"College algebra" is usually taken by people who haven't had algebra, geometry and trigonometry classes in middle or high school. If you had all those classes,

"College algebra" is usually taken by people who haven't had algebra, geometry and trigonometry classes in middle or high school. If you had all those classes, many colleges allow you to enroll in calculus as a freshman (sometimes you have to take a placement test), or you can even skip some of the calculus sequence with AP credit. College algebra isn't something that a lot of math, science and engineering majors take, especially if they're toward the top of the class and haven't taken the easy road in their high school course selections.