Take Calculus 1, Skip Calculus 2 for Calculus 3

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I have a question over the content of these courses, but first a bit of a back story.</p>

<p>In High School I took Dual Credit Calculus BC. I excelled in the Calculus 1 section and made a B- for the Calculus 2 as far as the Community College was concerned. When I got to my Freshman Orientation I planned on skipping Calc 1 and retaking Calc 2. However, due to multiple schedule conflicts, I had to retake Calculus 1 this first semester. That being said I am making an A easily in the class here at midterm.</p>

<p>Now for the question. I went to my Mechanical Engineering advisor to talk about next semester and she told me that since I have credit for Calculus 2 from my high school dual credit that I should skip Calculus 2 now and go on into Calculus 3. She basically told me that Calculus 3 doesn't necessarily rely on what you learn in Calculus 2 anyway and what I learned in high school as far as integration should suffice. Multiple other students who have taken Calc 2 agree with her and tell me to "Skip if I can because Calc 2 is by far the hardest". </p>

<p>I just need some outside opinions to know if I will be setting myself back by skipping Calc 2 and relying on what I learned in my BC course for Calc 3. </p>

<p>Thanks everyone.</p>

2

<p>Multi-variable calculus uses some Calculus BC material but doesn’t fully rely on it. You definitely need to know at least the basics of limits, derivatives, integrals, and then be able to generalize to higher-order dimensions.</p>

<p>Also, there are a lot of pre-calculus topics that aren’t covered often in Calculus I or II but are covered in Calculus III (e.g. matrices, determinants, vector dot/cross products, polar/cylindrical/spherical coordinates). Make sure you know those well.</p>