College Mathematics vs. College Algebra?

Definitely the College Mathematics class. It may also be called Liberal Arts Math or Nature of Math. It’s usually designed for the liberal arts major, while College Algebra may be the equivalent of the Pre-Calc that you came close to failing in h.s. Most likely it’s geared toward those who plan to take calculus & the engineering students at the community college. It’s generally a nightmare for summer school.

In fact, any math class is intensive in the summer with it moving twice as fast as the regular semester. It’s not recommended for those who plan to take other courses or plan to work in the summer or those who have children or hope to have any kind of life in the summer. When I think of comparing the two, College Algebra would be far worse of a nightmare, while College Mathematics might even be a little fun.

Mainly, the goal of these liberal arts math classes is to give you an overview of the field of math & what math majors do, at least on a surface level. To get a university degree & to be an educated person, you’re supposed to have a universal experience of the knowledge of the world in terms of exposure. You go over to the English dept. & get literature appreciation. In the art dept., you get art appreciation in an art history course. So, this would be your math appreciation course. (I know. Groan!) Some math teachers have even called it the poetry of math. Some give lots of math games, which unfortunately aren’t always appreciated by the liberal arts students. They also give some concrete chapters in a book, which gives some hope & reassurance to the liberal arts students. Some instructors have been known to assign research projects, group work, & even essay exams for the final. (Don’t count on it, though.) It’s supposed to be fun. At least if you’re lucky, you’ll have a fun teacher & tutorial services.

The other goal of any college math course is to promote the ability to do logical thinking skills. That is itself is something to ponder, as I have many times. Sometimes I’ve even observed it happening. I’ll let you mull over that one, the same as I do.

There may be a chapters on formal logic, set theory, probability with fun things like dice & gambling, genetics with Mendel’s experiments on sweet peas & insight into genetic diseases, statistics, geometry, finance, including compound interest, financing a house, & planning retirement, & so on. At least the finance part is very useful. There may be such things as the artist Escher or the Mayan number system & so on. It’s also good for those who plan to be teachers. Some of it may seem completely new, but they try to make it possible for the liberal arts student. One book has a couple of pages in each chapter highlighting the history & even ancient cultures.

At the same time, I would never tell a student that a college math class was going to be easy because in general, it’s not. Use the time between spring & summer previewing the book. Read examples & try working as much as you can. Given what you’ve told us, it might be financially worthwhile to hire a private tutor to help you get a head start. You’ll probably need a graphing calculator, but that might depend on the instructor. The good news is that you’re used to going for help when you need it & don’t feel shy about doing that. So, with a lot of extra work, you should do just fine. Just keep a tally of your study hours so you’ll get twice as many hours as usual in order to compensate for moving twice as fast. Also, get the book in advance so you’ll be off to a running start.

If you see an old edition of a Nature of Math book, especially a fun one with Alice in Wonderland on the front cover, on a sale table at your college bookstore for a couple of dollars with a student solution manual, too, definitely buy those as extra textbooks that you can start looking over during your winter break & other vacations. When you get your own textbook for the course, be sure to look for one of those student solution manuals as well. They’re generally well worth the money.

The other thing to look at is whether you’re positive that you don’t need to take statistics for your major. I’m assuming that you’ve asked, so be sure that you have. Statistics is also a very good course, but it’s definitely a whole lot of work. It helps us understand all of the medical & nutritional research & how they decide such things as whether butter is better & similar studies as well as surveys. So, if you have a unit on that in your liberal arts College Mathematics course, it should give you a little insight on how they determine all that stuff (& change their minds the very next year.)

I hope you do take the college math class. Most of all, though, I hope it’s lots of fun for you.

College math. Easy.