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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 01:20 PM EDT |
I am a non-traditional student. I learned to program on a HP1000 while in the
USAF many years ago. Only recently have I decided (at the age of 50+) to go to
college to get my degree in Computer Science. I am in my Senior year.
I agree with you. I see students who go through the motions of learning how to
pass a test, rather than trying to understand the subject at hand. Calculus was
a real challenge - and one I had a great set of Instructors to help me through
the journey. Early on, I got into the habit of doing the work by hand, and when
I have the answer, using my calculator to check my results.
On my final for Calc II, the instructor allowed everyone to use their
calculator. There was only 5 questions on the exam, but those questions required
a lot of steps to come up with the answers ... The Instructor had also threw in
a curve ball in that 2 of the qiestions where constructed in such a way that if
you relied on the calculator - you would come up with the wrong answer. You had
to know when the calculator was giving you a wrong answer ... I immediate
understood why the calculator was wrong and why since my preferred method of
using the calculator to check work had already pointed out these kinds of flaws
... I ruined to curve for the class (and loved doing so - old fart that I am)
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Amen. - Authored by: JamesK on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 01:27 PM EDT
- Congratulations. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 01:35 PM EDT
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| Authored by: betajet on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 06:07 PM EDT |
I'm a computer engineer, but got my Ugrad degree in an ECE department so we had
to take those three semesters of calculus and two semesters of physics like
every other engineer. In fact, only the electrodynamics courses needed all that
calculus. In most other courses, the calculus that you could do analytically
(as opposed to numerically) was quite simple, problems quickly reduced from
calculus to algebra.
As it turned out, it was poor high school algebra that prevented students from
becoming electrical engineers. In the required circuit theory course, you had
to be able to solve simultaneous equations, and many just never learned to do
that properly.
My feeling is that if you don't love math, you're probably not going to like
engineering. After all, Newton invented calculus to provide mathematical
machinery to reason about physics, so you should have a sense of wonder when you
see the marvelous connection between integration and differentiation and how it
provides an elegant way to go between force, velocity, and position. (If you're
an EE, substitute voltage and current.) Or you can approach calculus
philosophically like Leibniz as a way to reason about the infinite and
infinitesimal. Either way, it should be fun.
If it feels like hazing, wait until you need to solve a ground bounce problem
without understanding the mathematical behavior of inductors.
JMO/YMMV[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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