<p>Hello! I'm an incoming HSS student and I'm currently planning my fall schedule. I haven't taken the calc placement test yet, but I'm hoping to be able to take 21-120. I'm trying to choose between Walker and Mackey; from ratemyprofessor.com, it seems like Walker is easier but Mackey is better. Who would you advise I go with? Also, I only took AB in high school. Would that bar me from 21-120? Thank you.</p>
<p>I had Mackey for a class on Maple, and he was fantastic. Every day he’d come in with a personal pizza and a 2 liter of Diet Pepsi and chug the whole thing during the course of his lecture.</p>
<p>(Seriously, his class was great. He’s a great teacher, and I really wish I had had him for any of my “normal” math classes.)</p>
<p>21-120 has no prerequisite or whatsoever, so technically speaking, even if you don’t take the placement or the placement indicates you should take, say, 21-111, you could still register for 21-120 anyway. I don’t think your advisor would ever be chasing after you if you did that. Advisors do advise, but at the end of the day, what classes you decide to take is still entirely up to you :)</p>
<p>I’ve taken classes of neither, though I heard from numerous people that Mackey is awesome. Someone allegedly decided to change to math major after taking his class. But IMO, it’s more like “it’s a basic calc class, so what do you expect. prof doesn’t really matter”…</p>
<p>Thanks for the input!</p>