MATH 1310

For some reason, it would not let me enter a review for Daniel James on fall23, but it does not really matter since (although he was the professor) I never saw him or heard him once. The class is taught be a graduate student, which is for starters a red flag. I appreciate them trying their best, but they are just not equipped with the knowledge and experience to teach a college level calc class to us. I 10000000% think if I had a real professor instead of a graduate student my grade would have been significantly higher. TO be honest, the undergrad TA is really the only reason I even passed this class. To summarize what she emphasized, exam questions are practically the same as the practice exam ones and the 'extra problems' in the notes, so be sure to do those. The one thing I really was pleased with in this class was that even if you did not know how to solve a problem, you can write what you know and what is relevant (literally just words) and receive partial credit for understanding.

As part of the prereqs to apply to the School of McIntire, you have to take a calculus course: "Calculus: MATH 1190, 1210, 1310 or higher level." I thought I could handle a harder calculus class, especially since I had taken AP Calculus AB in high school. I decided I'd take the "slightly harder" math course, MATH 1310. Big mistake.

If I could go back and choose my classes for this semester, I would have definitely chosen MATH 1190 or even 1210. Not to mention, I'm not sure if this was a problem unique to MATH 1310 Canvas page, but while a lot of resources were offered (practice worksheets and problems, uploaded class notes, etc.) everything was hard to find and disorganized making my experience in this course harder than it had to be. I hope they fix this for future students since many of my peers spoke up about it this semester.

Moreover, this course is overseen by the professor, Daniel James, who directs 3 other non-professor instructors. They all have their own classes that they teach, and I was one of the students placed under the instruction of a graduate student. I'm sure in some cases, classes taught by graduate students may be a good idea, but I wish I had been placed in the professor's class. Many, if not all, of the concepts in this class, were previously taught to me in high school, but I feel like the way things were taught in this course was more complicated than needed. Maybe it was because my instructor saw these concepts as simple as addition, making it easy to forget to break them down before moving on to the next problem.

Overall, I didn't have the best experience in this course. What I have learned, is that if you can take an easier course to fulfill a requirement, TAKE THE EASIER COURSE. If you do end up taking this class anyway, I recommend you never skip the professor's office hours (I felt that he explained everything the best) and DEFINITELY find a good study group early on!

I took this class with a background knowledge of taking AP Calc AB in high school. However, this is completely different. First off, I would have done so much better if Professor Daniel James was my actual professor. If you end up having Pedro, though he is a nice guy, he does not teach well at all. He is a graduate student and does not really know how to prepare his students for the assessments. Also the difference in standard and growth based is so unfair and I did not have a good experience with this class at all. I recommend taking the lower level calc class if you need it for a prerequisite. I never want to take a calc class ever again.

Again, Daniel James is great and his office hours were super helpful. But if you get one of the graduate student, you are stuck.

ONLY TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU *NEED* TO ... I took this class as a first year thinking that it was the same as MATH 1210, as they are both seemingly equal prerequisites for many popular majors such as Economics, Commerce, and Biology.

However, this is far from the case. This class is much more theoretical and trig-intensive in its approach to calculus, and it demands a much more nuanced knowledge of the subject than MATH 1210. TAKE MATH 1210 INSTEAD.

Every other problem on the exams is a multi-step application of topics in the course, while MATH 1210 problems are typically a slight variation of what is given in class. The graduate students that teach these classes are largely apathetic in lecture, so office hours are crucial. If possible, meet with Daniel James frequently. He is the course coordinator and is the best at clearly and patiently explaining the topics and helping students formulate an approach to studying that is best for their learning style. Most of the work in this class was associated with pre-class homeworks and WebAssign, but I spent the bulk of my time that was dedicated to this class by studying for exams.

This course is a far cry from high school math. I went into this class having taken math through linear algebra in high school and MATH 1310 severely humbled me. It is largely the same concepts as high school classes, but the way in which it is 'taught' (flipped classroom style) and the level of understanding they demand for students to show on exams is above and beyond what you will have seen in high school. TAKE MATH 1210.

I had credit for calc 1 from high school, and I can say that this class is 100% harder than high school calculus 1. The material isn't anything impossible, but it is all very in depth and you need a really good understanding of the material to do well. And because the class is taught by a grad student, I found my lectures to be nearly worthless. I basically taught myself everything I had to know from youtube and chat GPT. My grad student teaching the classes was a smart and nice guy, but he has no idea how to teach a class. Sometimes he would make mistakes on the board and we would have to correct him, sometimes he would write out long unnecessary proofs that would just confuse us even more.

