Degree Plan – BS Math Major at Excelsior

[NAP]

LSU Analytic Geometry & Calculus I – 5 credits

I finished this correspondence course. Except for the 2 refresher lessons at the beginning, it was all new information for me, since I did not have this class in high school. Credit-by-exam is so perfect for me and taking courses is a much longer, harder process for me. I was enrolled for the full nine months, but overall I spent about 25 weeks and over 250 hours on the homework of 24 lessons and studying for the 2 exams. (Note: Both exams - midterm and final - are 4 hours long.) It was tons of work to complete the practice problems on the homework, but obviously so important to understand for the exams.

It would have helped if I had a stronger background in trigonometry, at least, so I would not freeze up every time I saw “sin” or “cos”. As I was starting to look for more resource books for the next course in Calculus II, I realized that the last few lessons of this first course were already Calculus II, so that is why my other resources did not cover the material for those lessons. Seeing so many calculus guides made me realize that I did not provide myself with enough support for this course. It did not have to be an agonizing struggle to do the homework. I could have gotten myself more resource books with more practice problems to see more examples than the textbook offered. I have taken a few correspondence courses and have never relied on the teacher for much help. I did not push this teacher either, so I do not know if more support was available that way or not.

I found out that I do actually like the math part of calculus; there was just something about the learning experience that seemed to make it harder than necessary to understand it. I needed more support or step-by-step on the how-to part and still some information about where this was leading in the big picture.

When I took the final, I felt better overall than I had about the midterm. I had learned from the midterm that the problems on the real test would seem harder than the homework and practice test, which I thought were already really hard. I also learned from my experience on the midterm that actually getting the correct answers (I know I was making a lot of simple math mistakes) was probably secondary to showing an understanding of the concepts. Who knew college math wasn't all about answering the problems correctly?!?! This time I made a point of showing formulas and things I knew about solving the problems, even if I was having difficulty seeing how to get to the real answer. I really have learned a lot. I was also counting on a lot of favor with the teacher and with God to get a good grade! I got an A!

Resource List:

Schaum’s for Calculus
Texas A&M Calculus I tutorial - mindex.htm
Another Math tutorial site - Pauls Online Math Notes
Old Calculus textbook
Previous College Algebra & Analytical Geometry coursework and textbook
Schaum’s for Trigonometry
Calculus for Dummies – easy to understand language for tips and concepts
Tutor – meetings as needed – In many ways, this helped with relearning basic math skills and encouragement that it wasn’t my imagination that this was hard!

I just started the Analytic Geometry and Calculus II LSU correspondence course for 4 credits. I am going to try these books, too:

Schaum's 3,000 Solved Problems in Calculus
The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus
How to Ace the Rest of Calculus: The Streetwise Guide, Including Multi-Variable Calculus
The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems: For People Who Don't Speak Math