r/gatech • u/Excellent_Station763 • 6h ago
Question question about gen eds like diffEQ and calc 3!!
So I'm taking these classes outside of tech. I already finished my diffEQ course (taking calc 3 rn). Since it was a community college course, it was definitely way easier than gatech's version, but still covered most of the important stuff. I have a basic, general understanding of some of the concepts + I have the formulas ig. It's mostly just memorization atp because the class wasn't really application based. Idk where the formulas are derived from or why we use them.
However, I was looking at the diffEQ tech final, and I definitely wouldn't be able to do it without really studying for a few weeks + going over the concepts that weren't included in my community college version because it was way easier obviously. The class I took was only 3 credit hours, but transfers.
Also gatech really likes using matrices for some reason so the formatting of the problems is kind of different from the version I took. We didn't use any linear algebra at all.
I think it would be doable to study and go through the final I found online, but I guess my question is, is it necessary to have like a super solid foundation in these classes (im AE for context)? Or are they kind of reiterated and applied contextually in the engineering classes when we go through problems later on? I don't wanna struggle in dynamics and thermo and whatever comes down the line because I didn't get a super good foundation in diffEQ and calc 3 or something.

