If the precalc class is challenging and moving too fast, is taking Calc in summer advisable?
It does sound frustrating wecandothis, but he is moving forward. I have a friend whose son took 8 years after graduating high school to enter a CSU as a transfer student. He took a few classes at CC on and off, changed his mind about majors a few times and drove his mom (divorced and struggling financially) nuts by playing computer games all day instead of looking for work. He finally was admitted to Cal State San Bernardino in sociology, got an internship in counseling at Patton state psychiatric hospital and after graduating got a job right away with the county.
He is now married, happily employed and doing well. Sometimes the road is full of dead ends and unexpected turns, but they get there eventually.
Mommdc- I agree, but I think if he gets through pre calculus with a passing grade they will let him take Calculus once he starts at UCSB- and it will still be challenging- he chose this path without listening to me much, if at all. Like I said, at some point he just got fixated on going to a UC- I don’t know why. I certainly never put that on him or expected it of him. And I practically begged him to apply to CSUs as a back up, but he didn’t.
Momsquad- thank you for the encouragement, that is a wonderful success story. My son has actually been working really hard at school and his part time job for the past year, but I’m in my 60s and working full time and after everything I’ve been through with him and the LD issues for the past 25 years, I’m just exhausted. He was supposed to go to college fall of 15 , but then when application time came in fall 14 he decided to take an extra year to meet UC requirements. That was a huge shock to me. Now to hear him say yeah I’ll just delay another 6 months and go to a CSU in Spring 17 - I just don’t know if I can handle it! I am strongly considering shipping him off to his fathers in NorCal in sept 16 if he doesn’t go away to college then. Son has chosen to be full time at moms house since he was 16, and maybe it’s time Dad put in some of the work it’s taken me raising this kid! (We’ve been divorced for ages and I shouldered all resonsibikity and expenses for sons special educational needs). Of course I love my son but I have health issues too and I just don’t think I can do this past sept.
Sorry for the long messages, I just really need to vent…
Sorry for the rant! I am re-grouping…such is life with DS!
He has an e-mail in to UCSB admissions to find out their recommended options:
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Drop pre-calc and take it in summer? can still drop through next week. I believe this is best as far as preserving his chances with his approved UCD TAG? UCD Psych is less Math heavy as well, I think?
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Stay in, get a private tutor and hope for the best? I believe pre-calc is the major issue as of now, because I think he can take Math 34A once he gets to UCSB. Noticed Math 34A is already full for the upcoming summer sessions.
I researched CSU’s that are still taking apps:
Cal Maritime (he doesn’t seem interested),
CSU LA downtown campus (commuter school, know nothing else about it) and possibly
CSU Channel Islands (unclear from various online sources if they are still taking apps, some sites say yes, others say no).
None of these excite him much. he says if it comes down to that he would prefer to wait and apply for the next semester/quarter. This did not excite me because of reasons outlined in above rant (lol)!
So this week we await responses to his e-mail to UCSB, as well as UCD decisions. His tag to UCD was approved. Sure would be nice to have UCD final decision yesterday. Also awaiting UCSC (and long shots UCSD, UCLA.)
Congrats on the UCD approval! The UCSB program is confusing. All of their current web site information still lists the BA option, but your email clearly specifies that they will only offer the BS. it could be frustrating to start somewhere that is undergoing a major reorganization. Off campus housing for students at UCSB is also hideously expensive, and most undergrads continue to share bedrooms until they graduate.
Good that he sent the email, hopefully someone knowledgable will reply. It seems you need some respite from caregiving after 25 years, perhaps the move to his father’s is a good idea. Launching him into a program he may not be adequately prepared for could be worse than waiting a year for better options.
All very good points! trying to be more “zen” about this… it is probably unfolding exactly as it is supposed to! It’s hard to be in limbo though.
Yes, the UCD Tag approval was awhile back, but of course he still has to be formally accepted. I see comments on here about students with TAG approval still not be accepted. He has preferred Davis consistently, looked into it more, visited there, etc. UCSB was sort of an outlier for him. I agree though that the change in the Psych major could be an issue, along with expensive housing. Looked at his UCSB acceptance info again- the major he was admitted to is “pre- Psychological and Brain Sciences”.
Here is my general advice for improving:
But if your son is 25, then his actions have consequences…either he needs to put in more work, or needs to get help dealing with Learning Disabilities if he has them, or those schools may not fit him academically.
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Make sure you read the chapters /do the homework.
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Go to Professor’s office hours early in the semester. Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
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If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
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Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
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Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
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Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
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If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
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Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
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Analyze test results…if you got a C…why? For questions you got wrong, what happened?
A) Did you never see the material before?
B) Did you do practice problems on the material?
C) Did you have to combine more than one concept together?
D) Did you make a dumb arithmetic mistake?
Bopper thank you so much for taking the time to respond- all wonderful suggestions - he is doing a lot of that, short of hiring a private tutor- that could be next. And I am going to get that book right now!
Good news- He contacted UCSB and they recommended dropping the current pre-calc class if he thinks he is in danger of not getting a C or better. This will not affect his admission, as he already met the Math requirement with Stats. Sounded as if they were very helpful and encouraging. He will still need to take Calc/Math 34A at UCSB and can take pre-Calc in the summer at the CC to prepare. He said if he doesn’t get a high grade in the summer it won’t count against him- not sure I understand that part, but I’m getting this info second hand.
We are definitely going to consider a private tutor for the second go around in pre-calc thanks to all the helpful answers I got on this thread.
