New here, need advice on self study, thanksPS anyone here from UTK

[danerape]

I am a student @ UK COE in Lexington. My original plan was to complete my sophomore year @ UK and then transfer to UT Knoxville to do NucE. I live about 60 miles south of Lexington and have come to realize I cannot afford the gas in the fall to go to UK. I have been forced to register at a community college for the time being. I am taking calc III in the fall with univ physics 1 and some other classes.
My concern is that I will not get as good of an education there, as I plan to complete fall, and take diff eq's with univ phy 2 in the spring... then head to UTK. I love math, and have gotten straight A's from precal to cal2 so far.
Could anyone recommend a Calculus resource(book etc..) that would best suit a student in my situation. I need to ensure that I master multivar and diff without skipping over a bunch of stuff.
Maybe to my surprise, the class will be just as good. Might be considering there were 180 students in my cal 2 class.

Thanks,
DANE

 

[tedbradly]

I'm attending UTK right now! And I did my first four semesters at Pellissippi State CC (finishing all of my math, general science, english and most of my electives). I do not regret that decision since it was easier (in courses that mostly do not matter), financially better, faster (since I could take more hours due to the ease of the classes - 18 to 20 constantly), and it has not affected my GPA at UTK through bad preparation (I have a 4.0 as I enter my last senior semester in electrical engineering).

Just make sure you study the book and material well. If you need extra explanation (Beyond what the CC gives the droves of lower-level students), try asking more advanced questions after class, or try Kahan Academy or MIT opencourseware. Honestly, most math curricula are standard, and I learned the same subjects as MIT's opencourseware videos taught. I'm sure, however, their HW and tests were much harder. I'll guarantee you that if you do not easily make 100s or near 100s (with a small mistake here and there on the test) at an easy CC, you are not learning the material well enough.

The teaching may very well be better at CC than other universities (and can be worse just like at any other college), but they sometimes don't go as in depth (as in # of chapters) and their tests are often easier, which can cause you to be a lazy studier, learning less in the end. Just pay attention in class [if it's a good instructor -- my math teachers were at the CC] and self-study the book by reading it a couple of times and doing the challenge problems in the rear of the chapter.

On the other hand, I have seen some embarrassingly lazy or unqualified teachers at the CC, some I took and some I saw through friends. That seems to happen more at CC than the university. Still, the resources are available for your to learn an acceptable amount by yourself.