I’m about to finish my first semester at community college. I heard of the winter session so I thought that I should take a precalculus course during the session. The session is 6 weeks long and meets every week Monday through Thursday. However, I have heard of a lot of people finding the winter session too demanding and difficult especially in math courses. The main reasons I am considering doing the winter session are: I will be able to finish my lower division major requirements, and I will be able to accrue more units so that I am not left fighting for scraps when it comes to registering for classes again in the spring. I am thinking about being a math or computer science major if that makes any difference.
It’s completely possible. People do it during the summer all the time, and usually in four weeks. People might find it a little demanding because of what time of the year it is.
Identify the resources to you. There’s a world of videos out there dedicated to precalculus that you can watch if you don’t understand something. WolframAlpha is a great free/cheap resource for you to use if you get stuck. Maybe find a tutor, or see if your college provides access to something like Smarthinking.
The concepts learned in precalculus are important because it’s the class where you assemble everything you learned in algebra and begin to learn how to “apply” algebra. The only new things you might learn in precalculus are basic trigonometry, vectors, and other modes of graphing like parametric and polar (which this is where you begin to assemble all the techniques you learned from algebra).
Sometimes when you can take one class intensively it can be less demanding than trying to balance a few classes at the regular pace. You may find you learn the material more deeply.
My daughter took a couple of winter/summer session courses…but nothing technical…more writing courses.
If you’re good at math or you think you might learn better by focusing solely on one subject, rather than juggling more than one at a time, then take it over winter. If you are bad at math or find that it takes you longer to grasp and understand the material, then I would take it during the normal session.