Is it normal to not be able to have a calculator in differential equations?
I’ve used a calculator in every math class in college. That honestly terrifies me…
I almost never needed one…there were hardly ever numbers to plug in. It’s all about the variables. Except for, like, mixing problems. If there are numbers and you don’t get a calculator, they’ll be stuff you can work out easily on paper.
@bodangles Thanks for the info! That’s much better. My class is ordinary differential equations and linear algebra combined. Was DE harder for you than calculus?
There’s a lot of integration involved so it’s probably a little bit harder than however you found that part of Calc 2. There are a lot of different types of problems to remember, but there are concrete steps to solve each type. I didn’t think it was as bad as sequences/series or visualizing stuff in 3D in Calc 3.
PDEs were harder. I haven’t taken linear algebra so I don’t know where that fits in.
If you need a calculator to for an elementary ODEs course, you probably aren’t doing the course correctly or else it is being taught in a very strange manner that I would argue is not particularly useful.
Echoing the others above, learning the theory behind ODEs is almost entirely analytical and doesn’t require a calculator. The only time we needed calculators when I took Differential Equations was when we were being tested on Euler’s method.
My daughter had ODE’s last term-no calculator, not needed.
Watson maybe 
We had to do Euler’s Method for column bending, sigh. Pretty ugly, calculator or not.
My differential equations class had no calculator allowed for exams. But they basically set up the exams so that any arithmetic required was doable without a calculator (i.e., they gave us nice numbers to work with). We weren’t even allowed note cards and/or cheat sheets, and they only gave us a table with a few formulas. There are just so many ways that graphing calculators can be used for cheating, and professors aren’t oblivious to that fact.