Old guy taught me this when I was still wet behind my ears. I use it all the time and it still amazes some guys how easy it is.
The Math and Engineering Departments filed restraining orders to prevent my walking in front of their buildings, for fear that my idiot-aura would blanch the buildings.
Ha same. I was unofficially banished from the hill after my freshman year. Didn't return til senior year when I my final Spanish class was randomly placed in Ayers. Jokes on them, I hardly ever had to climb those damn stairs(my class only got to use the pedestrian bridge one semester until they tore it down building the new UC)
I took a Calc class my freshmen year and had a guy who just left NASA. He may have been the smartest person I've ever come across, but I had no idea what in the hell he was talking about and it didn't help that I was never that interested in math. I declared my major in history pretty early and discovered that, due to my ACT math score, I didn't have to take any math courses at UT. I said thank you very much and haven't had a math class in 20 years. Otherwise, I was at UT during this period and went to this Arkansas game. Tickets for students were free, but given at random. Fortunately, I was in row 15 or so on the 40 yard line and Stoerner fumbled right in front of me. Weather was beyond awful, yet the day was still glorious. People, especially the nayasyers poo-pooing the '98, have sold this idea that we struggled with the 'Backs that day, but the Vols dominated the last three quarters. We should have won easily. Unfortunately, Fulmer's sphincter was creating diamonds, as usal, and we needed a fluky play to win. Regardless, one of the funnest games I've ever attended.
I worked with one guy at FPL, he was a substation relay guy. He was freaking sharp, all of the other regions would call him and he could troubleshoot most substations over the phone, without drawings. Smart, smart guy, probably not NASA smart, but pretty smart.
There are like 7 good calc teachers in the United States at any given time. It isn't surprising if Dooz's sucked. I had a good teacher for trig and analysis in HS. I had a mediocre HS calc teacher, and integral and differential calc teachers in college who were excellent practitioners and lousy teachers, at least in their second language. That probably isn't atypical.
As someone who holds a Math degree from UT, this topic doesn't surprise me. When I was teaching calc 2 at UF it was quite similar.
I took calculus at UT without taking it in high school. This was in 1967, and we did have a course called Senior Algebra, but it didn't seem to have much calculus. Anyway, I had some sort of Grad student for an instructor, and he may have been a math genius, but he was a dismal teacher. He would start out writing an equation on the chalkboard, and somewhere along the way he would suddenly be developing a formula to land a rocket on Gannymeade or something similar. He would finally realize what he was doing and erase it all saying "sorry your not ready for this". In the class, less than half made a C or better with just half making a D, which was my grade. I repeated it making a solid B only a couple points short of an A.
I just took the basic calc course, 129 or some such. Wasn't too far beyond what I had in HS. I made a B+. 5 more points on the final I'd have made an A. Felt like I'd just kicked a 17 yard FG
This was my experience. Being able to teach seemed like a distant concern at best. I was actually considering being a math major when I first set foot on campus.
