I’m wrapping up sophomore year and I finished with an A in AP Calculus BC. Next year I’m going to be taking all college classes and I’m struggling trying to decide on my schedule. The math department at the college is not good and most students struggle with the math classes. Should i attempt to take Multivariable Calculus and Linear next year despite all the awful things I’ve heard about the class and how very few people do well? My other option is not taking a math next year, which would give me room on my schedule for other classes that have some math aspect to it and I would be more interested in, such as Macro or some computer science classes. I really want to get into Columbia and other very competitive colleges, so would it hurt my chances to not take a math junior or senior year?
You should probably continue with math.
Don’t go a year without math trust me you’ll forget everything. If you’re getting an A in calc BC as a sophomore I think you’ll do fine in multivariable (I dunno about Linear algebra though).
You don’t need to take linear algebra and multivariable at the same time
^^I think OP means by semester. I took Multivar this year, and although most people think it’s a difficult math course, the concepts themselves are relatively intuitive; if you had an easy time in AP Calculus, you should be fine. It’s generally a pretty useful course too–you understand where many of the formulas you use in Calculus come from.
On the other hand, Linear, which I am taking at my high school this semester, is very different from Multi, and you should take that into account. It is like no other math course you have ever taken, and it is very theoretical and proofs-based.
Are you taking these at a university or a community college? Regardless, other students’ testimonies–particularly those who did not go to your school–are generally useless.
I would continue with Multivariable…and then consider Differential Equations next…see what you would take at Columbia in the Engineering program as the 4th calculus
I took linear and diff eqs at the same time (didn’t take any other math with multivariable) and it worked out well. Diff eqs is rather easy, linear is quite tough (somewhat easier if you’re amazing at algebra).
I found multivariable much easier than linear, much harder than diff eqs, and slightly harder than Calc II, but that’s because I’m abysmal at visualizing 3D plots.