What is the Hardest Calculus Course?

What is the Hardest Calculus Course?

Ok, so which is it? Is Calculus 1, 2, or 3 the hardest one? In this video I give specific reasons as to why one of these is much harder than the others.

Which Calculus course do you think is hardest?

Please leave any comments or questions in the comment section below. Thank you:)

[gaminikokawalage]

The hardest thing about calc 2 is remembering to add +c to indefinite integrals

[syaw]

I agree, calc 2 was the hardest calculus class. I also agree that the shell and the disk methods were brutal.

[vlisto]

As an engineering student who didn't have much time to allocate to studying calc 2, by far the hardest part was the ludicrous number of difficult to identify trig substitutions.

[ivanoliveira]

I am currently taking calc III, and is the hardest of the three, for me at least. Not because of the math, grasp the main concepts is pretty hard.

[christinenillosguin]

Calculus itself is hard. It's just while you're getting further to it, you're just being used to failing quizzes and tests, and learning to hope against all odds.

[AndrewSmith-eopv]

My university actually taught the disk/shell/washer method in calc 1 and I found it pretty easy to grasp. Personally, I found the integration techniques the hardest part of calc two. Infinite series were more straightforward and the tests for convergence/divergence were never too difficult as long as you could remember all the tests. But for some reason, integration by partial fractions and trig subs absolutely kicked my ass.

[moisesdevs]

I failed Calculus 2 last year. I stumble upon your channel and began to change my approach with math. I'm now in CALCULUS 3. THANK YOU.

[therayman]

I took Calc 1 twice, Calc 2 three times, Calc 3 twice, and DE only one. Isn’t that interesting lol.

[stephencasper]

For me, calculus I was the hardest since it was a change in my way of thinking about math. Calculus II was my favorite math class and was the class that made me change my minor to math (I'm a Geology major). For some reason I found the sections over infinite series to be very intuitive for me. I was always "bad at math" and had a great deal of anxiety over taking any calculus class. I fortunately had some great professors and discovered I wasn't actually bad a math, I just had not found the right way to study for it. I do find the hardest part about calculus isn't the actual calculus, but the rather messy algebra that can come along with it all. If you see this comment and are about to begin a calculus class, here's some advice... Practice and understand how equations relate to their graphical illustrations and really know how to factor polynomials. Get the basics down and do not underestimate how much your algebra skills will help in subsequent classes. If you have to take Calculus III, pay close attention to vectors and really learn your unit circle (this really applies to all calculus classes).

[appiman]

As someone who aced calc 1, took calc 2 4 times, and aced calc 3 I’d say calc 2 is the hardest because of how many concepts are in it that have nothing to do with each other. As you said disk and shell is just something brand new not been done before. My favorite part about math is how concepts build on each other to become more and more advanced.

[Leon-wdng]

For me personally calculus 2 was my favourite. I loved doing them and they were easy marks for me. Calculus 3 however was the one where I got absolutely destroyed

[lukeivanov]

Calc III is definitely the hardest, no question about that. Thinking about multivariable functions, parametrization, constrained optimization, setting up double/triple integrals, all the vector Calc theorems... no doubt Calc III is the hardest.

But I can see why people say Calc II is the hardest. In Calc I, you are given specific algorithms that never deviate (product rule, chain rule...) and you think about everything in 2 dimensions. When you get to Calc II though, there is no obvious way to evaluate an integral so you have to try U-sub, then parts, then trig, then hyperbolic or weirstrass... it’s just a lot more steps. Plus, I agree, the washer and disk methods are hard to wrap your head around the and infinite series is a struggle also.

[FirstNameLastName-ozij]

I think one of the biggest reasons why calc 3 feels harder for me is the fact that in my calc 2 class, a lot of people just like me were bad at math, and it wasn’t too hard to get average or above average on tests, and since the tests were curved, as long as you are average or above, you’re fine. Once you take a calculus class above calc 2 however, almost everyone in your class is a math wiz. I think I am one of only around 3 people in my class who are barely passing calc 3 at the moment.

[mr.cortez]

I attempted to take calc 2 in a summer session.
Painful experience.


Loved calc 3 though.

[OleJoe]

I would agree that calculus II is difficult, but I had a harder time with calculus III. The tripple integrals and the div, curl, grad stuff, along with Stroke's Theorem were pretty bad. Cylindrical and spherical coordinates along with surface and volume integrals... Let's not forget the Jacobian determinant for change of coordinates.

[NBens]

Infinite Series is the bane of my existence

[luckylucas]

I took Calc AB/BC in one year in high school and had a great teacher. Calc III was my first semester in college, and I have poor geometric reasoning, so I struggled a lot in that class.

[letsdomath]

Series were hard in calculus 2 because they came toward the end of my fall freshman semester, not because the math itself was inherently hard, and it was just a lot to keep in mind with all of the other science classes. Once they came up again in differential equations, they weren't that bad, and in complex analysis, they finally made complete sense as I had more experience writing proofs and doing page-long calculations with inequalities.

[williamvalentinmunozlopez]

Calculus 1 for me. It took me a lot of time ( too much maybe) to understand it. The other two where more "natural" after getting the "basic" ideas

[JoniniTheChickenNugget]

I agree, I had to allocate so much more time into understanding calc 2 and the taylor/mclaurin series absolutely destroyed me when I neglected memorizing the formulas.