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At least when I went to undergrad, calculus was a university requirement, not a major requirement. Like English 101, except it is of course taught by math depar
by rsj_hn 5y ago
At least when I went to undergrad, calculus was a university requirement, not a major requirement. Like English 101, except it is of course taught by math department faculty just as English 101 is taught by English faculty. Everyone had to take it or test out of it.
For actual math requirements, you started with real and complex analysis, abstract algebra, geometry and topology, and then some applied math classes such as partial differential equations, or numerical methods. There was also a requirement for probability and statistics.
One way you can tell the difference between a general requirement class and a major class is the size of the classroom and the majors taking the course. If you are in an auditorium with 300 freshmen taught by a TA and almost no one else in that course is a math major, then you are looking at a university requirement rather than a college requirement.
University requirements are not intended to weed anyone out, that would be contrary to the goals of the university. They should be doable by all who are admitted. When I went to grad school, I had the pleasure of teaching some of these calculus classes, and no one considered this to be a weed out class or a math major class. All the math majors we had tested out of calculus in high school, and most of our students had humanities majors (as the STEM students also tended to test out of it). Giving those humanity majors lots of tricky problems in order to try to weed them out from their own majors wouldn't make any sense.
Moreover the key skill in being a math major is the ability to do proofs. So the weed out classes tend to be real analysis or abstract algebra, as these are the classes where students first do proofs. As there are traditionally no proofs in calculus classes (the books may provide proofs, but you are not tested in your ability to prove theorems, but in your ability to calculate). Thus it wouldn't be a good weed out class for math majors even if it wasn't a general requirement class taken by all majors.
- acchow 5y agoWhat university is this where a humanities major is required to learn and apply integration rules?
- rsj_hn 5y agoundergrad was Arizona State. Yes, having a college education requires knowing basic stuff like how to write a college essay or how to find the area under a curve. At that time, it was grouped by Numeracy or Literacy Requirements, so calculus met the N1 requirement and you could satisfy your L1 with English 101. Of course you could take more advanced classes as well if you wanted, but there was no credit for taking high school math classes to satisfy the university Numeracy requirements. So no trig or pre-calc would cut it. There were also social studies requirements, etc. The idea is that a "liberal arts education" requires these. And of course virtually all math majors would already have tested out of them, even in big state schools.
- acchow 5y agoI think your claim that "calculus was a university requirement" doesn't align with what I'm reading in their degree requirements, which is "MA and CS: Mathematical Studies (combined six credit hours)" > This core area has two categories. Mathematics (MA) is the acquisition of essential skills in basic mathematics. Computer/statistics/quantitative applications (CS) applies mathematical reasoning and requires students to complete a course in either the use of statistics and quantitative analysis or the use of a computer to assist in serious analytical math work. > This requirement has two parts: At least three credit hours must be selected from courses designated MA and at least three credit hours must be selected from courses designated CS, and all students are expected to fulfill the MA requirement by the time they accumulate 30 credit hours in residence at ASU. Sounds like you could take calculus to satisfy the Math requirement, but you could decide to do other Maths instead? https://catalog.asu.edu/ug_gsr https://catalog.asu.edu/ug_gsr