Should I finish calculus? I'm an English major.

Yes yes yes do it. One thing that really drags our society down is having people who are well-educated in the humanities disciplines but don't know their basic calculus. Calculus teaches you think logically, abstractly, and hard. It's good for you.

Nothing annoys me more than hanging out with other grad students that can talk my ears off about Tolstoy but can't figure out how to split a dinner check.

Yes, by all means finish it! You'll regret it later. Kinda like finishing races...if anything, bag the English major and switch to Mathematics. (just kidding!)

Yes. So many college students have the mentality of "I'm a such-and-such major, so I don't need to learn a single damn thing that doesn't have to do with my major." Wrong. Learn all you can, and no matter what the course is, take it seriously. There is a reason why most universities require students to take a certain number of courses in areas of study not directly related to their major. It's not just to piss you off and make your life difficult. It's to stretch your mind and make you a more intelligent person, all around. We need more people like that in the world.

I think it would be helpful b/c a lot of other fields are based in Math. If you do the full calc sequence you might even find that you enjoy it and do a math minor or double major.

Mathematics and English are different is what you study, but as a person getting an MS in math I think they are not totally different. In English you study different forms of things, school of writing, structure, and such...math is the same way. Logic and natural progression are also both large components of each. I have never read a novel that was considered to be a great one that didn't have all the above characteristics. It is the same with mathematics and proofs.

Long story short, I think it would be a good idea and as mentioned in previous posts it never hurts to expand your horizons.

Mike

I vote you finish it.

Are you just an english major or are you a student? A student would learn whatever was put in front of him and later find a way to make use of it in life.

On a similar note I don't like it when people define themselves as "a miler" or "a marathoner". We're all runners.

You should definitely finish an advanced math class so you can split up a check at dinner. Good thought.Nothing annoys me more than an argument that hinges on an unrelated scenario with a ridiculous premise.With that said, as long as you will not miss out on another class you would prefer to take by taking the calc., you might as well finish it.

xcxcxcxxx wrote:

Yes yes yes do it. One thing that really drags our society down is having people who are well-educated in the humanities disciplines but don't know their basic calculus. Calculus teaches you think logically, abstractly, and hard. It's good for you.

Nothing annoys me more than hanging out with other grad students that can talk my ears off about Tolstoy but can't figure out how to split a dinner check.

Here's what I would do:

http://stthomas.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20173691952

I guess the reason I'm wondering here is because I bombed the final in that class and didn't really feel like I was good at it. The calculus classes at my school are pretty challenging and the homeworks are so long and it takes a lot of effort. I envy the students who can take AP calculus and skip out of the beginning calculus. Is calculus this hard at other schools? I go to a big public state school.

And I took it when I was a freshman.

are you talking about signing up for calculus II or calculus III (multivariable?) I think calc II was harder than calcIII.

to be honest I can't really see that you'd ever directly apply either one, unless you're contemplating doing something for which it might be a prerequisite later. Just because you won't apply it doesn't mean you shouldn't finish it, though. It sounds like you kind of want to... and taking classes way outside of your major is, in my humble opinion, always a fantastic idea.

oh, and i mean, i don't know your situation, but just because you bombed the final doesn't mean you suck at calculus, right? I've bombed tests before that were simply meant to be awful while still feeling like I learned a lot in a class/wasn't terrible at what I was studying.