Hi, I’m a high school senior planning on majoring in neuroscience in the future. I’m currently in Pre-calculus and am worried I may struggle in calculus classes in college as I have never taken a calculus class before.
I’ve never struggled in a math class in my life, never got lower than an A in any math class. However, I’m still worried about whether I will do well or not in college Calculus I. Should I just go for it? Or should I take Pre-calculus again in college first?
Colleges typically offer or require math placement tests to help you decide whether you need to take remedial math before calculus.
May I ask what the tests are like? Are they similar to most aptitude tests?
If you do well and understand everything in pre-calculus, you should be fine in a calculus course.
Placement tests will likely just test your understanding of the requisite topics, and the problems shouldn’t be unusually difficult (e.g. hard AIME-level problems).
My daughter is in cal cat UIUC and she was so confident she would have nonissue since always A in calc. Her first test she thought she aced and got a 71. She learned what the professor expects saw points taken off for forgetting an equal sign. She ended up with an A. She is now in some advanced calc and studies hard goes to all her discussions and is trying to get an A. So if you enjoy math you will be fine, may have a learning curve in college but she is doing fine. She is engineer.
And yes she had placement test as well. You can’t just pick your math, English, or language classes. She tested out of English and tested lower than she expected for Spanish.
Yes, I can only speak for UIUC. You take them on line.
My S took pre-calc in HS and got an A but he struggled in calc in college because his prof. wasn’t great(from what he said) and virtually everyone in his class was repeating material they had from their calc class in HS. He spent a lot of time at the college’s math center that semester working to keep up.
Here are some examples:
http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam
What many entering frosh find in college is not so much that the material is harder, but that college requires much more self motivation and time management than high school. Precalculus or calculus 1 in college covers material at twice the speed that high school precalculus or calculus AB covers it, for example. There is also much less hand holding in college; students are expected to keep up on the reading and be prepared for class on their own. And they have to come to class on their own without the instructor taking attendance.
Well, if you don’t struggle at all in Calculus, then you must be a superhuman genius. But if you are solid in your previous math classes, then you should be able to do fine in it, presuming you have the time to study and don’t have a really bad teacher, etc. It is at a faster pace than high school, so beware, but really buckle down and study (and ask for help if you don’t understand something!)
Why worry about this? If Calc is a requirement for your intended major, then you will need to take it. If you are a solid math student now, you should be fine, but as others have mentioned, time management is key and there is probably not much hand holding. My D is a calculus tutor at Carnegie Mellon, and believe me, this is a tough class at CMU to be sure. There are many many bright kids at CMU and yes, some still need tutoring in calculus. It’s just a different animal in college. All this to say: there are many tutoring resources for calculus on campus and you should take advantage of them if need be. And you also will probably be required to take a calculus placement test (during orientation usually) to ensure that you go into the correct course. Good luck!
The thing to do is to monitor your performance in the class tightly. As soon as you see you are having trouble, go to the professor’s office hours and ask for help. Get a tutor. See if your college has a math center. Do homework with class buddies. Get a different book and do more practice problems.
Don’t borrow trouble from the future. Do as well as you can in your pre-calc class, mastering the material, not just shooting for that A. Then, when you take the math placement test (usually during orientation week or online before you arrive), the school will assess how well you know the material. If you’re iffy, you may be put in a remedial math class for a semester, but if you do well in that you’ll be back on track. Seriously, don’t worry about college classes now. Just do well in the ones you’re in!
across the country each year hundreds of thousands of kids enroll in 1st-year calculus. I don’t see why you should be particularly worried about it, any more than you are about the dozens of other tough classes you’ll take in neuroscience.
Thank you guys for your answers! I’m really only worried because I am behind math-level wise than my peers; most of my friends are in higher math classes than I am, and despite not struggling in my math classes I still feel like I am at a disadvantage. But thank you all. I am not trying to be a brat about it, just genuinely worried, but definitely am going to try my best otherwise.
As everyone else says, you’ll be okay. You’re not the only person in this boat. You’re not as disadvantaged as it seems. You’re not really behind; you just are on a different math track. It’s fine.
@asthrera, this is a red flag; you really do have a problem, but it’s not the one you expect.
Even if your pals have a leg up in Calc I, I assure you that pretty soon they’ll be taking classes where the material is just as new to them as it is to you. The problem you face is comparing your workload to what you think theirs is. It doesn’t matter if the kids in your class already have seen the material, or seem to be learning it easier than you. All that matters is if you are learning the material in a reasonable amount of time well enough to get the grades you want. If so, great, no matter how much or how little others are spending studying; if not, it might not be the right major for you. I could spend 24x7 on an art project and never produce anything worthwhile because I don’t have much artistic talent; therefore I didn’t major in Fine Arts.
Your comments show you at risk for walking into a trap and becoming discouraged. It’s that “think their workload is easier” part. In college some kids try to gain status by being thought of as geniuses. So they assiduously spread the image that for them college is nothing but playing ultimate frisbee and hitting the parties, breezing thru homework at the last minute and acing the tests without studying. Don’t be surprised to walk into a obscure part of the library or by an empty classroom and find these “geniuses” studying on the sly. And a lot of kids that don’t pull the genius stunt still want everyone else to think its coming pretty easily for them, in part to convince themselves there’s no danger they won’t succeed. Too many other kids buy into perceptions and decide they just don’t have what it takes for their major since they’re working so hard at it.
So how do you study math (or other technical subjects)? You can find lots of info on the web; here are 2 informative links
[How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well in Technical Courses](How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well in Technical Courses - Cal Newport)
[On Becoming a Math Whiz: My Advice to a New MIT Student](On Becoming a Math Whiz: My Advice to a New MIT Student - Cal Newport)
I’m always surprised at how many HS (and even many college) kids study the chapters and do the homework, period. They seem to think tests are to measure how well this has taught them and its almost against the rules to do anything else. Better students understand the role of practice. For many classes there are Problem-Solver books (there even is one for pre-calc) that are like SAT-prep books for a subject. They take the time to solve extra problems on their own until they are confident they can answer test questions. And these days there are lots of online resources, even complete lecture series on places like iTunesU that can give an alternate explanation of a subject.
So what is that reasonable amount of time alluded to earlier? Many students in math/science spend 5-10 hours per week outside of EACH class studying, doing homework, doing extra problems. They also visit the prof or TA during office hours if they hit roadblocks. And they set up study groups with like-minded friends.
um okay
Bruh I’m worried–not trying to throw myself off a bridge. I’m not sure if you’re trying to help me or not; a simple “don’t worry about it here are some things that can help you” is fine instead of trying to convince me my concern is some sort of aberration. A lot of your reasoning for why I shouldn’t be worried seems to be along the lines of “lots of other people deal with the same problem as you or worse so you shouldn’t worry”, and I don’t care to hear that kind of rationale because all it does is disregard my very legitimate feelings. Sorry if to you they are just a red flag that i keep waving around on this thread. Thanks for the rest of your post though.