<p>Basically "regular" calculus vs. life science calculus. Which one would you recommend, and what's the main difference? The catalog says it's recommend for NBB and BIO majors, and I'll most likely be an NBB or Bio major.</p>
<p>115/116 is basically a dummed down version of 111/112, and intended for people who have little to no interest in math beyond the basic preques. Essentially, in 115/116 you’re really just memorizing pre-derived equations/formulas and plugging in numbers into them on exams, while with 111/112 you often have to get a bit more creative in actually deriving many harder formulas and solving integrals and applying them. Also, at least in 115, despite the name there’s virtually no application to life sciences in any meaningful way (only vague references to medicine or biology on occasional word problems…).</p>
<p>With that being said you’ll be really bored in 115/116 (especially 115, which is pretty much a simplified repeat of 111/Calc I) if u had any AP calc in HS, which is what happened to after about a week into the class during 1st semester of my freshmen year. Unless you want to be among the “wimpy” pre-meds who can only take math 115/116 (and not 111/112) and only physics 141/142 (and not 151/152), I’d take 111/112 if you have no AP credit, 112Z if you have AP Calc AB credit, or a 200 level class (Multivariable, Differential equations, Linear algebra) if you have AP Calc BC credit (I dropped 116 2nd semester of freshmen year and switched to multivariable).</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I think 111/112 and 115/116 are both jokes for the most parts at Emory. There are many professors, who in 111, don’t even get to integration (I really shouldn’t even say professors, many are grad. students). At least 115 can say that it does. 116 also introduces linear algebra and differential equations, along w/stats. It’s really a toss up which is harder. If you have an easier teacher (a good bulk) for 111, it will certainly be easier than 115 (either w/Duffus or the easier person). 112 and 116 are hard to compare, so I say a tie (116 is closer to the Georgia Tech rendering of calc. 2, and would be just like it if it decided not to do stats.). Admittedly, for physics, 111/112 is much “better”, but I wouldn’t say either requires creativity or anything. Emory not having engineering kind of yanks the quality and rigor out of intro. math courses (it’s quite embarrassing that even at a place like Tech, they have full professors teaching intro. math. Emory tries to make it’s 111/112 look better by making them really small, like 30 people a section, but despite that, quality is kind of low). Weird enough, despite ease, I think it may be easier to get quality teaching in 115/116. 112-Z is a good exception. I hear it’s pretty good. Anyway, Emory needs to try and fix 111/112 because it’s so lame that I dare say that people w/AP credit will easily have an advantage in multivariable or diff. eq over a person that took the equivalents at Emory. Intro. maths at peer institutions (not places like Tech, but our top 20 peers) should make Emory blush. However, we make up for it by being on par or tougher in natural science depts.<br>
If Emory is to get serious, it should join the movement of some of our peers to try and phase out physics 141 (trig-based) and create more sections for calc. based. That may put pressure on 111/112 to improve the rigor and instruction (you have to do excellent cherry-picking and have awesome luck to get in a good and challenging 111/112 non-112-Z class, trust me). 151/152 could afford more rigor too. In 151, by time of the exam, the emphasis on calc. and its application goes out of the window. Emory students have high math SAT scores, we could probably handle Tech level calc. or physics. To stop people from whining, they simply need to just implement one of the standard private school curves; just curve to a B-, and let the class get over it.</p>