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<p>Make it an advanced CS degree. I worked in Detroit for a few years in the auto business and most CS people ended up in IT; to work on ‘real’ embedded systems like those that control the car’s engine or brakes or what not usually a BSEE and often an MSEE are required. MS CS or PhD CS would work too with a heavy dose/focus on hardware.</p>
<p>I think of Apostol and Spivak both as higher-level texts than would be suitable for a first-time Calc II student.</p>
<p>The prices on Amazon vary a lot–I had been watching a book at $200, nearly decided to buy it, and then found the same book in excellent condition for $5, also on Amazon.</p>
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<p>Only relative to supply. Could be very thinly traded (perhaps with large fluctuations in price).</p>
<p>CS can be a good career for those well suited to it. But I don’t see it an an alternative to an engineering student overly challenged by calc… unless he has a particular aptitude for it. If he gets interested inCS , make sure he takes a peek first at courses like Data Structures (the course that made DD change her mind about adding a CS minor to her econ major - taking DS it as compressed summer course didn’t help).</p>
<p>@ Shrinkrap, no matter what Amazon thinks about the Stewart textbook, my two sons used it for their three semester Calculus series for Math, Physical Science and Engineering majors at Sacramento State University and in my opinion it is an excellent textbook. It is very long and could not be covered completely in even three semesters but that is because it covers a wide variety of useful topics not found in other Calculus textbooks and large numbers of worked examples as well as practice problems that will give the student the numerous problems to work which is essential in Calculus II. It is also a rigorous text that assumes the reader has a strong background in Algebra and Trigonometry but it is written for students who plan to take higher level Math and Physical Science courses in mind. </p>
<p>Since Shrinkson got a D on the midterm covering the least challenging material he will see this term I still think he needs to put in eight hours of work a day in addition to class time to pass this course. I am assuming this is the only course he is taking this summer so there should be enough time available and I can not imagine he has anything else he needs to do that is more important than doing whatever he has to to get at least a C in Calculus II.</p>
<p>Didn’t anyone else use Leithold? I’ll never forget lugging that thing around for 3 semesters!</p>
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<p>The ‘CS needs math’ myth is a great urban legend, if there ever was one. By math I mean calculus of course. I’m guessing that top CS schools do have math in their CS, but at the state flagship or LAC level, if one can be picky enough they can find ‘math lite’ CS programs (esp. a BA CS versus a BS CS). </p>
<p>There are areas of CS that are math-intensive, and I’ve been quite successful in a few of them (numerical analysis, data analysis/statistics, graphics algorithms, and GPS / location based services) and even had an offer to work at a premier statistical analysis software firm back then (graphics drivers for 3278 graphics terminals, eek!). </p>
<p>Now if you want to write the next Mathematica, or the next physics engine for Angry Birds or some geo-spatial simulation, probably, but the majority of CS jobs involve little math… And I don’t mean IT jobs.</p>
<p>Turbo, I agree with that, except to say that much Calculus is required at the flagships around here. But at the directionals, not as much. Programs vary quite a bit on this point.</p>
<p>I was surprised when you said that you were more likely to work in embedded auto systems with a EE. I worked in avionics embedded systems and, while we had EEs, and a few computer Engs, the majority were CS, math/CS, math, physics, etc. But I was done working before much of the 90s so maybe it has something to do with the hiring era. The projects I worked on were big enough, and the work partitioned enough, that knowledge of EE topics was not necessary for most embedded work.</p>
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<p>Apostol is ranked about 108,243 on Amazon. Stewart is ranked
90,960. Spivak is ranked 25,405. Obviously Stewart is sold through a lot
of other publishers like Follett and Barnes and Noble. The Amazon ranking
implies that they sell about 500 copies per year. I’d assume that other
booksellers sell some number of them along with used booksellers. That
doesn’t sound that thinly traded to me.</p>
<p>The sales vs rank curve at Amazon is pretty interesting.</p>
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<p>I noticed that Campbell’s Biology is now available in E-Book form.</p>
<p>If I needed a book, I’d be tempted to convert Spivak or Apostol to
digital form and put it on one of my mobile devices. I had a look at
the Kindle library for calculus texts and the large, popular texts
aren’t available in E-Book form. There are textbooks but they appear
to be lesser known. I guess that the Calculus publishers have figured
out that they make more money selling super-heavy textbooks rather
than making something convenient for their customers.</p>
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<p>There are a lot of Information Systems and Information Technology jobs
that do not need calculus though many schools require you to take
calculus anyways. If you are mainly doing business programming, then
you would not likely need the heavy math. The problem is that a lot
of employers associate the CS degree with programming, information
technology, etc. and then ask for that degree when hiring.</p>
<p>One of the engineers that I work with has a Phd in English. He has
a number of patents to his name and has done a lot of great work for
our company. I recall interviewing for a job at Sybase - the manager
who was also an engineer, had a degree in biology. Some of the people
that I work with (usually old-timers) don’t have college degrees.</p>
<p>Companies were a lot better at getting you up to speed in the 70s,
80s and 90s. Today, they want the perfect candidate.</p>
<p>However, the problem is how do you get a kid who struggled terribly with basic integration techniques up to speed to take a midterm on Taylor Series in a little over a week?</p>
<p>" decided to tackle Calc ii as a summer class, yet continues to play tennis and ball, and asks, after getting bad enough grades to warrant that prof email, whether he should boost study time beyond four hours?? By now he should understand that he is going to have to work harder than others just to keep his head above water. Fun stuff can wait until he has these classes in hand, if he really wants the ME degree."</p>
