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@istewart@awful.systems

2026-09-17 20:21 UTC

Thanks. So far, the questions I missed on the first exam were mainly due to sign errors when calculating determinants for cross-products, so that’s a simple enough fix I suppose. I’ve seen some of the material before, as halfway through the last time I took Calc 3 was when the Covid lockdowns hit. Even though classes are back in-person, this current instructor is still presenting most of the material in static notes and lecture videos online, so it’s still a tough adaptation for me. We’re using the James Stewart text that is pretty common everywhere, though thankfully the instructor has set it up so I don’t have to pay for ebook access yet again. I picked up the famous Spivak text a few years ago, and am only just now working up the courage to crack it open. I’ve had a few years’ gap in between classes, so reviewing the earlier material with more proofs involved is probably a worthwhile exercise in any event. I’m given to understand that particular text is something of an on-ramp to real analysis. I’ve been considering trying for a math minor once I transfer for engineering, and it seems like real and/or numerical analysis would be two of the prime upper-division classes for that.

Replies (1)

  • @blakestacey@awful.systems 2026-09-17 22:12

    Real analysis is definitely the kind of course that can benefit from an on-ramp. It’s often a student’s first encounter with proofs that involve a lot of machinery: theorem after theorem of epsilon-delta business to establish something that you didn’t doubt in the first place. I think it’s easy to get lost in the details there, particularly if care isn’t taken to explain what confusions these methods were devised to avoid.

    Open ##4741510