How Important Is Calculus?

I've recently dropped Calc 1, because after studying really hard and spending ~10 hours per week with a tutor, I still wasn't passing. I will be taking an online Calculus course at a SUNY school, that is one small step above a community college over the summer. Literally the worst SUNY school in the system.

I typically like to challenge myself academically, but don't want to risk flunking Calculus, because every semester I don't pass it, my graduation date is delayed. I've also gotten A's in every Finance and Economics course I've taken thus far and don't really see how a solid understanding of Calculus is required to work in non quant related jobs.

Will this ever come back to bite me in the ass? Have you ever used anything from Calculus on the job in finance? (Quant guys obviously excluded.)

 

What do you want to do when you graduate?

We actually had a thread about this recently. I'll see if I can dig it up. My answer - you will never use calculus if as far as you get in it is Calc 1. Some of the theory might help you understand things, but that's about it.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

this is just my unprofessional opinion: I doubt you'll need calculus for your finance career. However, if I were a hiring manager, I wouldn't look too kindly on a terrible grade in Calc I. It just isn't that hard. I'm sure you're a smart guy and will get it figured out.

 

Why take it at SUNY? Just take it at a community college online, it will be cheaper and even easier. The credits will most likely transfer, just check with your registrar.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

its helpful for optimizing shit i don't see how you do well in econ without it cuz u need it for partial derivatives n sht unless u don't have a very quantitative program.

just know the first and second order conditions and ur set.

 

dude i think Calculus helped me build a framework to think of certain types of problems. honestly, even though i never use it for anything at work, i feel enlightened for taking it. at the risk of coming off as a bit snobbish, i don't know if i could respect someone intellectually if they haven't taken basic differential and integral calculus.

Money Never Sleeps? More like Money Never SUCKS amirite?!?!?!?
 
sayandarula:

dude i think Calculus helped me build a framework to think of certain types of problems. honestly, even though i never use it for anything at work, i feel enlightened for taking it. at the risk of coming off as a bit snobbish, i don't know if i could respect someone intellectually if they haven't taken basic differential and integral calculus.

Lulz, I think that attitude is taken by most anyone re: people who haven't studied their chosen field to at least some fundamental depth.

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 
seabird:
sayandarula:

dude i think Calculus helped me build a framework to think of certain types of problems. honestly, even though i never use it for anything at work, i feel enlightened for taking it. at the risk of coming off as a bit snobbish, i don't know if i could respect someone intellectually if they haven't taken basic differential and integral calculus.

Lulz, I think that attitude is taken by most anyone re: people who haven't studied their chosen field to at least some fundamental depth.

nay my friend. i work in FP&A doing dummy budgeting work. my chosen field of study was economics, not math. and frankly i don't know THAT much math beyond 2 basic calculus courses.

calculus will help you think incrementally, and forces you to conceptualize the rate at which something changes. these are surprisingly powerful frameworks for problem solving, even if you're not actually using integrals or derivatives.

Money Never Sleeps? More like Money Never SUCKS amirite?!?!?!?
 
couchy:

every econ class will use calculus, both macro and micro. Finance classes won't use as much but you do use statistics which is 100x easier to learn properly when you know calculus.

And as mentioned-- would you really trust an investment banker or portfolio manager who couldn't pass calculus?

Statistics is like 100x easier than calculus. No problems on that end. And I am passing calculus.... at a no name, online, piece of shit college, but that's obviously not going on my resume.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 
Hooked on LEAPS:

Statistics is like 100x easier than calculus. No problems on that end. And I am passing calculus.... at a no name, online, piece of shit college, but that's obviously not going on my resume.

All this means is that you've been taking watered down statistics. Even something as simple as finding the second moment of a joint density function requires multi-variable calculus.

 

I don't think anyone will care about your grade for a single course, regardless of what it is as long as your overall gpa is ok.

