<p>My son would like to self study calculus over the summer. He's getting A+ in pre-calculus. He does not really care for the teacher he would get if he took it during the year and he's always learned math best on his own anyway. I've been trying to find out about on-line courses. Most seem very expensive. What is Mathematica, and can you use it to learn calculus on your own?</p>
<p>He will take AP Statistics next school year, and what impact this has on class rank or college entrance is not a concern.</p>
<p>Sure, he could probably do it, but unless he’s a super math whiz, that’s pushing it a little IMO.</p>
<p>Differential calculus you could do in the summer, but some integral calculus can be tricky -there are lots of special methods. Personally, I’d prefer to take it with a good teacher or tutor. And then there’s all the proofs (I’m not sure exactly what you study in pre-calc, I skipped that one myself). You really want to know your calc well, like algebra.</p>
<p>But to each his or her own. And granted, my own kid won’t be taking calculus at all, and it’s been about 40 years since I took it.</p>
<p>Mathematica is a program which does calculus among other things. It doesn’t teach anything. If he was trying to do integrals and such, he could use the Mathematica tool online ( [url=<a href=“http://www.wolframalpha.com/]Wolfram|Alpha[/url”>http://www.wolframalpha.com/]Wolfram|Alpha[/url</a>] ) to check his work though if it’s just integrals and derivatives. </p>
<p>How much he can learn is dependent on him. Get a good book (read reviews and such), and when the book doesn’t explain things well (there’s bound to be something it’s bad at), there’s plenty of resources for free out there online. I think it would be better if he could take it at a community college though, that way he also gets credit for it.</p>
<p>A second vote for Thinkwell. We’ve used it for lower level math classes. The instructor in the videos (Prof. Edward Burger of Williams) is very dynamic and the courses are well organized and thorough. The basic price is $150 for 12 months of access.</p>
<p>I haven’t used Thinkwell, so I don’t know if my rec would still be useful with it, but… A book to help explain the “why” is Barron’s “Calculus the Easy Way”, in the bookstore along with all the study guides. It’s a cross between a math textbook and a story book, where the king and his group wander around the country finding real-life problems and inventing the calculus to solve them. Very easy reading, but high-quality math in it, allows the student to understand the context of whatever he’s doing.</p>
<p>Mathematica is a computer-algebra system. I’m guessing that you’re asking because of the online Calculus courses taught at Suffolk University and UIUC. They both use the same courseware (software) that requires a Mathematica installation. Basically Mathematica is the base software needed to run course software.</p>
<p>There are universities that offer courses in a summer-1/summer-2 approach with six or seven week courses but that is squeezing a lot of material in a short amount of time. Doing it in twelve to fourteen weeks may allow for better learning and retention.</p>
<p>Our son took a few of the math courses using UIUC’s online program, NetMath. Let me know if you have any other questions about it.</p>
<p>The Larson/Hostetler/Edwards text is pretty good. I would recommend getting an earlier edition, since the formatting is clearer and it will be cheaper.</p>
<p>Stewart’s book is also a common introduction.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. We’ll check out Thinkwell, Barrons and some of the other sites mentioned. S was planning on taking the Suffolk course (special deal on tuition since dad works there), but it’s not offered any more.</p>
<p>I taught S Differential Calculus one summer, and D took Integral Calculus another summer and used me as her tutor when the Community College professor couldn’t teach. Both of these are foundation courses and it is really important that the kids thoroughly understand. I don’t recommend these as self-study courses unless someone is available to answer questions. Once the kids finally grasp the concept of a derivative, the first semester course isn’t that hard. However, there is quite an art to determining which approach to use for each problem in Integral Calculus.</p>
<p>I second this recommendation! I also find the affiliated problem solution manual is well worth the price…but unfortunately, the problem solving manual is not as good as others.</p>