Jumping back into Calculus III

Question

At the age of 30 I am going back to school for Electrical Engineering. Because of the way higher education works, all of my previous college coursework is being transferred, which does not allow you to retake classes that were already successfully completed. Since I took Calc I and II and did rather well, I cannot retake them. It has been almost 10 years since I have had any formal math class, and I am nervous about jumping right into Calc III.

What are some recommended textbooks or other tools that I can use to prepare. I have until the end of August, it is mid-April now. I have been working with Khan Academy, but it seems to be very unorganized. I have worked my way up, going along, from pre-algebra up through precalculus. I would like to change gears and start working with books, focusing and PreCalc topics to start and working towards Calc II.

Any insights greatly appreciated!!!

Assuming the asker is going to an American university that operates on semesters (as opposed to quarters), Calc III means multivariable calculus. — Ben Grossmann, Apr 12 '14 at 22:36

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:22

To give you a sense of what to expect in Calc III, Paul Dawkins of Lamar University has lecture notes online: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcIII/CalcIII.aspx He also has Calc I and Calc II notes that might help to direct your self study.

MIT OpenCourseware has a set of video lectures and course materials on Multivariable Calculus along with other Calculus courses: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:19

3

You might find Paul's notes to be a helpful resource, which is organized and certainly has a few practice problems

answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:19

Ben Grossmann

225,327

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:57

2

There is an online course at coursera right now about multivariable calculus, you should check it out: https://www.coursera.org/course/m2o2c2

answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:57

CooT

21

Hi, course creator here. Thanks for promoting it!
You might enjoy the Calculus 1 and 2 courses on Coursera as a refresher before this one. – Steven Gubkin Apr 13 '14 at 04:03

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:33

1

Calculus Early Transcendentals by James Stewart, I think it is one of the best books out there. Apart from Khan Academy on Youtube, you have MIT Multivariable Calculus and UCBerkely.

answered Apr 12 '14 at 22:33

The very fluffy Panda

2,284

Find a link for the book by James Stewart, don't know if it is legally uploaded- http://www.cengagebrain.com/content/stewart97815_0538497815_01.01_toc.pdf – The very fluffy Panda Apr 12 '14 at 22:35
Also check out- http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/322892/calculus-book-recommendations-for-complete-beginner – The very fluffy Panda Apr 12 '14 at 22:43

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 13 '14 at 08:06

0

You may find J. M. Cargal's list of Books in the Mathematical Sciences useful, especially the sections on calculus and multivariable calculus.

answered Apr 13 '14 at 08:06

J W

2,184

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 22 '14 at 15:07

0

I would watch some videos from Denis Auroux's open courseware lectures from MIT open courseware on YouTube.com just to get an idea. Also, looking at Paul's Online Notes are a great source for brush up material.

answered Apr 22 '14 at 15:07

King Squirrel

2,607

Jumping back into Calculus III

6 Answers6