Reddit mentions of The Calculus Tutoring Book

A little bit of background: I'm a guy who struggled tremendously with math in high school, and quite frankly I despised it. But three years ago I finished up a BS in math and now I'm wrapping up my electrical engineering degree. I hope my perspective can be useful:

>Is math a very crucial part of engineering?

Yes. There's no avoiding it. I remember asking myself in high school algebra "when am I ever going to use this," but today I struggle to find the words to express just how monumentally important mathematics are to modern society. I think it's fair to say that the better you are at math, the better you will be at engineering as well as most hard sciences.

>If its a math different from Algebra, then maybe I'll be fine.

If by "different" you mean "more advanced," then yes. At the same time, more advanced = more interesting. On its own, algebra is fucking boring if you're just trying to get the hang of it. It's the topics in which you use algebra that are interesting.

For what it's worth, I failed algebra in high school. I absolutely hated it, and I didn't really get the hang of it until my first year in college. After that, calc was much easier and much, much more interesting.

Thing is, if you don't master algebra, then the more advanced topics (calculus and beyond) will be prohibitively difficult. However, it's not as bad as you might think. At a certain point, doing algebra will be like breathing, or riding a bike. It's sort of like learning the basic scales for the guitar: it's horrendously boring to practice, but once you get a feel for it, it becomes second nature and you'll find that it's absolutely indispensable for being a good musician.

The best advice I can give is to get a taste of calculus, which would hopefully motivate you to really master algebra. This book is great if you want to get a feel for it. If you've got at least a basic understanding of algebra, this book should be fairly accessible. The first chapter sets up the basic algebraic principles, and also discusses trig and exponential functions. The second chapter will probably be the toughest to get through: it establishes the concept of the limit, which won't actually seem relevant until you apply it to calculus, but believe me when I say that it is a critical foundation for calculus. Chapter three actually starts getting into using calculus.

Oh yes, I should also mention that trig is extremely important as well (I'd bet my salary that you'll encounter it numerous times in any engineering curriculum), but like calculus, trig becomes much easier to learn if you have a good grasp of algebra. I figure a good sense of trig is something you can kind of pick up along the way. You'll most certainly use it in intro physics classes.

TL;DR: Don't give up on math just yet!

Also: I used to tutor students in algebra and calculus. If you have any questions feel free to respond or PM me!