Email Mailbag

1. Another student who failed precalc and who plans to take calculus. Wants to know who he should talk to in order to have the prerequisite waived. Um, that would be me. Unless the reason that you failed was because you were kidnapped by pirates, it's unlikely that you can convince me that you should take a harder course than the one you just failed.


2. Yet another student who failed precalc and who plans to take calculus. Explains that he has already taken pre-calc the maximum number of times (after a certain point, you aren't allowed to retake a course). (You may think that this situation sounds familiar? Yes, it's true: this is not the first student that I've dealt with in this situation.) Since calculus is required for his major, would it be OK if he just went ahead and signed up for calculus?


3. A new problem! Something novel! A student in my spring class is going to miss the first two weeks of the semester for something unrelated to school. Student wants my advice. Now, this is not the first time this student has emailed me to ask this question. The first time I suggested dropping the class; clearly that was not the answer that the student wanted to hear.