The Daily Dose: 18-Weeks of Daily Motivation for College STEM Majors

All right, kids. It’s time for day two of the Holy Bible of STEM right here. [laughter] Written by yours truly, first edition. All right. Day two. All right. All right. All right. Day two. Let’s read it. Day two. How to succeed in calculus, a practical guide.

Hey everybody, this is just a quick little lecture on how to succeed in calculus and how to study for calculus. I’m a professional private tutor for calculus and higher level math at the college level. Occasionally, I tutor high school students depending on the student and the level they are taking. AP stuff is not usually something I tutor. While it may sound like the same information, AP calculus and college calculus are very different.

If you are looking for an AP calculus tutor, find someone who specializes in high school level tutoring. A college tutor is not the right fit for AP calculus unless they are savvy with that information. I didn’t go to high school, so I don’t even know what high school AP stuff entails. I went straight to college and I understand advanced math at the college level.

I know the curriculums that college students follow and I’m an expert at helping them navigate those courses. I’m not an expert at high school material. However, if a high school student is taking an actual college course like linear algebra, vector calculus, differential equations, probability, or complex analysis, something higher, I might consider tutoring them. But it depends on the student.

Now, let me be clear. I am not a babysitter.

How to transition from pre calculus to calculus. When it comes to calculus, you are leaving pre calculus and stepping into a whole new world. So how do you study for this subject?

First of all, you’ve got to read the book. You might think you can skate by without reading it, but let me tell you that is not a good idea.

One. Prepare before the semester starts. Before the semester even begins, start educating yourself on the first two to four weeks of material. If you do not have a textbook or syllabus yet, just search for a calculus textbook online and find one. It is all the same information. Stop making excuses immediately.

Two. Stop making excuses. If you are already looking for reasons not to start, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Three. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for your own learning. You are not in high school anymore. High school, in many ways, is a glorified babysitting service where you are taught a lot of things you will never use. College is different. College is a prerequisite to employment.

Four. Take responsibility. Employers do not hire high school students because high school is just basic preparation. When you get to college, it is time to grow up. You have to think, I am an adult now. It is on me to succeed.

Imagine you are a bird being pushed out of the nest. Either you learn to fly or you get eaten by a predator. That is life. It is harsh, but it is true. We are animals living in a world where it is survival of the fittest.

I am not saying this to sound rude. I am telling you these things because I have been through them. If someone I respected, someone honest, intelligent, and not manipulative, had told me this when I was younger, my life might have been very different.

This comes from a podcast I did a couple years ago called How to Succeed in Calculus: A Practical Guide. I summarized the transcript into about a page of information for this book. The purpose is that you have something to read every day so you can get into the habit of doing something intellectual.

It is less about the content and more about building the habit of reading textbooks. The whole point of this book is to get you into textbooks and off the internet. Whether the textbook is digital or physical does not matter. The point is to get off social media platforms.

You are training to be professionals. Professionals do not become educated simply by watching videos online. This book was designed so that every day you can open it and read something meaningful.

It is similar to the math and physics materials I teach. Every day you open the book to a new problem and read it like a novel. You read it slowly and think about it.

I am showing you all the things you should know by junior year. It becomes a daily practice. You open to day one, read the daily material, then you look at a page in the crash course, then you go to the cheat sheet and review formulas.

Over a period of one or two years, if you read just a few pages a day, you can absorb an enormous amount of information that took me more than a decade to accumulate.

The message for day two is simple: prepare before the semester starts, do not make excuses, stop blaming others, and take responsibility.

Nobody can be taught. You can only choose to learn.

When you get angry at someone else, often what you are doing is trying to bury your own problems inside them. That will not help you. Responsibility means recognizing that your growth depends on the habits you build each day.

That is why the purpose of this daily reading is not only to learn mathematics but also to develop maturity, discipline, and consistency.

All right. Have a nice day. Do not forget to subscribe. If you want the book mentioned in the video, the physical copy can be mailed to you and you will also receive digital access and a lifetime code for the website while it is being built.

Check it out. Have a nice day and I will see you in the next one.