Hey Calculus Kid!

So I am supposed to write you this letter, advising you of how to handle this year of calculus. And you are supposed to expect some ingenious tidbit of advice, that will get you that A. But really, I’m not who you want to be talking to for that. You know you get the good grades? You do the good work. You take the notes, and do the homework, and ask the questions, and struggle through the tests. That’s it. That’s what this class is. You might want to complain, but it’s math. It’s not changing no matter how badly you might want it to. There will be a few ways to get that one right answer. You might hate that, but I pretty much love it. So really, my advice to you is this. Take the notes. Every single day. I don’t care how messy they are, or how unorganized. Take them on the back of your English essay. Really, I don’t care. I couldn’t tell you how many times calc notes ended up in my chemistry notebook, or on the back of a French quiz. If you like being able to know where everything is all the time, try to keep them in one place. But the most important part of this advice is the writing down. You might not understand how much writing things down help your brain comprehend them, but it does. And if you are really aiming for that A, you know, keeping that G.P.A. up there, you’re going to have to do the homework, all the time. And I’m sorry. But that’s how it is. If you don’t mind losing the homework points, I still recommend doing a few problems from the assignment; it really does help in the long run. And if you start the year doing the entire assignment, and then slack off from there, you’ll end up still doing a few problems. Which is better than starting the year doing a few problems, and end up doing none. (You can tell yourself right now, you’re not like that, that you don’t slack, but if you are a senior. Let me tell you this. You will slack. And you will try not to. And then you will slack more. Because knowing that you are almost done with high school is so much more interesting than actually being in high school. So build yourself some cushion before you get to that point).