Why I chose to take Calc III as a freshman

It’s a valid question. Personally, math is far from being my favorite subject. In fact, it’s pretty far down the list — so I do suppose it’s weird that I’m taking two math classes my first semester at Hopkins.

The simplest answer is that almost all my high school friends who took BC Calculus are taking Calculus III at their respective colleges so I decided to copy them, and the class Intro to Probability has “420” in the class number...

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. The number caught my eye, and probability happened to be the one topic in math I actually understood on some instinctual level in high school. My academic advisor actually highly suggested that I not take Probability, but so far, Calc III has been the real killer here. If Probability is a 400-level course, Calc III feels like a 4000-level one. It’s actually astonishing to me that it’s only a 200-level course. It’s also worth only four credits and yet the homework takes up more time than the rest of my classes combined.

Let’s see — it’s a math class, but some of the homework exercises are paragraphs long and confusingly worded to the point where my professor even apologized for the latest non-textbook homework exercise she assigned. Even Probability homework problems, which often require a few sentences to set up various scenarios, are still short and to the point. Being a prospective International Studies major, I’ve had to do my fair share of reading in social studies classes each week, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

But see, math is like a foreign language, and you don’t just read paragraphs in a foreign language class without consulting the dictionary every sentence. And unlike normal foreign languages, definitions for math terms only serve to confuse you further.

I definitely understood what a derivative was better before I was taught the formal definition. All the Calc III lectures teach me are how theorems came to be, but I only care about what they do for my homework. (Maybe it all comes down to the fact that I’m not really for the “spirit of discovery” that Hopkins was founded on. Oops.)

I practically live in the Calc or Probability TA’s offices and Math Help Room to the point where I should really be paying housing towards Krieger and Whitehead, not Wolman — much like how other Hopkins students’ dorms are in Brody or Eisenhower. Ironically, I’ve actually been late to some of my Calc lectures or section meetings because I’ve been at the Math Help Room instead.

(“Why were you late to the Calc lecture?”

“I was in the Math Help Room.”

“Oh, okay. Wait, what?”)

I would even argue that it’s potentially more helpful to stay there instead of attending class anyway. Having the one-on-one attention prevents me from just dozing off at any second.

After all, you can’t just fall asleep when there’s someone watching you doing math. That’s scary. But when I’m at a Remsen lecture hall, I close my eyes for what seems like a second and — BAM! — I open my eyes and I’m three chalkboards behind in my notes. In my haste, I know I’ve been copying down some things wrong.

So I’m probably going to be spending even more time at the Math Help Room now. After all, I’m in a bit of a triggy (heh) situation: both the Calc III and Probability midterms are on Oct. 7. I guess you could say I’ll have plenty more math problems to come.