I don't know what happened. I did really well in Calculus 1 and 2 in High School. Note that the University I know attend provided the finals we had to take last year in HS (they were basically the same as the University finals), where I got a B+ and a B on the first and second semester finals respectively.

... but Calculus 3 has been awful. The teacher doesn't make any damn sense (he's 23 years old and seems rather inexperienced), the book sucks and the whole class has just been an exercise in frustration. I do not even know where I would have to begin to start making sense of a lot of this stuff.

Problem is:

In order to get credit for Calculus 1/2 I need to get a C in the class. This is certainly attainable, but if I get a C or a low B in the class, it will have an adverse effect on my GPA. I need to maintain a 3.5 for scholarships.

The alternative would be to take a Pass/Fail option, in which case my grade will not have an effect on my GPA as long as I pass, but in that case I would not get credit for the first 2 calculus classes.

Not sure what I can do in this situation. Any ideas?

Calc 3 is vector/multivariable calculus I take it?

I've had only up to single variable. Even then, it was a *****.

Infinite Series.

Area equales Pi R Squared.

Yeah, that helps a lot.

Tutoring and going to office hours are the best advice I can offer you.

What book do you have? If its by Stewart, it should come with a CD that has some very clear audio lectures on it, which are not helpful for calc 1 and 2 but very nice for calc 3. That might be a starting point. And what exactly are you having problems with?

Regardless heres some general tips that should help:

1. Get tutoring.

2. Meet some math professors. NOT graduate assistants like you most likely are being tought by. A good prof might be able to really point you in the right direction, or if you're lucky you'll find one that lives in his office and will help you even if you aren't his student. Also knowing the faculty is always a good idea.

3. If you are unfamiliar with a term Wikipedia it for the fastest possible way of getting a short answer. Wikipedia's math articles are very useful if you don't wanna bust out a book or do extra searching.

4. Theres a book out there called "Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations" by Stanley Grossman, published in the 80's. If your library is reasonably large it should have it in hardcover. It is a very clear and consise textbook teaching the three subjects in the title, that cuts through all the crap. It has helped me on numerous occasions when the required text was too damn confusing.

5. Ask massassi when you have a specific problem you are having trouble with


hope it helps.

Actually that proof requires calculus (integration by trig substitution)

I knew that. Why do you think I posted it in a calculus thread?

Quit Calculus. Drop out of school. Start a garage band.

Best advice ever.

There's a reason I got a degree that only required me to take one math class, and no chemistry or physics.

Best of luck to you. I always did very well in math, from when I was a kid right up until grade 12. They came calculus, and I barely passed (I think my mark was 55%). This was enough to be accepted into my currente university program, though, since the other math mark I needed was in the 80% range, the average of the two met the minimum.

Anyway, first semester last year I had differential calculus. Again, I barely passed (D-, which is like 50%-53% or something). The next semester was Integral calc, and I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing. Knowing only about half of the material from differential calc meant I was basically screwed. I dropped out after the first midterm (I'm not going to say what my grade was, but I can assure you it was so far below 50% I basically had no chance of passing) so the mark wouldn't count on my record. I now have to retake it, and really, really don't want to. I've contemplated changing my major to avoid it, but I really like my major so I'll probably try and stick it out. I hate calc.

Ditto. Math makes me queasy.

Uh, I have a math degree.

Warehouse has some excellent advice. However, I would also take time to read your textbook and finish the majority of the problems provided in the book. I highly doubt that the book is completely inaccessible to you. Also, practice makes perfect.

Love that math second major...

Practice, practice, practice. That's the key to getting math. You work on it enough, and it'll finally click for you. It just comes to some quicker than others.

Aren't you a C or C++ programmer? How can math make you queasy?

There's a not-so-fine line between programming and computer science.

The fact that I'm an English major helps me keep as far away from math as I can get.

not to mention employment

Not entirely true-- I'm getting my technical writing certificate soon. Tech writers make a lot of money because not everyone can do it.

It will also keep you living in a cardboard box....

But seriously you will have to force yourself to take time to study extra to gain credit for all those you say. It sucks when your English major friends are out having fun while you are working towards a harder major.

Yeah, see, the thing is that a lot of people end up working in fields completely unrelated to what they studied in college.

I know, I was 0% serious actually, I just like to give crap to liberal arts majors. And I enjoy tech writing a lot too, but the coursework for it I could never do. Props.

It would help infinitely if the calculus textbook I used actuall EXPLAINED how to do calculus! It would basically do an example problem, show the first phase of the problem, say "we apply such and such principle" and the next phase looks completely different... and im like WTF, how do you get that from that? So I look up the such and such principle, where it gives me some fuzzy definition that "could" mean this or "could" mean that... I thought math was supposed to be a difinitive thing, not "well its 'kinda' like this"... NO, there is no KINDA, its MATH. GRAARG.

I escaped my calculus class with a BC (thats a B- or C+, not sure which exactly, at normal schools).