Calculus Veda Tsoi

"Pre-calculus is much harder then calculus, and if you can make it through pre-calculus, you will breeze through calculus." This is my math teacher, Mrs. Croft's, favorite statement. Until I took calculus, I never believed her. I walked into calculus class the following year expecting grueling homework and concepts that I would never be able to grasp. Instead, I found the only math that made sense to me, both in its concepts and its applications. I learned at the beginning of the year that I did not have to immediately understand every idea presented to me. As I mastered other concepts, I saw that each new chapter built on the last one, and by doing problems in the following chapters, I would eventually learn the concepts that I had not yet fully grasped. Calculus not only appealed to me because I understood it, but also because it has many applications. I learned how to find fluid pressure exerted on a dam, and I learned how to find the pressure milk exerts on the side of a milk carton. I found how to determine a particle's velocity from its position as a function of time, and I could determine my shadow's velocity as the position of the sun changes. I learned how to calculate the rate of production and...