Is ommiting precalc and geomtry good for a school to be doing?

[Jurrasic]

There are a few 2 year colleges around, anyways, one of them never offers geometry or trig, they just want students to go straight from trig to calculus, but all the other 2 year colleges offer, geometry then college algebra, then trig, then precalc. then calc.
What concepts are probably being omitted by the one school, by offering only college algebra, then trig then straight to calculus? They don't offer geometry or calculus at their school. And doesn't this make is difficult for anyone to do well in calculus this way? This is at a 2 year college.
All of the other 2 year colleges have students take geometry, and precalculus along with all the other classes to be taken before trig, so what gives?

 

[cristo]

Surely it depends on what's in the courses, not what they are called. Are you sure that the content of the courses with the same name are the same at different colleges?

 

[Sethric]

Besides, I would say that neither geometry nor precalculus are necessary requirements for calculus. Those tend to be in the curriculum for high schools that I have seen. I haven't actually seen a college offering Precalc. Heck, the only use trig serves is familiarity with the trig functions. That said, I think each plays a fundamental role in adding tools to any mathematician's toolbox.

 

[chiro]

There are a few 2 year colleges around, anyways, one of them never offers geometry or trig, they just want students to go straight from trig to calculus, but all the other 2 year colleges offer, geometry then college algebra, then trig, then precalc. then calc.
What concepts are probably being omitted by the one school, by offering only college algebra, then trig then straight to calculus? They don't offer geometry or calculus at their school. And doesn't this make is difficult for anyone to do well in calculus this way? This is at a 2 year college.
All of the other 2 year colleges have students take geometry, and precalculus along with all the other classes to be taken before trig, so what gives?

If you end up really understanding calculus, then you will easily understand the specific circumstances that yield the results you find in pre-calc and lower end classes.

 

[MacLaddy]

I am currently attending a two year college, and I've seen nothing about geometry or pre-calc.

I started with basic Algebra, worked into college level Algebra, and am just now finishing up my trig class. Next semester I move straight into Calculus.

I think that most of the pre-calculus topics were thrown in at the end of trig and algebra.

 

[QuarkCharmer]

I attended a community college before the university, and there was a huge gap between when I was out of high school and when I started college so I wanted to redo a great deal of math. I took Intermediate-Alg, College-Alg, and then Precalc and Trig at the same time, before starting Calculus and so on..

I can fully understand why it is a a rather pointless class. I remember it was basically a re-cap of Log, Functions, Conics and a brief introduction to some calculus topics like limits and the difference quotient. I rather enjoyed trig though, even though much of what I learned in that class I have yet to use.

 

[Jurrasic]

I attended a community college before the university, and there was a huge gap between when I was out of high school and when I started college so I wanted to redo a great deal of math. I took Intermediate-Alg, College-Alg, and then Precalc and Trig at the same time, before starting Calculus and so on..

I can fully understand why it is a a rather pointless class. I remember it was basically a re-cap of Log, Functions, Conics and a brief introduction to some calculus topics like limits and the difference quotient. I rather enjoyed trig though, even though much of what I learned in that class I have yet to use.

"I can fully understand why it is a a rather pointless class."
Are you referring to Pre-calc being pointless, or which one?

 

[Jurrasic]

Surely it depends on what's in the courses, not what they are called. Are you sure that the content of the courses with the same name are the same at different colleges?

True