I think the message to anyone in a similar situation with their UCSB admission is to call and talk to a counselor! We are both very impressed with the school that they were so helpful and responsive.
That’s great news! Congratulations! Glad he reached someone who could be helpful. He probably just needs a C or better for pre-calc.
I’m glad I found this post, if nothing else I’d like to share a slightly different perspective.
I was also accepted to UCSB as a pre-bio psychology major, but more importantly it sounds like your son and I might have a lot in common; as a 28 year old male with dyslexia and ADHD–yeah, it’s a real thing 
I can tell you that struggling in math is quite demoralizing: I Remember being 24 in a developmental math class and nearly crying at the sight of the same old mixed fraction problems that I hadn’t been able to do since elementary school. For various reasons the special Ed track led me to dropout of in 9th grade, and fall 2016 would have marked my TENTH year in and out of cc. Moreover, I didn’t learn algebra until I was your son’s age–as a matter of fact, my girlfriend taught me algebra. she also has dyslexia and ADHD and she’s in grad school (grad schools also have a disabled students program).
I’m currently acing calc 1 and I’m studying ahead for calc 2 in the summer.
All this to say, I don’t think your son should be discouraged. Instead, I think he should approach his challenges from the perspective of a research psychologist/cognitive neuroscientist–that is what he wants to do after all. The beauty of research papers in these sciences is that the the questions asked are both profound and pursued quite rigorously. From Reading the abstracts and discussions you get a glimpse into the awesome theories being proposed, if you follow the references and citations you’ll find a door into the rich history and seminal experiments that shaped the field. you might also start seeing standout researchers somewhat like celebrities–a few of which are lecturers as UCSB; ask your son if he knows the names Gazzinga or Cosmedes. Importantly, if you read the methods you’ll quickly run into very advanced statistical techniques and dense mathematical talk. The difference is, that in this context the math leads to coolness likewise, the coolness gives you an idea about why certain techniques were used and the mathematical principles they’re built upon. In my case, embracing these things (and effectively “conquering my fears”), made me feel like less of an outsider.
There’s a growing branch of research into the neurological substrate of mathematical thinking (the basis of which is evident in “simpler organisms” like birds). In a nutshell, the premise is that it’s an abstraction of how the body interacts with its environment in terms of distances and magnitudes etc. It’s funny, mathematicians can rigorously prove a theorem, but they couldn’t tell you why it fundamentally makes sense from the perspective of a human being. That’ll be for your son to research and elucidate upon.
Similarly, do you guys know about coursera.org, edx.org, khan academy, MIT ocw, or the UC open courseware sites? They’re all totally free!
I highly recommend coursera’s learning how to learn course. It’s taught by Dr. Barbra Oakly, professor of engineering at UCSD (she began at a cc at 26 and I think she nearly failed algebra in highschool). Additionally, check out MIT’s Calculus revisited course (also contains free supplementary material), it’s an old black and white distance learning course MIT put out for their engineering students in the early 70s/ late 60s. It’s thought by professor Herbert Gross (who left his position as a senior lecturer at MIT to teach at a cc until he retired in 2003); his passion and old school “new mathematics”/ heavy on the theory approach will at the very least remind you that math can be cool. Interestingly, the “new mathematics” approach, which was heavily ridiculed by k-12 teachers in the 70s and 80s for being too abstract and not applicable, went on to become an integral part of computer programming–he should learn how to code, in many cases it can replace the calc 2 requirement (not at UCSB, but still worth noting). Also, check out the book Where Mathematics Comes From: how the embodied mind brings mathematics into being, by the cog. Scientists Lakoff and Nuñez.
Pardon my rant (I did say I have ADHD ya know. In terms of being a researcher “getting lost” is not always a bad thing), I just know how hard it was on my mom (also raised my sis and I by herself), for her to watch me go in and out of cc, and being a punchline for her ■■■■■■ coworkers–up until recently she was planning to work until 73 to be able to afford rent and help me out with money here and there.
Lastly, he’s 25, i.e., a household of 1. Does he make over $80,000 a year? Probably not. Therefore, as long as he’s filed his fafsa and his school has submitted the cal grant gpa stuff, he most likely qualifies for the blue and gold opportunity plan-- free UC! Yeah, some people might feel burned that they make too much money to qualify, but I for one can’t wait to make enough to pay taxes and pass on the opportunity.
Alright, one last thing. UC or CSU, if he’s got passion (perhaps that’s why he was so set on a UC) he’s going to find his niche sooner or later, but make sure he enrolls in the disabled students services program, so that he can really shine. Typically, you get priority registration and extra time on exams.
Okay, seriously last thing. Don’t be deceived by the seemingly daunting 2-3 quarters of stem classes. One quarter= 11weeks, whereas, one semester=18 looong wks. For example, bio psych wants 2 quarters of Ochem, i.e. Just about one semester BUT split into two chunks. I was checking out their breakdown of what’s covered in each quarter and boom! Two quarters of material=what would be cover in one semester. Therefore, if I was a biochem major, I’d actually finish the 3Q series faster (time wise), but at a slower pace and in more detail in terms of the what’s covered per quarter.
I hoped oh found this helpful or at least as a well intentioned contrasting view point on things.
Take care!
@dragonlord_z thank you so much for taking the time to help us out. You definitely “get it” as to what he’s thinking and what he’s been through. It’s wonderful to hear an encouraging voice.( I must admit that I personally hated math and somehow survived college calculus, but felt like I never used it again… Although if I had been better in math I would have taken a different route in life. ) I will pass your message on to him. We are visiting UCSB this Friday. Thanks again!