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My daughter is pursuing her Chemical Eng. degree and her first semester she struggled with Calculus. Her instructor's heavy accent was not the only issue, the huge size of her class prevented her from any personal instruction, the assistants were only interested in spending time with the 'pretty' girls, the study groups were only interested in their own homework issues and the math labs where no different.

Sounds familiar. I think part of this is affirmative action in Universities, hiring foreigners to look "diverse."

Tell your daughter I found Calc 1 to be the hardest of the calculus courses, because you have to learn an entirely new way of looking at math. Tell her if she keeps with it, in a few semesters after Calc 3 she'll be able to take Differential Equations, which is by far the funnest math course.

Also, if she's looking for an elective, Statistical Theory is really cool, and nothing like intro Stats courses.

"Sounds familiar. I think part of this is affirmative action in Universities, hiring foreigners to look "diverse."

Funny side note... The mother of my daughter is of Greek origin and was born in Alexandria, Egypt. I told my daughter, who happens to be as white as a sheet of paper, to check the 'African American' box on some of her forms. She has a certified birth certificate of her mother's African birth but she has never been qualified for any affirmative action programs based on that. We both know it isn't about the facts, but the 'feelings' and 'appearance', we do it just for fun and to point out the hypocrisy in the bureaucracy... and it is fun.