My Advice to a New Math 207 Student:

Dear New Math 207 Student,

Welcome to Calculus I! If you are anything like I was at the beginning of this course, you are probably a little bit nervous about how difficult it's going to be and how much work is involved. Truth be told, it is a lot of work. The good news is that there are several things that you can do to minimize your stress throughout the semester.

My main suggestion is to keep up with the lecture! This helped me more than anything else throughout the semester. Pay attention to what your professor is explaining during class and take careful notes. Chances are, the concepts they explain will be on the tests. Also, professors tend to drop hints in their lectures about what types of questions will be asked on the tests. They will also tell you what will be explained in lecture each day, and if they don't, ask! I would highly recommend staying one day ahead of lecture if you can. What your professor is explaining will make much more sense if you have looked over the section on your own and tried some of the problems. Also, you may find that you understand and remember information better if you at least attempt to teach it to yourself first. There are a lot of problems in each section and the only way to get good at them is to practice. Do as many problems as you can. This will also help you to know what questions you need to ask. Also, don't try to do all of your calculus for the day at one time. It seems to help to spread it out and do it in small portions so your head doesn't start pounding!

There are a few other things that helped me to be successful in this class.

Try to study with other Math 207 students, even if they have a different professor. Sometimes hearing different ways of explaining the same information makes it easier to understand. Never be afraid to ask questions during and outside of class. If you don't ask you won't get an answer! Take advantage of your professor's office time. Go in for personal attention and help. Start any projects or long term assignments early so that you have time to ask questions if you get stuck or confused.

There isn't anything in particular that I wished I had known the first week of class. To be honest, if you paid any attention to any of your teachers in high school, you know what you need to do to succeed. All the basic skills that you developed throughout high school dealing with good study skills and time management are the keys to success in college. I guess one very simple thing is GO TO CLASS!

The transition to college life is more difficult for some people than others. As for me, it wasn't too scary. One major difference is that your "home" environment may be a little bit louder than you're used to. Be prepared to go to Murphy Library or other study areas so that you can get your work done. Furthermore, although some people may try to convince you that the weekend starts on Thursday, keep your priorities straight and make sure you get your work done first! Things have a way of building up if you keep putting them off.

To me, the most interesting part of Calculus I was all of the ways it can be applied to solving real life situations. By using what we learned this year we can figure out problems involving velocity and acceleration, volume, the most economical shape for a can, and optimizing resources for building just about anything, not to mention endless applications in economics including cost, marginal cost, profit, marginal revenue etc. The different uses are endless! In a lot of classes students seem to feel like what they are learning is worthless and that they will never use the information in their lives. With calculus this just isn't the case. Everything has a practical application that can be used in our daily lives! Furthermore, with calculus we are able to solve problems that we never could with basic algebra and trigonometry.

Best of luck with this and all of your classes this semester and in the future!

Sincerely,

Brigitte, Pre-Pharmacy: Microbiology Major, Math minor