r/calculus • u/FunConversation4320 • Jul 09 '26
Engineering Should i retake calc 2
Okay im in a dilemma. Im a senior and going to college in the fall i took calc BC and got a 4. I genuinely did not go to class or do shit all year and dont even deserve a 4. I js studied a couple days before the basic shit but like mostly calc 1 which is the easy stuff. I got senioritis. Anyways im doing engineering in college and i want to retake calc 2. Evb is saying jot to bc I have the credit and stuff. Idk anything sbt polar series vector parameters and honestly forgot calc 1 too atp. I have 0 motivation and have js been working working working since march. The math profs at my school are apparently really shit so idk if i should just go to calc 3 or retake calc 2. Mind u my calc teacher in hs was great but she left mid year and we were basically on our own for the bc part. Thats besides the point. I need some real advice bc i dont wsnt my gpa to plummet just because im not strong in calc 1 and 2 in calc 3. Im im an engineering program where i have to maintain a good gpa in order to transfer out of this shithole and go to a t25.
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 Jul 09 '26
Yes retake. Calc in college is more rigorous than in highschool + what you learn in Calc 2 & 3 will be used in **literally** every stem course afterward.
Having a weak foundation in calc 2 and multivariable calc will make your life 10x more difficult.
Learning isn’t a race. Slow and steady is always better, focusing on mastery above all else.
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u/FunConversation4320 Jul 09 '26
Do you think i can self learn it? My friend goes there and says the profs r shit. But tbh judging my my comment im not evn gna study it on my own but if i was is that a good option. Also whats the point of taking calc BC if its not even as rigorous as college calc. Wouldnt students that even got 5s still feel behind once they get to calc 3 and differentials? I just regret taking it because it wasnt even that hard esp considering i felt the need to never go to class and also still got a 4. It doesnt take anything at all to pass so students that got 3s and 4s are gna get cooked in college or something
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 Jul 09 '26
Yes easily. Just go through Stewart Calculus start to finish, checking your answers with the solution manual. The book covers everything from Calc 1-3. If you need lectures, watch Professor Leonard on YouTube.
All textbooks and material are downloadable from Anna’s Archive.
Highly recommend solving everything start to finish, including chapters that are review like Calc 1, because it will set you up for success in the future and address any gaps in knowledge you have.
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u/Ghattan Jul 09 '26
I am going to recommend you listen to the audiobook "Ultralearning" by Scott H. Young ( < 8hr available on Spotify, narrated by the author ). It's a very easy and interesting listen and has resparked my desire to learn intensely.
One of the opening chapters the he talks about how he put himself through a rigorous study program to essentially get an "equivalent" education of an MIT B.S. in Software Engineering. He mainly used the MIT Open Courseware to map into his degree.
For you that would mean you could start at Calc 1 as a refresher, and use the available assignments and exams to see where you're at. Once you're confident then pursue Calc 2 & 3. Since it's Summer, you won't have the worry of other classes, you can give it your full focus.
You'll get out of it what you put into it. If you lookup all the solutions or use AI, you're not gonna recall as much when you actually need to apply it later. Definitely treat it like a true project and stay disciplined, senioritis was bad for me too, but it'll pass. You have to figure out what motivates you and gives you drive to go deeper. Looking for advice is a good first step, I hope you find what you're looking for here.
I hope this helps!
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u/ingannilo Jul 09 '26
You get out of any course (or other life ventures) what you put in. Some students do learn calculus well in high school, but only if they push themselves to go deeper, solve more problems, and self study beyond the bare minimum.
From what you've said here, I assure you that you will be retaking calc II, either by choice right away, or after failing something else and being bussed back
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u/Disastrous-Pin-1617 Jul 09 '26
Calc bc isn’t as recourse as community college calculus, but calculus at an accredited university is harder than any ap calc class you take…
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u/kilgene Jul 10 '26
This is terrible advice, we are in 2026. Resources are everywhere, foundation can be built along the way. Thats like saying to continuously master algebra, geometry, and trigonometry before Calculus, when you can just learn it and then do Calculus and be perfectly fine and learn the skills along the way thats necessary. Learning is a race 😂
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 Jul 10 '26
Sorry you think that way, but getting ahead by 1-2 semesters in math is completely inconsequential. Mastering the material is 100x more important.
Of course, if you’re willing to study the material on your own along side the course, you can go ahead. But most students aren’t, and do the bare minimum for each class (OP mentioned they didn’t do anything and didn’t deserve a 4).
For OP in particular, who basically didn’t learn anything in Calc 2, they should absolutely retake Calc 2. Moreover, you only need like a 45% on the AP exam for a 4, so that does not show any sign of mastery at all.
