OK a bit of a twist of the standard 104/114 questions I found searching on this site. Just looking for some information. My D is a senior in high school and is taking 104 as part of the Young Scholars program. She’s handling it rather well so that’s not an issue. She was planning on taking 114 in the Spring but one issue is that the day changes from T/TH to M/W which makes it harder to fit into her schedule. So before she jumps through a bunch of hoops to make it fit I’d just want to see if there is any reason that she maybe should find a different class. So a couple of questions
1 - Is 114 about the same amount of work as 104?
2 - Is it a level of math that maybe “non-mathies” might suddenly hit a wall?
3 - She plans to major in Biology/Neuroscience in college - is 114 a good level of Math for that major or is it overkill on the math?
103 Introduction to calculus = “calculus 1” at most colleges, or high school calculus AB
104 Calculus, part I = “calculus 2” at most colleges, or high school calculus BC
114 Calculus, part II = “calculus 3” or “multivariable calculus” at most colleges
240 Calculus, part III = “linear algebra and differential equations” at most colleges
Multivariable calculus is usually not needed for biology majors. It is usually taken by math, statistics, pre-PhD economics, physical science, and engineering majors. However, it is not generally considered much more work or much more difficult than the previous calculus course (though it can be easier or harder for some specific students).
For biology majors, statistics is probably more useful. It looks like UPenn offers either very low level statistics courses (101/102 or 111/112, non-calculus-based, probably like high school AP statistics), or very high level in-depth multivariable-calculus-based statistics courses (430/431, requires MATH 114):
So MATH104 is basically AP Calc BC, with MATH114 being the next course in the Penn calculus core. I only took 114, and I found it incredibly difficult, but it was probably a mistake for me to take 114 instead of 170. I found that many of my classmates thought 104 was more difficult than 114, but that is obviously personal opinion.
Penn’s Biology department does require MATH114 (or 115, which is pretty similar) for its majors, so if your daughter is considering Penn as one of her options for undergrad, it would be a sensible course to take. I don’t know of any Bio majors who didn’t take 114.
I think a better question would be whether there is a better course for your daughter to take next semester. If she has a good idea of the college she’ll attend (even if it’s narrowed to 3 or 4 options), then she can take a look at the requirements each school has for its biology majors, including which courses are transferable. Some schools may allow you to transfer credit to apply toward your major; others allow you to transfer credit to apply toward general requirements; still others allow you to transfer credit only as an elective. These policies could inform your daughter as to which course to look at. For example, if she can transfer credit to apply toward a major, then maybe introductory biology might make sense, but if she can’t do that, then she runs the risk of taking the same class twice.
Thanks for the replay. Unfortunately there are very limited choices and due to the nature of the instruction lab sciences aren’t available. Having talked with her further it looks like it shouldn’t be too difficult to fit 114 into her schedule. I’m guessing that some people found 104 more difficult is because it was probably taken Fall of Freshman year and getting use to the pace of college classes may have been a learning curve. It’s basically AP Calc BC taught in 1 semester.