Well I have a (white) Cal State student currently (soph—classes start today) and he’s working toward his Computer Science degree (loves to code and loves his CS classes) but is struggling with the Calculus required for the BS degree. A lot of his difficulty I think is related to “online learning” and school closures he had in high school due to the pandemic. Essentially he only really mastered through Algebra 2/Trig in high school since everything shut down . He ended up only passing PreCalc after taking it online THREE times (final time at Cal State). He has one more semester of Calc to take (might have to take it twice) and then He’s home free. Calculus is a great hurdle.
Calculus is the separator if those why can from those who can’t
Which I have used exactly zero times in my career as an economist/supply chain forecaster/senior buyer.
Even before classes went online, many college students took precalculus and calculus multiple times before passing. I had one student who aced all his math courses including Calc 1 & 2. I figured the others would do as well, but they were not as well-prepared (that’s another story). They hated those courses, dropped them, and switched majors. But, many of their friends stuck with it, taking precalculus and/or calculus twice before passing. Then, I read an article that said many students (including foreign students) take those courses multiple times before passing. Ironically, my student who did so well in calculus has never needed it for his job in a STEM field.