Mechanical Engineering.

[mfgsu09]

If anyone has this degree, would you mine mentioning the math courses you took please? My advisor says that I need to go ahead and take differential equations, but I haven't taken calculus three yet. I always hear that diff. eq. is like calculus 4 so it would make me think cal 3 should be taken first, but I have diff. eq., calc. 3 and probability in the fall. So mostly I'm just wondering if I'm giving myself a death sentence.

[Cards]

id listen to your advisor

[dynamo]

i took diff eq before calc 3. its more like calc 2 on steroids if i remember correctly.

[soclydeza]

I JUST got done with DiffEq, took the final on Wednesday. Calc 3 is not a prereq to DiffEq at my school, but I still took it before anyway. I'd say there wasn't much from Calc 3 that we had to use beside maybe some of the matrix stuff, but that's about it and you'll learn that anyway. However, if you are required to take Calc 3 (which I'm sure you are in MechE) I would take it before DiffEq since you can continue with the "Calc" mindset, plus you can refine all your integration skills and such, which you will use quite a bit of in DiffEq.

I've heard people say "DiffEq is like Calc 4", I didn't think so at all, you just use principles from calculus. Before you go into DiffEq, make sure you're good with the various techniques of integration and partial fractions. Those are probably the most used, and all that stuff is from Calc 2/Algebra.

Like I said, you can totally get away with taking DiffEq without Calc 3, the only reason I'd recommend taking Calc 3 first is just to continue the calc thing, but it's up to you what you want to do. By the way, I found Calc 3 to be a COMPLETE bitch, but I didn't find DiffEq to really be bad at all, probably one of the easier math classes as long as you're good with all the prior stuff.

[borracho]

Like I said, you can totally get away with taking DiffEq without Calc 3, the only reason I'd recommend taking Calc 3 first is just to continue the calc thing, but it's up to you what you want to do. By the way, I found Calc 3 to be a COMPLETE bitch, but I didn't find DiffEq to really be bad at all, probably one of the easier math classes as long as you're good with all the prior stuff.

I x2 that paragraph. GL to the OP!

[StrongestEver]

I totally cheated my way through Diff Eq. But, it wasn't my fault. Our teacher had the same tests and quizzes every single semester. So, I studied those To this day I have no idea what Diff Eq is about.

[mfgsu09]

Alright, I'll keep the schedule I got. Diff eq, cal 3, probability, engineering mechanics 1, and thermodynamics. If all goes as planned, I'll have my math minor at the end of next spring. Appreciate all the feedback.