sounds like a bad idea to me. In my experience (Cal I, II, III, Diff, Eq.) you need the rhythm and structure of actually attending a math class to really understand it and succeed therein.

Online classes inevitably turn into a handful of cramming and testing, and you won't have real access to the professor online.

Good luck either way.

Also, check with your school to see if they even accept the online class or any class for that matter. Make sure the credits from the class you choose will carry over for your pre-req. I also agree with GtHtAu as well. Unless you have a real knack for math, you'll probably want to be able to consult your prof if you have problems.

I took Statics and Strength of Materials online (not specifically math, I know, but semi-related), and boy, was that a disaster. Every week, we were supposed to read the lecture notes (copied verbatim from the text book), read the text book, and do the exercises at the end of each chapter. That was it. If I didn't understand something in the book, the lecture notes were no help because they merely repeated the same sample problems. The online prof was inaccessible, and I ended up relying on a friend's boyfriend to explain things to me. My grade was fine in the end, but I didn't think I learned as much as I could have/should have in an actual classroom.

So, if you have to do it, I would find a well-established distance learning program. I did some humanities courses (philosophy, writing) through Indiana University and was really pleased. You could check out their web page http://iuonline.iu.edu . I don't really know if they're the best, just that I had good luck with them.

A friend of mine had great success with a distance learning calculus course from Indiana State ...

i'm taking one through berkeley right now... i've been slacking off, but shoudl be able to finish inh reasonable time. it's tough not having a professor to teach things in person, but the professor in this program has deveolped a pretty good method of working online. the format for berkeley is 12 sections, each covering ~1 chapter in the text (stewarts), with a final test at the end. email me if you'd like a pdf of the book.

http://learn.berkeley.edu/index.html is their website. you have 6 months to complete the course, and they recommend having at least 4 months to complete it.

remedios, I'll be a bad girl here and suggest this:

First, make sure your program will accept an online course from a specific institution, as Hasselhoff suggested.

Then make sure you know exactly what math class you need, don't take a harder one than necessary for your degree program. My undergrad, for example, didn't require calculus, just trigonometry.

Then, take one online and skate thorugh with a pass, not worrying too much about excessive comprehenison, because unless you have absoutely no understanding of basic geometry you won't need advanced math to be an architect. (I know, everyone, I know, this sounds sacriligeous: I usually am all for a comprehensive understanding of what it is we do as architects but let's face it most of us rarely use calculus or even trig in our day to day work.)

Your structures classes in the program will teach you what you need to know, and you can take a refresher course when you are ready to sit for the exam. In fact one of the big engineering firms in Philly used to offer a free weekly structures refresher seminar specifically for interns - refreshing our memories of static loading diagrams, etc.

This is my personal opinion, shaped by the fact that I suck at math. If you enjoy math, great, take a class and dig in. But if you are dreading it, just pick your battles: slide trhough an online course and get on with your architectural education.

Flay me everyone, but I'm going with this advice.

sure thing.agree with lb. if you know how to add, subtract, divide and multiple and have good instinct of proportional relationship among the numbers, you are set. some of that calculus shows up much later in the form of several questions in licensing exams.
most math involved in architecture is around proportional relationships. don't make a major issue. you will survive it.

LB who did you have for Structures at UOF....must have been the same character I had. I can honestly say I didn't learn alot from him.
Most of that education came from the school of hard knocks.

Uof A you mean snooker? I had a practicing engineer whose name I can't recall and a fellow named Kip. Kip was his nickname, I think his real name was Edward or something. We all got a laugh out of his nickname being Kip because we had to of course calculate kips/foot on a beam etc. So we all drew these diagrams of a little profile view of the professor along a beam - 6 professors = 6kips/lf etc.

Yeah - I didn't learn much, but took a refresher course, studied the ALS books, and passed the exam.

Honestly I think a course about the concepts of structures: understanding materials properties, learning empirically how a beam will deflect or a connection might be subject to torsion - would be so much more valuable than learning the dry calculations the structural engineer does. Just my opinion.

Back to our regularly scheduled thread re: online math courses.

I totally agree with LB on getting the basic requirements covered as simply as possible.

Have a think about it though, in Fractal mathematics are the patterns of life, calculus, differentials, statistics, fluid dynamics whatever, they are all representations of the world. I find the forms of botany and zoology fascinating, and they are easy to mimic, however the value of that mimicry is only realised when the underlying mathematics is correct.

kip that was a character in liberty bell's favorite movie, the english patient!!!

how many kips?



i use basic trig functions pretty often it seems.

Shit. My disastrously uninformative structures professor was also named Kip. And it was a nickname, possibly self-imposed.

So I took liberty bell's advise- a 2 credit distance trig class via Indiana University is mad cheap, short, and fullfills the requirement. the problem is, I've gotta get started pronto if I want to finish before school starts, and it looks like my text book won't get here for another week (or two!). Does anybody have or know of digital copy of the book "Trigonometry. Seventh edition" by Margaret L. Lial, John Hornsby, and David I. Schneider.??? ISBN: 0-321-05759-7.

soh cah toa

it's really all you need to know

wow, i still remember that.

-b, - b, plus or minus, the square root of, b squared minus 4ac, b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a, all over 2a.

i don't know what that gets you, but the song stuck.

i have to take calculus and am interested in an online course. indiana doesnt seem to have one, and berkeley's costs $750. any other ideas?