It has a formidable reputation. Even the mere mention of the word ‘Calculus’ sends shivers up of the spines of the best students. That said, I encourage you to encourage your child to take Calculus and to not be intimidated by it.
My personal experience with taking Calculus
When I took Calculus in high school, I recall that our class size was relatively small – approximately 10-15 students. Most of my peers who made top grades opted to take Statistics (which is nothing to play with in and of itself!) and Discrete Math because Calculus, to them, sounded too hard. Thankfully, I’d not had anyone convince me that any subject was too difficult for me, so I approached it like any other class.
My experience in high school Calculus was GREAT! My teacher, Mrs. Kemp, was an excellent teacher who broke down the fundamentals of Calculus very well, and she’d also given me a solid foundation in the year prior in Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry, such that I can say I actually had fun with Calculus. And while I didn’t score high enough on the AP exam to get college credit – I made a 3, but a 4 or higher was required – I easily made an A in Calculus in College, and I did well in Calculus II as well.
Ultimately, as an engineering major, I had to take four different Calculus classes, and I had to take several other classes – engineering-specific and in the sciences – that were Calculus-based. Getting going in Calculus in high school undoubtedly helped me to succeed in these courses.
My reason for suggesting that your child should take Calculus goes beyond my own experiences and enjoyment. Let me tell you why you should tell your child to go for it.
Your child wants to go into a STEM field
If your child wants to be an engineer, physicist, or another STEM-related career, Calculus is, very likely, going to be required for the college major anyway. Why not get a head start by taking Calculus in high school?
Calculus provides a healthy challenge
In multiple episodes of one of my favorite podcasts, Huberman Lab, Dr. Huberman, who is a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology, talks about how experiencing difficulty when learning something is actually a sign that you are learning something. Think about it. If you “learn” something new, but it doesn’t actually challenge you, are you really learning?
The feeling of challenge means that your brain is engaged and is in the active process of making new pathways and connections that will ultimately result in you gaining new knowledge.
Calculus teaches you how to think
The nature of Calculus is such that it requires you to have to use your brain in different ways. You even have to engage your imagination so that you can “see” the math. Because Calculus is a math that is used to measure quantities with high accuracy, it requires you to highly develop your analytical abilities.
This isn’t just good for doing math; the thinking ability that you gain from taking Calculus also helps you to become an even better problem solver in life in general. In my opinion, Calculus assists in helping you become a deeper thinker, a skill highly valuable in today’s very distracting world where electronic devices are always battling for our attention and encouraging us down a path of shallow thinking.
Calculus is fun (yep, I said it), and it adds value to your life in more ways than just academics. I talk more in depth about why your child should take Calculus in this video below.
