There's no reason to go to college for these so called lower div courses. They are often taught by TAs. The latter are not synonymous with great teaching. It's

There's no reason to go to college for these so called lower div courses. They are often taught by TAs. The latter are not synonymous with great teaching. It's the 21st century, we have a wealth of textbooks now that are often better than all TAs and profs put together. These days one can easily put aside 1600 page doorstops (such Calc books often teach applied algorithms that were last relevant in 19th century) and opt for much more nimble, well-designed and actually relevant/rigorous books like those of Jay Cummings or Lara Alcock or Richard Hammack or the Dos Reis or Gary Chartrand or ...