Differntiaal equations: Math Requirement

[barcamdphd21]

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I was going through the Washington University of St Louis pre-med requirement and I read that they require a year of calculus trough integral and differential equations. Now, I have credit for Cal I and Cal II and I was planning to take a stat class. Do i need to take a Differential equations class ? From what I know, Differential equations is a complete different class from Cal II.
Thanks for the help

 

[michigator04]

You are fine. They want two semesters of calculus, one of which can be substituted with stats. I emailed them about the same issue earlier this fall, since I have taken Calc I+II, and they said that is good enough. Hope that helps.

 

[Isoprop]

from website http://medschool.wustl.edu/stm/generalinfo.html

Required course work includes a minimum of one year in biological science, general or inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and calculus through integral and differential equations. However, statistics can be substituted for one semester of calculus and one semester of biochemistry can be substituted for one semester of organic chemistry.

 

[thoffen]

I think the line is just very poorly worded. They probably mean differentiation (finding derivatives), which is wholly different than differential equations!

 

[barcamdphd21]

thanks for the help guys

 

[nabeel76]

I agree the wording is confusing. I think however, that they are trying to say that you need a year of the following coursework x,y,z, math - in which the year of math can consist of any of the following, calculus through differential equations.

 

[Blade28]

I think the line is just very poorly worded. They probably mean differentiation (finding derivatives), which is wholly different than differential equations!

Yeah, huge difference! Derivatives = most basic calculus (even in advanced pre-calc). Differential equations are a little tougher. 🙂

 

[luv2sd]

Don't even think about taking differential equation unless you are planning on majoring in math or applying to HST program at Harvard. As far as I know, you need to take differential equation prior to matriculation for the HST program.

Anyway, I think that math gets "slightly" easier after calculus 3. 3 semesters of calculus basically give you the basic tools to play with and upper level math classes teach you how to use them in many different ways most of which are useless in real life.

I kinda regret taking upper level math classes now. I took them for fun but I could've taken more biology or chemistry classes instead. Afterall, I'm a physiology major...

 

[Food]

I dont know what kind of math classes you took, but Calc 3 / Diff. Eq are probably the easiest. After that, I really dont know what math class is easy. There's a class I'm taking right now which is a pre-cursor to Linear Algebra and it's a sort of proofs and logic class, and it probably requires me to think more than any of the calcs. And Linear algebra through advanced calculus and abstract algebra are probably some of the most difficult classes offered at any campus.

 

[luv2sd]

I dont know what kind of math classes you took, but Calc 3 / Diff. Eq are probably the easiest. After that, I really dont know what math class is easy. There's a class I'm taking right now which is a pre-cursor to Linear Algebra and it's a sort of proofs and logic class, and it probably requires me to think more than any of the calcs. And Linear algebra through advanced calculus and abstract algebra are probably some of the most difficult classes offered at any campus.

I've taken both linear algebra and DiffEQ. Both are easier than Calculus 3 in my opinion. linear algebra and DiffEQ are harder conceptually but Calculus 3 has so many theorems and equations that are not used in other fields of mathematics and it makes you memorize a lot of stuff such as rectangular, polar, and spherical coordinate conversion formulae, recognizing and DRAWING shapes of 3D graphs and finding/switching their limits respect to different orders of xyz, etc...

 

[AnesthesiaMD]

Math sucks. I'm not half bad at it, but damn, I really don't care about graph theory and what one can do with integration, differentiation, trig identities etc...zzzz...

 

[luv2sd]

Math sucks. I'm not half bad at it, but damn, I really don't care about graph theory and what one can do with integration, differentiation, trig identities etc...zzzz...

you can't understand the world without vectors 🙄

 

[chr123]

The real diff eq class (not differential calculus) was a very frustrating class. You spend all semester learning how to solve different classes of Diff Eqs, then at the end, learn that you could have used laplace transforms for it all, then you finally realize that the only way to solve any differential equation that isn't contrived for the text book requires a computer to chew on a numerical solution for a while.