> I laughed, and said that such a course should be named "Pretend to Learn Calculus".

Was that based on actual knowledge of the course content?

I read the course description, although that wasn't necessary. The title gave the game away.

It's like "Flight School for Artists". There's no such thing.

And yet people don’t feel the same way about “Calculus for Engineers” despite it also being a ridiculously dumbed down course full of rote memorization of formulas, “procedures,” and “strategies” with the bare minimum of hand-wavy theory. Compared to the courses for maths students it’s just as much pretending to learn calculus.

dae STEM has got to be one of the most exhausting memes on the internet. Hell, I’m 3/4 of the letters and even I find this aspect of our culture insufferable.

Knowing the theorems behind calculus is difficult. But they don’t magically make you able to solve limits, integrals, etc. So having different courses that focus on different parts is smart.

E.g., there can be a course on compilers that teaches automata theory. There can also be a course that just jumps in and codes a compiler. Both courses teach different, but valuable skills. Now, having a course “Compiler for Artists” where you’re taught such useful gems as “a compiler translates between human-level languages and machine code,” not so much.

FWIW, I feel the same way about "Calculus for Engineers". Even though I'm an engineer. It just screams "dumbed down". I want the real thing.

I don't think that's fair. I can't say anything about Calculus for Artists, but Calculus for engineers won't be dumbed down. It will be focused more on the practice of using calculus to solve real-world problems, while a 'regular' Calculus course will be focused more on the development of theory, proofs, etc.

Both have their place.

I've seen the real world result of dumbed down math for engineers - applying the wrong formula for the task, inability to adapt the formula to the task, and poking around in the dark because they were terrified of math. "Walter, can you go help him out" is what I'd hear.

So, yeah, in the real world, it doesn't work out so good.

I eventually learned to appreciate that Caltech never taught how to use formulas, but instead taught where the formulas came from. I recall a class on jet engines (really, an awesome class!), where the prof spent the entire lecture deriving the formula for a jet engine's performance. It was breathtaking. I knew where every term came from. I finally understood how the damned thing worked. All those other handwavy explanations mystified me.

If I was just handed the formula, it wouldn't have meant much of anything to me.

The theorems they prove in mathematician's calculus are useless for engineers, and they take time away from learning useful tricks for doing integrals, which if not that critical for a world with numerical methods, are crucial for solving problems on future tests.

An introductory math class is supposed to

- get you used to the general feel of the topic

- make you practice proving things

The specific theorems students prove are not really the point.

> The specific theorems students prove are not really the point.

Right, that's why they should skip the calculus and start students directly on Real analysis. Then they might actually have some use for what they prove in the class.

this would perhaps, idk, also explain why math for artists is also not a super rigourous nor super technical computative class.

I prefer to know where the formulas come from, to know when the formulas apply, when they don't apply, what their limits are, and how to adapt them to a specific problem.