Any Engineers on here taken Calculus 3??? What should I expect?

I'm not so worried about the organic and inorganic chemistries I have to take along with the advanced biochemistries however this calculus 3 might be rough, I did well in 1 and 2.
 
My wife and I are both Ph.D. organic chemists by training. She teaches college organic chemistry and has for many years now. It never ceases to amaze me both when I was a graduate student 20 years ago and continuing now when she is teaching that the students who fail during the full semester normal schedule course re-enroll in the greatly condensed summer sessions thinking that will be a good idea. Usually these are pre-med students that need this to progress on schedule so I understand their desperation and rationale to try to get back on target for their medical school applications. With the lab and course simultaneous, it's a full time job covering several concepts and chapters each day. God, it's a blood bath to say the least. Part of it is it's a very different way of thinking but this happens with several of the other chemistry courses (and I assume many college courses as well) just too much information too quickly but the cycle repeats itself at every college/university every summer. The kicker is when they 'pass' with a C or D and come to her for a recommendation for medical school. She tries to help them within ethical limits and even dissuade them from burning through an application fee as some institutions have a well known triage based on GPA without looking at anything else, but will happily cash their application check before literally tossing their unread application into the G-file.
 
@benmack1 I believe I could put myself in that category of students, I'm trying to rush and cram all these difficult classes into one semester and I'll be taking a few during the summer session as well. REALLY close to having my BS in Biochemistry and I'd like to have the opportunity to get into Campbell's Pharmacy school or UNC Chapel Hill's in fall of 2017. I don't know whether to take my time or continue to rush and go bald or die of a heart attack by the age of 23.
 
Personally I found the pace and quantity of summer classes to be more suited for my learning style. I liked having 2 subjects at a time instead of 4 or 5, and no down time for me to forget about the last thing I learned. I like to go head first, fast paced, and completely dive in to a subject.
 
Hunter44 said:
@benmack1 I believe I could put myself in that category of students, I'm trying to rush and cram all these difficult classes into one semester and I'll be taking a few during the summer session as well. REALLY close to having my BS in Biochemistry and I'd like to have the opportunity to get into Campbell's Pharmacy school or UNC Chapel Hill's in fall of 2017. I don't know whether to take my time or continue to rush and go bald or die of a heart attack by the age of 23.
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It can certainly be done but will probably sting a bit in the process. It's also easier at 23 than it will be at 33 or 43 or whatever so the more power to you sir.

Summer courses are interesting, as I mentioned you'll likely have a good share of students that didn't pass the first time around or did so shitty that they are trying to improve their grade. If it's just a course to get out of the way, those are great to have because they reduce the curve big time and likely slow down the course in general. If it's something you really want to learn or is core to your future technical needs, those fuctards are a pain in the ass as the professor has to deal with their dumb ass questions. Then you get some students like @jeepinmatt mentions (and sounds like you are) who are motivated and focused so almost a bimodal distribution of the best and the worst. You might even have some that did fine the first time around but obsessed with trying to get an even better grade by taking a 2nd (or 3rd) time (want to go to Harvard instead of Hillbilly tech :rolleyes:). Those characters are the ones pissing and moaning about getting another 1 point here or there on an exam. Makes for an interesting relative grading curve to be sure. Good luck with your studies.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Personally I found the pace and quantity of summer classes to be more suited for my learning style. I liked having 2 subjects at a time instead of 4 or 5, and no down time for me to forget about the last thing I learned. I like to go head first, fast paced, and completely dive in to a subject.
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Same here, every summer class I've taken I've gotten an A in. Spring and Fall not so much.
 
First prob of the day in calculus. A "starter" problem
 

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All I have to add is glad I did business and nothing that required that level of math. I can do trend analysis, etc and work half my day in excel, but screw that crap!
 
Any help engineers lol? Racked my brain forever with no help!
 

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jeepinmatt said:
Personally I found the pace and quantity of summer classes to be more suited for my learning style. I liked having 2 subjects at a time instead of 4 or 5, and no down time for me to forget about the last thing I learned. I like to go head first, fast paced, and completely dive in to a subject.
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I had the same experience.
 
Hunter44 said:
Any help engineers lol? Racked my brain forever with no help!
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The answer is "you will never use this in the real world, so the rest of us engineers have already forgotten it"
 
Hunter44 said:
Any help engineers lol? Racked my brain forever with no help!
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Not a clue, plug it into wolframalpha. Your best friend is the interwebs. Google, Chegg, and wolfram along with there is a really good math tutor that does examples on YouTube that helps out a lot.
 
jeepinmatt said:
The answer is "you will never use this in the real world, so the rest of us engineers have already forgotten it"
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See also: "Use the excel spredsheet to solve for X" as well as "I ain't got time for these calculations, call a vendor and tell him your requirements and let THEM select a unit"
 
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