<p>So I was having a lot of medical issues my freshman year, and I pulled a C+ in second quarter calculus and a C- in third quarter calculus (integration and multivariable calculus, respectively.) I still have one more quarter of calculus entitled "Vector analysis." I'm wondering if my poor performance (and poor understanding of the material) is going to negatively affect me later on. Will I have a chance to relearn some of the material in my other classes, or should I self study to get myself up to par? Just so you know, as of right now I'm leaning towards a Mechanical Engineering major, but I may switch into Civil (though highly unlikely.) This upcoming quarter I'm taking Vector Analysis, first quarter Calculus-based Physics, and a MATLAB course (I have absolutely zero programming experience.) Physics and MATLAB both require integral calculus as a prerequisite. I need a B in physics to switch into MechE. Should I be self studying the calculus that I don't quite understand?</p>
<p>Also, will these grades kill my chances of getting into grad school? They're my only grades below a B, and I hopefully won't have many (any?) more C's in my college career.</p>
<p>Poor grades will, most likely, come back to haunt you!!</p>
<p>To understand the computational part of engineering you need to understand differential equations, which is where you use the calculus skills. You then use DEs to describe all kinds of physical phenomena. So, the basic calculus skills are very important to understanding engineering.</p>
<p>Thanks HPuck. So would it suffice to get down integration and partial derivatives and their applications? Or should I learn other things like Taylor Polynomials and Convergence/Divergence (the stuff that tripped me up most)?</p>
<p>Calculus is one of the few subjects you really need to put in the effort to learn well. Study all of it until you have a strong conceptual understanding of it. Bad grades are bad grades, but calculus is important.</p>
<p>Calculus will be used in physics. Multivariable calculus will become important when you take the physics course with electricity and magnetism. Differential equations will become important in many places.</p>
<p>Try and improve on basic integration/misc techniques (integration by parts, partial fraction decomp, trig int, partial derivations, etc) because these will be very important in DE. A lot of questions will have a lot of nested integrals/nasty integrals and you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of the question. Freshen up on Taylor and Maclaurin series. When you take linear alg practice matrix techniques, translation matrices, etc. (will be used in systems of differential equations)</p>
<p>“There are a few important things you learn in life: walking, speaking, driving, responsibility, cooking, seducing, etc. And above all those things, the most important thing you will learn is Taylor Series.” - My Calculus Teacher.</p>
<p>There are only two subjects you absolutely have to know, without constantly consulting a reference: calculus and physics.
Yeah, it will come back to haunt you if you don’t put in the effort to get the hang of it. Get on that, no matter how much work it takes.</p>
<p>1 year left of Engineering school. Taylor series rarely comes into play. The only time it did show up, it was just mentioned as part of the proof and we didn’t have to do anything with it. But yes, calculus is EXTREMELY important, if not for the pure concept of what it means to take the integral/derivative. Also, so so many people don’t have a good grasp on all the material that came before calculus too, especially trig. Know your trig, it will help you out, a lot.</p>