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#1: Jota (jota) on Nov 27, 2024

Glad you enjoy it!

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I was a straight A student in math until I got to calculus. I blame the teacher.

Each to their own I guess. I have a math degree but even I wouldn't go that far ;)

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Belita, me too. I originally took calculus in high school. The first semester teacher insisted that we put down our pens and listen to him, without writing. The thing is that I learn best when I am writing, and by requiring me to put down my pen, he set me up to not retain anything at all from his class. I think he must have been forcing us to use the learning style that worked the best for *him*, and he was trying to give us the gift of good learning. But for me it made the class into a blur. I was a careful student and found this very frustrating! (I wish we'd had Khan Academy back then -- it would have helped!) Then for the second semester I had a teacher who was so relaxed and casual that everything got dropped, plus he was building on the first semester that I hadn't understood, so the second semester made no sense either. I did pass the AP exam, but didn't turn in the score to my college and instead chose to re-take calculus in the hope that this time I would understand it. That worked -- I had an AMAZING teacher who we called "Ken the Wonder TA," understood everything, and aced the class. Though 36 years later I haven't ever used calculus again, so I don't remember any of it. I had expected to need it in life over and over again, so I am surprised that it has not ever turned up.

Ugh, that sounds dreadful.

I was on the math team in high school, so I took AP Calculus and got a 5 on the BC Calculus AP test (the harder of AB and BC, with 5 being the maximum score). When I got to college, I'd tested out of all of the math courses, and I missed it. So my junior year I took Calculus I for fun. I got 100s on all of the tests, so the professor said I didn't have to take the final exam!

Surprise surprise there'd be a concentration of math geeks on a site like this :)
I'm having to shake the cobwebs out of my math brain these days to help my son with his pre-calc, along with revisiting stats for work

When I was a high school senior, and my brother was a college freshman, I had to tutor him in calculus, even though I had never seen calculus. He would come home and parrot what the professor had said, and I would digest it and explain it to him. That made it easier for me the next year when I took accelerated calculus (3 semesters of material in 2 semesters) at Case Western Reserve University. I now tutor calculus, and other subjects, online, so it stays fresh. I tell people that one of many impressive things about Newton is that he knew that he had to invent calculus so that he could discover physics.

Also, he invented Calculus while he was stuck at home during a pandemic!

I invented paper-wad hackey-sack during a pandemic...does that count?

kind of!

I went to one day of Calculus 1441 in college. It was Calc for Technology majors. My AP score had gotten me credit for 1431. The professor, drawing slowly on the board, explained what an x-axis and y-axis are and then how to locate a point on the graph. I went to sleep. When I woke up I went straight to my advisor and said, "I can't do this. Put me in the Math major's class." The advisor looked at my record and said, "Your score gives you EITHER 1431 OR your required 1441. You don't have to take any math classes unless you want to?" I didn't.

David, that sounds maddening!!

It was! Nowhere did it say I could just get those swapped. They just auto-added the lower number and left me to think I would have to re-sleep through middle school geometry. I'm just glad I went to see an advisor!

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