But as others have pointed out, there are a lot of courses that actually use calculus and honestly, calc 1 is pretty easy (sorry if I sound like a snob here, but it really is compared to 90% of math related courses you would take in college).

 
floppity:

I don't think anyone will care about your grade for a single course, regardless of what it is as long as your overall gpa is ok.

yes, this is probably true. but honestly, I would have a hard time taking a finance candidate seriously if he/she couldn't even pass Calc I. that said, unless the transcript was in front of me or I asked about Calc I grades specifically, I would have no way of knowing (especially if the overall gpa was fine)

 
duffmt6:

What do you want to do when you graduate?

We actually had a thread about this recently. I'll see if I can dig it up. My answer - you will never use calculus if as far as you get in it is Calc 1. Some of the theory might help you understand things, but that's about it.

I'm shooting for ER-->CFA-->value oriented HF. I'm really trying to avoid graduate school.

D M:

Why take it at SUNY? Just take it at a community college online, it will be cheaper and even easier. The credits will most likely transfer, just check with your registrar.

My school doesn't allow outgoing permits for community colleges.

investmentpimp:

its helpful for optimizing shit i don't see how you do well in econ without it cuz u need it for partial derivatives n sht unless u don't have a very quantitative program.

just know the first and second order conditions and ur set.

I seem to understand it whenever it is in an economic context, but have trouble almost everywhere else.

CornTrader:

No one will look at your calculus grade or where you got that grade as long as your overall GPA is solid and you have strong grades in your major. I am curious why you are struggling with calc 1 becuase its really not that hard. Could it be the teacher making the class harder than the actual material? Do you have any other options?

Calculus is notorious for sucking at my school. There is a departmental final and the Professors have no idea what is going to be on the test. If you fail the final, you automatically fail the course, even if you got an A on everything else and/or are banging the Professor. The only way to replace an F at my school is to retake it there, so I opted for a W and will be retaking it at a bullshit college. I actually did take it with a good Professor, but she had to be difficult to get people prepared for the departmental final, or I could just be talking to too many other people that have failed the course multiple times at my school and am making up excuses for my own failures.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 

I am going to also agree that it would be awfully hard to grasp and excel at any econ class that is worth a shit without knowing any calculus. Outside of intro micro and macro calculus is needed for all the econ classes, either calculus or you have the answer key to memorize.

 
couchy:

You should take Calculus 3 or multivariable calculus for the microeconomics portion of the CFA.

The CFA is really that math intensive? I only glanced over the tests at this point but the only thing I saw relating to Calculus was the chain rule, which is easy.

Edit: That's not nice. You made me very nervous just now...

http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-general-discussion/91…

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 

IMO, probability and stats becomes so much harder than calc. I'm in calc II right now and am really struggling (just trying to pass right now), and wish I could understand more math as it is really interesting to me.

That being said, I wouldn't think you'd need much calc for anything in fundamental finance.

and @couchy: Calculus 3? my school's calc is pretty easy I gather, but even here we're doing improper integrals, taylor series, methods of integration, divergence testing, etc. You really think I need to know past this level to do well on CFA level 3?

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
 
streetwannabe:

IMO, probability and stats becomes so much harder than calc. I'm in calc II right now and am really struggling (just trying to pass right now), and wish I could understand more math as it is really interesting to me.

That being said, I wouldn't think you'd need much calc for anything in fundamental finance.

and @couchy: Calculus 3? my school's calc is pretty easy I gather, but even here we're doing improper integrals, taylor series, methods of integration, divergence testing, etc. You really think I need to know past this level to do well on CFA level 3?

Most of that you won't need - but the first part of calc 3 you will need DESPERATELY. Usually students never visualize 3-diemensional and higher functions until calc 3. You can toss out the div grad curl and the stuff at the end.

The use of partial derivatives show up everywhere in micro and macro. Especially micro where you basically optimize utility, costs, profits etc using calculus. The Marshall Lerner condition, which comes up when you consider international currencies in the keynsian model, really only makes sense if you know the math.

