There a couple different ways of learning calculus. I was lucky enough to have a high school calculus teacher that introduced us to calculus by showing us how i

There a couple different ways of learning calculus. I was lucky enough to have a high school calculus teacher that introduced us to calculus by showing us how it worked. Buoyed by that experience, I took math for math majors as a college freshman. I spent the semester being either extremely enlightened or completely lost. I ended up re-taking the second semester of calculus, but I took calculus for engineers instead of math majors. Not super enlightening, but enough to understand what to do when prompted for a derivative or integral. Honestly, I think a big part of the difference is simply how concepts are communicated. Richard Feynman really was that good at explaining physics concepts using every day examples. It's also not always obvious when you need to stop and go into detail, and when a general grasp of a concept will be enough.