/similar-congruent-triangle type stuff) is taught as part of "Geometry/Trig" if you take honors Geometry; you meet some of trig in Algebra 2; and our school has a class called "Math Analysis" which is an honors class and covers analytical geometry, trigonometry and more advanced algebra topics. </p>

<p>Math Analysis is what I would consider "pre-calc." The school has a class labelled "Pre-Calc" but it is mostly SAT prep and learning how to program your calculator to draw cool pictures. Pre-calc, my foot!</p>

<p>I think Newhope33 has a good idea about talking to the instructor. Especially if you plan to audit the class, the instructor may be willing to let you sit in.</p>

7

<p>I dropped the class today. It wasn't so much the difficulty (I actually liked the class as I'm the only person who actually considers proofs to be the most palatable form of math) as it was the "i'm not going to get any real benefit from this and we're trying to sell the house, look for one, buy one, and so on and so forth." I wouldn't get credit for the course as UM has no Trig course and they won't let me audit it (you can't switch a credit class to audit apparently). Futhermore, I would have to miss a few days of class to go house hunting with my parents and go to orientation, and the class would give me no real "leg up" as the math placement test is taken at Orientation (late June and the class ends mid-July). </p>

<p>I didn't have to talk to professor as the person that talked to him right before me had the same question about PreCal/Calc. The professor said that the class will not cover all PreCalc material like conic ssections, but he would go over it with you if you bought the PreCal book. Very nice man, but at this point, I was thinking it would just be easier to take it at UM and if necessary, take Calc the first summer.</p>

<p>As for the placement testing, the school (being a CC) is very mechanical. The test is computerized, and as you pass one section, you go onto the next section (the order is something like Basic Math, PreAlgebra, Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, Trig, PreCal, Calc). As I didn't have Trig, I didn't score high enough on that section to have the opprotunity to enter PreCal. You are more or less forbidden to register for a course you don't test into, and something tells me it would be a losing battle to argue PreCal placement.</p>

<p>There will be no record of the course on my transcript, not even A W (If there had been, I wouldn't have dropped.)</p>

<p>All in all, I think I made the right decision (though I would have loved to audit it) when considering all the other stuff going on, but the Trig before PreqCal thing kind seems lik an anonamoly.</p>

<p>Thanks for your input.</p>

8

<p>If you have time this summer, you might want to look through a real pre-calc book (high school level). I find math books to be the ones most able to be self-taught from.</p>