<p>I am completely new to college and i am wondering if it is possible to take pre calculus and college algebra in one semester if i busted my ass? I need to get caught back up in my math core classes and do not want to waste any more time.</p>
<p>that’s a question better asked of your own college advisors. the student catalogue should make some mention of whether one is a prereq for the other.</p>
<p>In our high school, college algebra is an easier course, for those students who didn’t do too well in Alg. 2 and weren’t recommended for pre-calc. I don’t know if this is the case at your college, but, as mentioned above, you should speak with your advisor as to whether you could (or should) take both at the same time. Pre-calc. will probably cover much of the same material as college algebra, but at a faster pace and will go into other topics not covered in college algebra.</p>
<p>I’m two math class behind. I need to get to calculus 2. Right now I’m in intermindte algebra, but next semester I will be in colkege algebra and trig</p>
<p>Are you certain that you need to take both? The college I went to recommended most people going into calculus take college algebra, then trig, then Calc 1. College algebra is typically pre-calculus without trig.</p>
<p>If you’re sure that you need both, speak to an academic advisor about whether one is a pre-req to the other.</p>
<p>I’d check to make sure you actually need both. Pre-calculus is really nothing more than elements of both college algebra and trigonometry combined into one class. I’ve never taken pre-calculus, because I took separate college algebra and trig courses. I’ve gotten A’s in Calc I, Calc II, and Differential Equations, and I’m signed up for Calc III for next semester. If anything, you’re typically better off taking both college algebra and trigonometry instead of pre-calculus, because you’ll get more depth in each respective topic. It’s quite possible that it’s a situation where you need either college algebra AND trig, OR pre-calculus to fulfill the prerequisite for calculus. </p>
<p>If you did take both college algebra and pre-calc at the same time, there would be a very significant overlap between the two. There would be times that you would be covering the exact same things in both at the same time. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s correct to say that college algebra and precalc overlap. The first half of precalc is trig and the second half is pre-calculus topics (polar, vectors, limits). Pre calculus doesn’t have any overlap with college algebra. You can switch the trig and pre calc and that would better prepare you for calculus but you couldn’t forego college algebra as if pre calculus was a replacement of sorts. If you did say skip college algebra and went straight to pre calculus, you would suffer in calculus with the algebra which is the hardest part of any calculus course.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. I think there must be a lot of variation in pre-calculus courses then. At my school, pre-calc doesn’t cover limits, because a full development of limits is the first topic in calculus I. Polar coordinates and vectors are covered in our trig course here too. The pre-calculus course essentially covers the basic aspects of college algebra and trig that are relevant to calculus. </p>
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<p>This is entirely dependent upon the school and the specific course in question.</p>
<p>I looked at some college algebra and college-level precalculus syllabi available online, and there was a whole lot of overlap. College algebra mainly seemed to deal with rational expressions, exponents, the quadratic formula, complex numbers, and functions (exponential, polynomial, and logarithmic). A few college algebra classes included a treatment of conic sections, and several included basic trig.</p>
<p>Pre-calculus seemed to focus on functions - polynomial, logarithmic, exponential, and rational - and trig. (In fact, that’s what I largely remember learning in HS precal, too.) None of the pre-cal syllabi I looked at talked about limits, although I would imagine some fast-paced or honors pre-cal classes probably introduce students to the topic. Only one of the pre-cal syllabi I looked at addressed either vectors or conic sections, and that was Georgia Tech’s. (Neither Caltech nor MIT had a pre-cal class, and Carnegie Mellon’s pre-cal class did not address either topic, nor limits).</p>
<p>In fact, most of the colleges I looked at would not grant students credit for both college algebra and pre-calculus, presumably because the material overlaps too much. And Columbia’s class is called “College Algebra and Analytic Geometry (Pre-Calculus)”. They do cover “polar coordinates, as time permits”, and they were the only syllabus I found that covered it. I specifically picked Columbia’s department because it appears designed for math geniuses - you can’t even get credit for this course, as the normal math sequence begins with Calculus I and many many Columbia students start with Cal II or III.</p>