Calculus at NUIG.

the keen edge

I'am a first year (mature) science student here in NUIG. And I would love to hear from other students, of all undergrad years, regarding their whole Calculus learning experience.

I quite enjoy maths and I would really like to select it as a subject next year, but my experience this year, of how Calculus is taught here in the University is putting me off it.

Basically I think the lectures are very poor.
The lecturers seem to glance over, or assume prior knowledge of, very important mathematical details. And labour over proofs, without linking them to actual questions.

Now as this year is my first time to study at third level I can't really compare the lectures and lecturers of NUIG to any other college or Uni. But in all honesty, only for the tutorials, youtube and the large amount of hours I put in studying Calculus, I'd be properly banjoed come exam time.

So is this how it flies at third level. You basically have to teach yourself: or is the first year calculus just poorly ran?.
Would you advise a student to follow maths through to the final years of a degree?.

RolandIRL

If you want a bit of help at maths, these links are dead handy

Paul's online notes - http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/
Wolfram Alpha (for computational work, just to check answers maybe) - http://www.wolframalpha.com/

I've a friend who's a mature student as well, and she felt the same. that a lot of prior knowledge from the LC (which she had done a few years ago but forgot a lot) was necessary. she found it a bit difficult at times, and the lecturers pissed her off a bit, except for one of them.

Some lecturers can be a bit annoying, one i had last semester for real analysis (honours calculus) just wrote up theorems and proofs on the board, and didn't explain them much. told us to go off and look it up ourselves. this semester different lecturer for complex analysis....way better, very methodical in his approach, explains everything and goes back and recaps in the next lecture.

the keen edge

Thanks for the links whiteman, they will prove to be more than helpful.

One of my maths lecturers does deserve a mention though.
My current Algebra lecturer Kevin Jennings. He's a young guy, but he is in a different league.

IMO he is a proper lecturer, and a lot of them other so called lecturers should be asked to sit in on a few of his lectures, and take notes themselves on how to teach their particular subject.

Raging_Ninja

From what I've been told the guys at SUMS are quite a great deal of help for anyone with maths difficulties.

RolandIRL

I had him last semester actually...didn't like the fact that he never put up his notes on blackboard, if you missed a class, you had a lot to catch up on. though what really gripes me is that he puts up notes for all his other classes :mad:

HotDogger

the keen edge wrote: »

I'am a first year (mature) science student here in NUIG. And I would love to hear from other students, of all undergrad years, regarding their whole Calculus learning experience.

I quite enjoy maths and I would really like to select it as a subject next year, but my experience this year, of how Calculus is taught here in the University is putting me off it.

Basically I think the lectures are very poor.
The lecturers seem to glance over, or assume prior knowledge of, very important mathematical details. And labour over proofs, without linking them to actual questions.

Now as this year is my first time to study at third level I can't really compare the lectures and lecturers of NUIG to any other college or Uni. But in all honesty, only for the tutorials, youtube and the large amount of hours I put in studying Calculus, I'd be properly banjoed come exam time.

So is this how it flies at third level. You basically have to teach yourself: or is the first year calculus just poorly ran?.
Would you advise a student to follow maths through to the final years of a degree?.

This site has really good math nerd videos for 1st/2nd year stuff:

http://patrickjmt.com/

the keen edge

HotDogger wrote: »

This site has really good math nerd videos for 1st/2nd year stuff:

http://patrickjmt.com/

Yeah this guy^^^, has a lot of calculus tutorial videos up on youtube.

Just to underlined the reason for starting this thread, take The fundamental theorem of Calculus for example.
We spent, that is we were lectured on, TFTC for the best part of one lecture. And from what I could gather from others, the majority of students were baffled by the apparent complexity of this theorem.

Following this, wanting to get a better understanding of the theorem, I searched youtube for associated material.

On finding several videos on TFTC, I had, in five minutes, a better understanding of the subject then I had received in our bloody University.

And in addition to this, I no longer felt stupid for being confused at the way the theorem was presented to me by our university lecturer.

I feel that some of the lecturers, somehow through their teaching, make the subject an awful lot harder than it is.

The bottom line is, when I'am asked such a question in my end of year calculus exam, the only hope I have of successfully answer such a question will be thanks to youtube and not NUIG!.

HotDogger

Correct.