Navigating Two Math Classes and an Elective Simultaneously

[PurpleNurple7]

This semester I am taking calculus 3 and ODE, along with an intermediate CS class and a general elective communications course. I'm wondering how difficult these two will be when taken together. I took Calc 2 the semester prior and got an A, but have never taken 2 math classes simultaneously before.

edit: At my school ODE only has a prerequisite of Calc 2.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

it is doable. ODE is one of the easier math courses, provided that your algebra manipulation and integration is good.

Depending on your major, it is very common to take 3 math courses + an elective, 3 physics classes + elective, etc. You may very well be forced to doing this the semester after this, if you want to graduate in a timely manner.

 

[gwnorth]

I...have never taken 2 math classes simultaneously before.

So you haven't done Linear Algebra?

 

[Vanadium 50]

ODE is one of the easier math course

Not when I took it. Also, Calc 3 can be either east or hard depending on where the boundary between Calc 2 and Calc 3 is drawn.

I sadly suspect the answer is university dependent and even faculty dependent.,

(And I still have nightmares about tanks of brine)

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Not when I took it. Also, Calc 3 can be either east or hard depending on where the boundary between Calc 2 and Calc 3 is drawn.

I sadly suspect the answer is university dependent and even faculty dependent.,

(And I still have nightmares about tanks of brine)

you are a bit older than the average poster here who is not staff. so standards where much higher back in your day. I believe you also went to top college. This is not the typical experience for the majority of college students. US intro ode course use something along the lines of Zill, Boyce, or any other run of the mill ode book. Sometimes students get lucky and use Simmons or a similar level book.

As calculus 3 goes, very few schools use Mardsen or Hubbard text. Even fewer use Apostol's or Courant's second volume. Typically, something along the lines of Stewart is used.

Faculty plays a major role in the difficulty of a course, but the level of abstraction of the typical US course is not very high for these two courses. If it was something like an intro LA course, I would definitely agree with you.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I took Differential Equations from a nearby college you never heard of when I was still in high school. My "top school" didn't want to give me credit for it, so I took their final. Cold. And I aced it.

So yes, there is a lot of variation. Differential Equations is very episodic. Depending on what they choose to cover and in what depth, it can be easy or hard.

Your point "maybe things are just different today" can't really be argued against. Maybe yes, maybe no. I certainly don't see any sign of it, and I see a wide variation in math skills of incoming grad students.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

I agree. Topic coverage can vary considerably in ODE.

But I think taking linear algebra before ODE is ideal. After all linear differential equation solutions comprise a vector space. And a Wronskian checks for linear independence.

Knowing these notions before hand helps to frame ODEs.