Every so often, I see students asking /r/learnmath or /r/cheatatmathhomework what they need to do be better prepare themselves for calculus and although many of the answers are good, they are rarely comprehensive. For instance the majority of the suggestions fall into on of the following categories…
- Get your hands on Calculus by Spivak and work through it before taking calculus. – Though an excellent text, I would hardly recommend this text to students as their first exposure to calculus as this book falls somewhere between a Mechanics of Calculus text (Stewart, Larson, etc.) and a Real Analysis textbook.
- Make sure you have a very strong algebra background. – This is a good suggestion for any math course, however it does very little to help students prepare for their first semester in calculus. Throughout the next few posts, I plan on emphasizing the concepts you must have mastered in order to fully understand calculus the first time.
- Watch Professor Leonard or Kahn Academy on YouTube. – Again, a great suggestion, however, I suggest using these resources to supplement a formal course in calculus as they lack the interactivity of a traditional classroom.
Throughout the next few posts, I will be briefly introducing several of the main concepts covered in first semester calculus with a focus on the algebraic techniques needed to master the concepts.