<p>Well, EVERYBODY got the email, but I’m sure son was among the intended audience. And he didn’t ask if he should boosts his time, he asked if he should not do anything else at all. I thought even if he took out two hours a day for fun/exercise, he would still have 10 hours for class and study, no?</p>
<p>Laimatre, I will take your post to mean there is SOME hope, with the hours a day+class.</p>
<p>Also, he seems to feel what he’s doing now is much more in his wheelhouse because it is more understanding than memorizing.Does that make any sense? He hopes to master the memorizing/trip part by the cumulative final, which is worth twice as much as the first two tests. And no points for homework. Is that crazy talk?</p>
<p>Sigh. I agree his head is barely above water, but it won’t be the first time if he surprises us.</p>
<p>^Yes, it’s important to get exercise, eat well, and take a breather from time to time. Also to get enough sleep if possible. :)</p>
<p>I think that summer courses were mainly for remediation a long time ago. I guess that the shortened period could work for students that took the course before so that they have some familiarity with the material and that not everything would be new material.</p>
<p>I agree with others that the regular 13/14 week semester is a better venue to learn these difficult weeder courses.</p>
<p>The idea behind EE’s doing the hard real time stuff is that if one runs into trouble and needs to hook up a scope or read a schematic, they can do it. Us CS folk have to do the Mr. Spock Vulcan Mind Melt with the hardware…</p>
<p>Typically the lower the level of code (i.e. board support, Drivers, etc) the more likely it is that an EE or CE will be doing the work. The user interface and applications spectrum is more CS friendly (my part). There’s a gray area for operating system and the like but usually this comes from a vendor, not homemade.</p>
<p>To get to the original topic, I agree with BCEagle91. Calculus in the summer is a near death experience unless you’ve taken the course before (and not done well in it :)). Or, if the dreaded professor is gone for the summer and some easier guy or gal is teaching. I avoided a few Dr. Dreadfuls that way.</p>
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<p>Well, why don’t you just say “calculus” instead of “math”? CS needs math (discrete math and the math-like CS theory stuff), but not really calculus specifically.</p>
<p>@Shrinkrap, I know there are only a few days left until the midterm and my strong belief is that Shrinkson would do better on it if he went to at least 8 hours a day of studying than if he stays at four but I am not sure if I can really offer a lot of hope. Today, I looked at my son’s Calculus textbook and discovered that Chapter 11, the chapter in the Stewart book coving Infinet Series is nearly 100 pages long and contains some pretty difficult material. Without knowing how much your son has already learned, how motivated he is and what his aptitude for Mathematics it is difficult to say how much hope I can hold out. </p>
<p>Natural ability to do Math and response to motivators varies so widely among individuals it is very difficult to predict how various people would do on this test. Even within families there are big differences. Both my sons have already taken this course but if they had not and had 3 days to master the material on the infinite series in the Stewart text for a midterm I know that even if I offered my older son, who just finished his third year as a Geology major, a new car if he passed the test he would say “Dad, you are being very cruel, you know I can not do that and your offer is meaningless” and he would be correct. He is a capable Math student but one with definite limatations and could not learn that amount of material in that amount of time.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my younger son who just finished his first year as a Physics major and who is on the mild end of the Aspbergers spectrum could be handled very differently. I could just hand him the book and say he will have a midterm on chapter 11 in three days and if he gets an uncurved score of 90% or better I will let him go play cards with his friends at UC Davis this weekend even though it is a weekend he would normally not be able to go but if he does not achieve that score it will be at least a month before he can hope to go to Davis again, he would probably get at least a 95% uncurved score on the test.</p>
<p>I do think you need to make it clear to your son that, in the situation he is in now, if he is still playing basketball and tennis and fails that test he could suffer some very adverse consequences. I have been in that situation with both my sons in the past and following through on such warnings is painful to do but sometimes kids who are not taking serious situations very seriously need a jolt.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, I’d say you’re right, no calculus really, but in 27 years as a software engineer I really can’t recall an instance of ever using the C math library (as in, sine and cosine stuff, let alone anything heavier duty). Maybe in 1985 for a year when we wrote a window system for VAX/VMS from scratch :).</p>
<p>In the same period I used theory of computation and algorithm analysis material exactly once. It was a great career moment (HP/UX is not your friend) and it saved the day but for day to day use, not very useful.</p>
<p>The problem with such courses is that they make one think that everything is theory-able i.e. solvable by good old elbow grease and the like. After working streaming media (internet radio) and cellular data networks the last few years, alchemy, defense against the dark arts, and divination are far more useful courses than algorithm analysis and theory of computation.</p>
<p>If people understood the issues with the under-laying technologies and their integration we’d be using pigeons for SMS.</p>
<p>Laimaitre, that is interesting. My kids are different too. While incentives were needed regularly when he was younger, punishments and incentives from me just don’t feel right, right now.</p>
<p>“the majority of CS jobs involve little math” - There are many engineering jobs that don’t use much calculus or higher level math. (The general problem solving skills will get used). But you still need to understand calculus to get through the engineering curriculum. I assume similar would be true in CS.</p>
<p>A typical decent CS curriculum (not an IT or MIS curriculum) does require the ability to think mathematically and logically, and handle CS-specific math, but not so much calculus in particular.</p>