The best way to do well is to have background knowledge from an actual teacher. If you don't, beware that you will probably need to teach yourself a lot on your own. Do the homeworks and really understand them, don't just get the answer without knowing why it is right. Getting an A is hard but not impossible.

#tCFFF24

Not sure why I'm not able to add instructor (Caelan Wang), but here goes:

This class is not for the weak. Would not recommend taking for an enjoyable math credit if you were a math person in high school. Not only is the class structure of talking at you called "interactive" and "engaging" by the professors, the outside help that sought for it made me less confident about my knowledge of the material. I personally would not recommend this if you have absolutely no experience in calculus like me, unless you are willing to do 90% of the teaching on your own. If you're struggling in this class, I would highly recommend using ChatGPT, Khan Academy, and P2L sessions to pick up the slack that the professors leave. Good luck!

Genuinely don't take this class; just take a survey of calc, 1210. It's not worth it; this class is 4 credits and will just tank your GPA if you literally haven't taken a harder than Calc class before. I took AP CALC BC and got an A; however, I wasn't able to take the exam due to personal reasons, and although the content of the class is the way they want you to answer each question for exams, it makes it near impossible to get all points, and with the harsh grading scale, it's not worth it. And please listen: if you have never taken Calc before, DO NOT take this course.

Genuinely don't take this class; just take a survey of calc, 1210. It's not worth it; this class is 4 credits and will just tank your GPA if you literally haven't taken a harder than Calc class before. I took AP CALC BC and got an A; however, I wasn't able to take the exam due to personal reasons, and although the content of the class is the way they want you to answer each question for exams, it makes it near impossible to get all points, and with the harsh grading scale, it's not worth it. And please listen: if you have never taken Calc before, DO NOT take this course.

I took Calc AB in high school and did end up getting an A in this course, however, it was the most in depth math class I have every taken. The grading scale is based off near-perfection, and although the course is said to be "growth based," the retakes are often completely different problems/types of problems then the original exam problems. Additionally, you need to earn almost all 4s on all learning targets by the end of the semester to get an A in the class. The final exam questions count as NEW questions (learning targets) which you can not retake, so you basically need to get 100% (all 4s) to have a shot/cushion at getting an A in the class, regardless of whether you're going into the final with all 4s or not. Further, there are "core targets" and you MUST have 4/4 on all 5 of them by the end of the semester, otherwise you will automatically be bumped down essentially a letter grade: if someone has 4 4/4 and 1 core target less than a 4, the highest grade you can earn in the course is a B+, regardless of whether or not all your other learning targets are prefect 4/4s.

An interesting change early on in the semester, was that the course coordinator did not allow instructors to see the exams before giving them. This was certainly interesting to us because the course coordinator teaches her own section of this class and can ultimately teach directly to the exams (that she creates) while other instructors can not. This is strange because the instructors are PhD students, and their reviews or student outcomes in their classes could potentially impact their success in their programs...???

If you need to take THIS SPECIFIC CLASS (and there is no way you can take an alternative like survey 1210) as a pre-req for your major, I would recommend doing the following: pay VERY close attention during class, ask a lot of questions and identify learning gaps as they come, NOT just right before exams, and study at least a week leading up to each exam by doing lots of different types of practice problems, since you never really can predict which type of example problem will be on the exams. Your instructors are ultimately here to help you and really do care about you, and they are knowledgable. DEVELOP STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEM!!!!!! It will really help you. If you have to take this class, you will succeed and you will be ok, but be prepared to do a substantial amount of studying and extra work outside of class.

This course is godawful.

I had a 96 in this class and got an A- due to the "growth-based" grading scale. You can technically get a 96 in this class and still get a D. Arguably, the work isn't even that hard, they just grade it so bizarrely and harshly, and you will probably end up tanking your GPA (esp. because 1310 is 4 credits rather than 1210, which is 3) if you can't take advantage of the slightly easier final. Be prepared to submit a LOT of regrade requests and get a LOT of them denied. My instructor was a really nice guy who hated how the class was graded but couldn't do anything about it.

My school didn't do APs but I was good at math in highschool and this course KICKED MY ASS. Mostly because of the BS grading scale - prior to the final I had a C- with an 87%.

I don't know that 1210 is graded any differently, but just be warned to stay clear of any "growth-based grading" math class. There is no curve, what's in the syllabus is final.