Should I learn Calculus while taking Pre-Cal in College?

[Ivan92]

Hey guys. Whats up? I am currently taking Pre-Calculus in college. However, over the summer I was teaching myself some Calculus and was getting the hang of it. Though since school started, I really did not have the time to continue teaching myself Calculus. I already took Pre-Calculus in high school and my pre-cal textbook really sucks! Besides that, I am having an easy time with Pre-Calc and I miss Calculus. I am given homework for pre-calc but the only reason I do it is for points. I am very bored in Pre-calc because its things I already know and have gone over. I feel trapped in having to take Pre-Cal again, I feel like I am not moving anywhere else. Do you guys think I should start to continue to learn Calculus on my spare time? I really cannot decide. Thanks for your opinions guys. :D

 

[Fragment]

It's doesn't hurt to get familiar with the concepts now, so that later you will be comfortable with them. Try to do as many problems as possible, since you can't fully understand the math unless you can solve the problems. A good way to go about it, in my opinion, would be to supplement Schaum's Outline Of Calculus with online lectures. Schaum's presents the topic in an accessible way and the problems at the end of the chapters range from easy to moderately hard. If you're looking for more to grasp after that, pick up a book on proofs(if that's your fancy). You really can't go wrong as long as you work out most problems and set realistic goals.





-F

 

[Mark44]

I don't see anything wrong with you putting in some of your spare time on independent study of calculus, as long as it's not at the expense of what you're doing in the pre-calculus class. Many times, when students have trouble working through calculus problems, it's not the calculus concepts that cause problems, but their weak skills in factoring, graphing, trig, etc. - the concepts taught in their precalculus class.

 

[jeremmed77]

If you can find the time, and it won't affect your grades, you should definintely do calculus on your own. I was in a similar situation last year. Last year I was taking college pre-calculus in high school, but ended up learning some calculus on my own. My favorite website was khanacademy.org. It actually has video lectures that shows you how to do the different concepts of calculus. Just so you are aware, you will need a pretty good understanding of both algebra and trigonometry to do very well in calculus. So although you can learn some of the basics, you won't be able to truley appreciate it without that.

But definitely start learning calculus on your own. It really helped me out now that I am taking calculus now. Not only that, but it can be fun too ha ha!

 

[Dembadon]

I agree with those whom have said to do so only if it doesn't take away from your precalc studies.

I have classmates who still have trouble factoring. They are not doing very well. They might do fine with factoring out expressions with integer powers, but what about when they need to pull $$(x+1)^\frac{-1}{2}$$ out of something? Some of them didn't even know that it was acceptable to do so, much less that it was necessary for the problem on which they were working.