First time taking Calculus 1 and I only got a B

[martinbn]

In Europe.

I am not an expert in geography, but that is not a country.

 

[malawi_glenn]

I am not an expert in geography, but that is not a country.

Was not asked about country. Let me say european union then

 

[Vanadium 50]

that is not a country.

Despite the attempts, sometimes with treaties, sometimes with armies.

 

[martinbn]

Was not asked about country. Let me say european union then

That is 27 countries. Do they all have the same school system and curriculum?

 

[vanhees71]

Well, and within Germany we have 16 different curricula for each state, and it's already just a desaster, what's called "math" in most of them, but some calculus for sure everybody learns before entering university. In Germany the problem is that after the socalled "Pisa shock", i.e., the realization around 2000 that the results in the STEM subjects on German high schools is substandard compared to other countries, they started a "reform program", which introduced what they call "competences". The result is that they now teach the opposite of the spirit of true mathematics, i.e., they learn to solve a certain class of problems without understanding what's really behind the methods they use. Sometimes you have students in the first semester, who know how to "discuss a function", i.e., calculating the zeroes, extrema, symptotics etc. of a given function of one real variable, but when you ask them about the meaning of the derivative (the slope of the tangent of the graph at the point under consideration), they have no clue. Then it's no surprise that they don't know, why in a minimum or maximum the derivative should be 0, let alone why this is only necessary but not sufficient for having really and extremum, etc.

The consequence is that we have high quotes of failure in the STEM subjects in the early semesters. About 50% of the students quit their studies in these subjects, and the main reason they give in studies about this sad phenomenon is the "unexpectedly high amount of math" they need to study a natural or engineering science.

 

[malawi_glenn]

About 50% of the students quit their studies in these subjects, and the main reason they give in studies about this sad phenomenon is the "unexpectedly high amount of math" they need to study a natural or engineering science

There are also people who quit social science programmes due to "unexpectedly high amount of reading" ;)

 

[vanhees71]

Well, sociology... Recently there was an article in a German newspaper by a german-philology professor who complained about the fact that young scholars produce more and more papers with the result that nobody reads all these papers anymore, because they are too busy to write them...

 

[malawi_glenn]

Well, sociology... Recently there was an article in a German newspaper by a german-philology professor who complained about the fact that young scholars produce more and more papers with the result that nobody reads all these papers anymore, because they are too busy to write them...

Publish or perish

 

[vela]

What mass classes do you, and others, recommend taking during a 8 week class? Which math is "easy" to absorb?

If a student is a good learner and can devote several hours each day to keep up with the course, I think Calc 1 can be done in eight weeks. For many students, however, they'd be better off taking the course during the regular school year.

 

[symbolipoint]

There are also people who quit social science programmes due to "unexpectedly high amount of reading" ;)

Seemingly very credible!

A reason some students avoid social science courses is because such courses and that topic give no feel of being well-structured, and therefore seem impossible to learn. This changes (for some people) with increasing maturity.

 

[symbolipoint]

What are the requirments to enroll in Calc 1 in US?

That from a post now more than a month old, but the prerequisites are Algebra 1 & 2, Trigonometry, and possibly "Mathematical Analysis" which might be a course of slightly more advanced algebra combined with the main parts of Trigonometry.