Calculus

Career Paths for Math-Lovers

• Auditor: $70,500.
• Data or Research Analyst: $83,390.
• Computer Programmer: $84,280.
• Medical Scientist: $84,810.
• Financial Analyst: $85,660.
• Statistician: $88,190.
• Actuary: $102,880.
• Economist: $104,340.

Why is precalculus hard? Precalculus, which is a combination of trigonometry and math analysis, bridges the gap to calculus, but it can feel like a potpourri of concepts at times. Students are suddenly required to memorize a lot of material as well as recall various concepts from their previous math courses.

Precalculus is a general subject that encompasses the algebra and trigonometry necessary to take calculus, so it is harder than Algebra II (as Algebra II is typically part of the precalc curriculum).

Statistics (the AP course) in my opinion is a slightly less challenging class than pre-calc. Statistics, on the other hand, has capacity to delve into very complex math requiring mathematical skills beyond what you learn in pre-calc (and often times requiring calculus at higher levels).

There is a lot of mathematical theory in statistics. In particular, probability theory, decision theory, optimization. There is a lot of computer science and numerical mathematics. In applied statistics it is usually crucial to know quite a lot about the field of application.

In general, statistics has more real-world applications than calculus, since it is a part of everyday life. Calculus is more abstract, and incorporates more spatial and visual concepts from geometry; therefore, students who did not do well in or did not particularly like geometry may not like calculus either.

Algebra concepts are much easier to grasp, Stats concepts are harder to grasp but the work itself at an INTRO level stat class will be easier as most of it is just memorizing a bunch of formulas and plugging them in. So, in terms of difficulty level, stats is obviously a notch higher than just algebra.