<p>Ok I am a senior and I'm taking calc 3 at a community college right now. Obviously the math is a lot harder than high school math, but I feel like I'm having a lot more trouble than I thought I would. There are a lot of problems that I just don't get. Like we had this 8 problem set for homework..and I couldn't do half of it by myself. I mean, if I can't even do the homework at a reasonable level, how on earth am I going to do good on the exams? </p>
<p>Is there a way to gauge myself to see if engineering (specifically math) is right for me? I mean, I don't want to get a problem set and not be able to figure out half of it. How did all you engineers realize that you could handle it? Because now I am second guessing engineering as a major. </p>
<p>You’re obviously not an idiot if you’re in Calc III in high school. So, if you don’t understand the course material, it probably means that you’re not being exposed to it properly. That happens all the time. The instructor learns a certain way and instructs consistent with that way of thinking or learning. If you think or learn in a different way, you need to figure that out and present the material to yourself different. For example, I condense material through examples. So anytime a problem gets too theoretical, I boil it down to a simplified example, understand the example, and then expand that back to theory. That’s how I teach myself. Did I realize that overnight? No. It took 15 years of college to figure that out, so don’t worry if you don’t understand yourself that well, yet. You’ll get there eventually.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about not being able to figure out everything yourself. I’ve had very few classes in college where I was expected to do all of my assignments on my own. Generally I was expected to work with other people and for all of us to try and hack our way through the problem sets as best we could.</p>
<p>Your going to have a lot of moments where you’ll have more trouble than you expected; these moments signify that you’re challenging yourself and growing. </p>
<p>Your frustration demonstrates that you care about truly understanding material, this is good, keep this focus, I assure you it will be rewarding down the road.</p>
<p>Also, as you get older, your brain will mature and some things that didn’t quite make sense to you before will suddenly make perfect sense. You might look at a problem in the future a different way than you had in the past and it will then make perfect sense. I was a dummie in HS so I had no choice but to attend a CC. Since then, I have been consistently been finding new understandings to old material that I didn’t quite grasp. Now I am attending a school whos’ engineering program is top 10 in the nation and it has been so-far-so-good. </p>
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<p>I agree completely. To expand, I feel that my struggles in the past have ultimately helped me as a student. Many kids come to college with a chip on thier shoulder due to thier “high” GPA’s in high school. No wonder why freshman GPA’s are so low in college. It takes some difficult times to understand where you stand and how to improve. Many of them have never thought they had to stay up past midnight to study for a test. At least you are having this experience early and not when it counts towards your future college GPA.</p>
<p>Just keep working at it, I promise it will get better.</p>
<p>as you take harder and harder mathematics classes, the problems you will encounter will require more and more patience to solve. you can’t expect to just look at a problem and immediately see how to do it–it sometimes takes trying out a bunch of things and sinking in a lot of time thinking about a problem before you can figure out how to approach it</p>
<p>i took calc 3 in hs as well, and here is something ive noticed: math teachers do a great job of teaching math to math people, but not as great a job teaching math to engineering/scientist types (at times)</p>
<p>anyway, at my school, the physics, mech e and e.e all have “engineering analysis” or “math methods” course that is typically taught at the end of the sophomore/start of junior year. it seems to just recap all math that you were suppose to learn in your lower division math classes. something tells me those departments dont trust the math department to teach you guys everything…</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about “math” in engineering. Odds are you’ll only have to do the Cal. sequence, some “DiffyQs”, and linear algebra, and as was mentioned, maybe a course titled something like “Abuses of mathematics for engineers and/or scientists” or “Advanced calculator operation 101”. This sort of course is great because it teaches engineers and scientists everything they need to know about math that they might not have realized at the time, like where to find buttons on a calculator, why proofs are silly, and that math is all about solving equations. [/cynical]</p>
<p>At my school they have a class called “Engineering Computation” where it teaches you how to use a computer to solve practically every diff eq that an engineer can encounter. Its kind of dumb how they make us suffer through diff eq then give us a class that basically shows you the easy road.</p>
<p>GoOakland, it does say that he is a senior who is taking the class at a CC… I don’t know if this is what you were trying to point out, but for some reason I feel like you’re thinking he’s not in high school. If not, then disregard.</p>
<p>You are almost finished with your math requirement for most engineering degrees. Beyond Calc III, I only had to take Diff. Equ. Of course that was 28 years ago.</p>
<p>So, my advice is not to sweat it. You are WAY ahead of most aspiring engineering students as a senior in high school.</p>
<p>For me, Calc II was when I had the same question that you are posing now. I remember thinking at the time that if my real world engineering degree required very much of that type of math, I would hate my job.</p>
<p>The good news is that most engineers never solve another calculus problem or LaPlace Transform after they leave college. (Thank goodness.)</p>
<p>Most engineering programs these days also require linear algebra in the curriculum. Occasionally they also require something like “advanced calculus” which entails intros to things like PDE’s and differential forms and other potentially useful things not taught int the calculus sequence. That is still not common though it does happen.</p>
<p>One nice thing about taking college courses in high-school is that it forces you to use college success techniques before you get into college. Can you see your professor during office hours? Do they have a tutoring center that covers Calculus III? Could you set up or get into a study group (this tends to be harder at community colleges).</p>
<p>^our professor gave us his email. And I’m not too interested in study groups. I feel like “study groups” just end up as people goofing around and chatting, and then not getting much done. </p>
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<p>if thats the case then hopefully I am in good hands. I’m not sure if I even want to do engineering though, I really cant say anything until I get to college.</p>
<p>Fortunately you can sample engineering courses from home if you want to. You can go to MIT OCW or Berkeley’s course videos to see what the classes are like. MIT OCW usually has problem sets and sample exams with answers. They can also have lecture notes available.</p>
<p>You might find something useful at this site for your Calculus III course:</p>
<p>“I feel like you’re thinking he’s not in high school”</p>
<p>HAHA, I wasn’t. O wow. I figured he was a “senior” of sorts in his CC. Not a HS senior at CC. I was TOTALLY off.</p>
<p>But anyway how the hell did you get to Calc 3 while a senior?! Most seniors only get to Calc 1. Did you take classes through out the summers?</p>
<p>Being in Calc 3 takes as a senior takes a LOT of balls. I commend you for that. I thought Calc 1 was bad enough(I’m starting to like it more and more though)… and your in calc 3. Geeze. Your way up on the ladder.</p>