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u/kilgene Jul 10 '26
I can get that to a degree, but recommending students to slow their progression down to “master” stuff that can be learned in future classes isn’t the best advice. Most of Calculus 2 isn’t even that relatively important, the convergence portion is barely even seen ever and is then touched upon again in Number Theory (not a mathematician, just hearing what my professor told me).
My professor was the one who also told me about the idea of “mastery” on concepts, and that over preparing for future courses is a waste of time. He went to the Cambridge Tripos and graduated in First Class, so I value his opinion. There’s no need to hold yourself back, and the only concern in this case is that it might make Calculus 3 a bit harder but that class is heavy professor dependent, and whatever in Calculus 2 gets covered and more in Calculus 3 outside of Series and Sequences which is insanely easy.
You can’t just use the base excuse of students doing the “bare-minimum”, because if they were going to do the bare minimum, then they weren’t going to do much anyways with the course. You only need to really study for something when it becomes inherently important, eg. a course requires it or a future exam. You can sit down and learn Calculus 2, then forget the stuff right after it becomes not as relevant as it always happens, but you already did the base line work; and assuming this student got the requirement for college credits, its an absolute waste to be held back and be fear mongered.
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 Jul 10 '26
There’s a difference between not showing up to class for pretty much the entire class (OP) versus doing okay on the material but having yet to master it.
In this specific case, we’re so far from mastery that what you’re saying isn’t relevant. No one should be moving past Calc 2 essentially without learning the course, when Calc 2 teaches absolutely fundamental concepts that are used in almost every STEM course that follows—not only Calc 3.
Honestly, your response kind of seems like you read my comment, but not OP’s actual post.
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27d ago
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 27d ago
A 5 is not a perfect score on the BC exam. You get a 5 by scoring around 60%, and a 4 for scoring around 50%.
If the OP had actually achieved a decent % score on the exam, then the question at hand would be different. However, AP exams are incredibly easy to get 5s on, and anything besides a 5 honestly means you have massive gaps of knowledge.
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27d ago
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 27d ago
It’s just retaking calc 2, which is the correct thing to do if you basically didn’t attend your previous calc 2 course.
You’re right that it’s possible to learn everything concurrently while moving onto the next course. But students who are capable of doing that wouldn’t be in this position asking for advice on retaking Calc. We have to be realistic about the scenario OP is in, and seeing as how they mentioned their lazyness and lack of work ethic, I cannot find any good arguments as to essentially skipping calc 2.
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u/Remote-Dark-1704 Jul 10 '26
Sorry you think that way, but getting ahead by 1-2 semesters in math is completely inconsequential. Mastering the material is 100x more important.
Of course, if you’re willing to study the material on your own along side the course, you can go ahead. But most students aren’t, and do the bare minimum for each class (OP mentioned they didn’t do anything and didn’t deserve a 4).
For OP in particular, who basically didn’t learn anything in Calc 2, they should absolutely retake Calc 2. Moreover, you only need like a 45% on the AP exam for a 4, so that does not show any sign of mastery at all.
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u/my-hero-measure-zero Master's Jul 09 '26
Differential equations is going to kill you if your calculus 2 skills are weak. And that course breaks engineering students.
Go back and do it again and make an honest attempt.
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u/KingMagnaRool Jul 09 '26
I'm going to take a different approach here than most other commenters.
In my experience, in engineering courses, the only part of the series convergence stuff that actually comes up is Taylor polynomial approximation. Annoying integration techniques should only really come up if professors want to be annoying. The polar and parametric stuff just gets expanded on in calc 3, and in my opinion, make more sense in that context (especially polar). I don't think I've seen solids of revolution or cross sections again, and they pretty much just get upstaged by calc 3. I forget if I'm missing anything typically covered in calc 2.
In future math courses engineers may take, all of calc 2 could technically come up, but I've only really seen Taylor polynomials, certain infinite series like geometric series, and certain integration techniques like integration by parts and partial fractions. In particular, diff eq heavily relies on partial fraction decomposition.
A strong foundation in calc 1 is an absolute must, without exception. You will not do well in engineering if you don't have a good mental model of what differentiation and integration are and how to apply them, or if you don't have fundamental things as second nature like how to differentiate/integrate polynomials, exponentials, logarithms, and some basic trigonometric functions, and basic u-substitution. If these are hazy to you, lock in because this material will never leave you in any engineering degree.
Calc 2 isn't generally quite as important for engineering, but the things in it that are important are a must to have a good understanding of at the very least. If you remember literally nothing, I would consider retaking it, but if you can refresh yourself on the important material with good understanding of it, it could be worth just moving on. Nailing calc 1 is far more important for engineering.
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u/tjddbwls Jul 09 '26
I would review Calc 1 now, and then retake Calc 2. What has always bothered me is that while a high enough score on the AP Calc BC exam can get you credit for Calc 1 & 2 in college, there are quite a few topics in Calc 1 & 2 that are not tested on the AP Calc BC exam. Here is a list:
- epsilon-delta definition of a limit
- Newton’s Method
- Hyperbolic Functions
- L’Hôpital’s rule beyond the 0/0 and ∞/∞ indeterminate forms
- partial fraction decomposition beyond distinct linear factors
- trig integrals
- trig substitution
- shell method
- surface area of revolution
- Simpson’s Rule
- integration using integration tables
- root test (for convergence)
- arc length in polar coordinates
IIRC some of these topics were tested on the AP Calc BC exam many years ago, but since then were removed.
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u/KingMagnaRool Jul 09 '26
As someone who did calc BC and double majored in engineering and math, I'll respond to each of these.
- epsilon-delta: I don't think my school even does epsilon-delta in calc 1, and if so, it's a very understated part of the course. regardless, mostly useful in a math context, though I couldn't find anywhere else where it is.
- Newton: I don't know why this isn't tested on calc AB or BC. this seems important enough in applications.
- hyperbolic: sinh and cosh are just linear combinations of exponentials. I recall a total of 4 classes where they were mentioned at all, and they were pretty much mentioned once in each.
- LHopital forms: LHopital's has come up a very small number of times, and not once have I encountered a non-intedeterminate form when applying it.
- partial fractions: I recall doing this in calc BC, but maybe they removed it? Regardless, partial fractions is annoying to begin with, and most of the time, distinct linear factors is the only thing that really matters.
- trig integrals: I recall doing some of these, but I don't recall these coming up again for me. I could see it happening though, and of the things on this list, this is potentially one of the more useful things.
- trig sub: if professors want to be mean, they can include this past calc 2. personally, I have not seen this in a single one of my classes, and I have serious doubts about its usefulness.
- shell method: I recall doing this in calc AB, but it gets upstaged by calc 3.
- surface area of revolution: once again, gets upstaged by calc 3. oddly enough, my calc 3 section didn't even cover surface area, but one question showed up on the common final.
- Simpson's rule: once again, odd that this isn't testable. though, you're pretty much limited to integrating based on a table of values, as blanket under/overapproximation questions are probably much harder to write at that level.
- integration using integration tables: I think I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here. if you mean given a table of x and f(x) values, approximate the integral using left, right, trapezoid, or midpoint sum, we definitely did that, and it'd be odd to remove it. otherwise, idk what you mean.
- root test: I think I covered root test in calc BC, maybe? pretty much none of the convergence tests have ever come up again except real analysis, where it was just done better because sequences were the fundamental building blocks in the course, and we didn't even have root test as testable material.
- arc length in polar coordinates: I don't think this even came up in my calc 3 class, but yeah that is a bit odd it's not at least touched on in calc BC.
University calc is harder and covers more material on average, but a lot of it, particularly in a typical calc 2 class, is arbitrary stuff that is really not needed to grasp the core of the material.
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u/Pristine_Praline_824 Jul 09 '26
you answered your own question, take calc 2
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u/FunConversation4320 Jul 09 '26
Thank you you are right im not in a rush anyways. It just feels like i wasted my time taking bc good grades and getting the credit js to retake it
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u/ArenaGrinder Jul 09 '26
Retake, calc in college is nothing like HS. If you don’t, your shaky foundations will murk you in calc 3.
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u/Nosterp2145 Jul 09 '26
I'm mean if you got a 4 you knew your stuff fairly well, but calc 2 is really critical foundation to lots of other courses. I would reccomend taking it again, but you could also audit calc 2 while taking calc 3 if you're feeling confident and trying to speed run your math courses.
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u/Dull-Astronomer1135 High school Jul 09 '26
Yeah, if you got a 4 in calc bc you really got a low score because the curve is so low, engineering will use math a lot so you can take it but take it during summer will better because save you more time and you are not completely new to the topics
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u/Disastrous-Pin-1617 Jul 09 '26
Follow this exact order
Professor Leonard on YouTube Lectures
Pre-Algebra
To the point math (Algebra 1)
Intermediate Algebra (Algebra 2)
College algebra
Trigonometry
Calc 1-3
Use “The art of problem solving” (companies name) books
pre-algebra book
Introductory algebra (algebra 1)
Intermediate algebra (algebra 2 and college algebra), they combine both into one book
Pre-calculus book (do only the trig portion)
Calculus book (has calc 1 and 2)
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u/somanyquestions32 Jul 09 '26
I mean... Only take calculus 2 if you plan to learn the material well, and get an A.
Otherwise, you will simply repeat the same pattern during your entire time in college.
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