But more importantly, it's visualizing 3d and higher that you'll need. I tutored micro this year and once I helped the students picture 3d graphs, they were able to do less math and do more intuitive thinking based on the 3d image in their head. Maybe just take an advanced intro calc class instead that talks about partials? or a Math for econ majors class?

 
streetwannabe:

IMO, probability and stats becomes so much harder than calc. I'm in calc II right now and am really struggling (just trying to pass right now), and wish I could understand more math as it is really interesting to me.

That being said, I wouldn't think you'd need much calc for anything in fundamental finance.

and @couchy: Calculus 3? my school's calc is pretty easy I gather, but even here we're doing improper integrals, taylor series, methods of integration, divergence testing, etc. You really think I need to know past this level to do well on CFA level 3?

There is no Econ section on CFA level 3. You don't need calculus for any portion of any of the CFA exams, although conceptually it may help you in certain areas. It's laughable to think you need multivariate on the CFA - most of the math is basic stats and algebra.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 
Lebron's Hairline:

This is harsh, but: if you can't even PASS calculus while getting 10 hours a week of outside tutoring, I don't know what to say. No, calc probably won't come up in finance, but this is indicative of a larger problem: You're either really lazy, or really stupid. And that's going to come up again and again throughout your working life.

Get your shit together man.

I could make a list of excuses, but fuck it. Different people are good at different things. This is a country where George W. Bush not only became President but was re-elected and in my mind, that is proof that success is in no way "indicative" of intelligence. All I want out of life is $200k+ in reoccurring annual income and a nice house on the beach in an area that doesn't suck. I have no desire to be a rocket scientist and am perfectly contempt sucking at Calculus.

Edit: Not that Obama has my endorsement or anything, but I think it is pretty obvious that GWB is the least scholastically inclined of all Presidents in recent memory.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 
Hooked on LEAPS:
Lebron's Hairline:

This is harsh, but: if you can't even PASS calculus while getting 10 hours a week of outside tutoring, I don't know what to say. No, calc probably won't come up in finance, but this is indicative of a larger problem: You're either really lazy, or really stupid. And that's going to come up again and again throughout your working life.

Get your shit together man.

I could make a list of excuses, but fuck it. Different people are good at different things. This is a country where George W. Bush not only became President but was re-elected and in my mind, that is proof that success is in no way "indicative" of intelligence. All I want out of life is $200k+ in reoccurring annual income and a nice house on the beach in an area that doesn't suck. I have no desire to be a rocket scientist and am perfectly contempt sucking at Calculus.

Edit: Not that Obama has my endorsement or anything, but I think it is pretty obvious that GWB is the least scholastically inclined of all Presidents in recent memory.

What I'm saying is that if you tried, like legitimately tried, to pass calculus and you're shitty at it, you might want to do something less quantitative. Like something that isn't finance. Because that tells me you're bad with numbers. Calc 1 isn't hard unless you're at MIT.

 

No. It certainly helps, as does a strong grasp of statistics. Even at a "quant school," you can get by with being pretty un-mathy. Just don't try to market yourself as an aspiring prop trader. I go to one such school and have classmates that were high school English teachers. That said, if you're starting in the fall, I'd strongly recommend taking a differential calc class and a stats class on Coursera or MIT OpenCourseware (free).

 
Best Response
Boothorbust:
MBAApply:

No.

You'll find that the so-called quant classes tend to be more spreadsheet intensive, so knowing how to build models in Excel is more helpful as an MBA student.

i do not think this is true at all.

At Booth perhaps, but even when I was at Wharton, it was more spreadsheet driven more than anything else (a lot of the upper level finance and operations classes were case based). I don't remember ever seeing anyone using derivatives, integrals, Taylor expansions, or Lagrange multipliers to explain anything. Even the linear programming classes were spreadsheet driven, and not really a traditional math class.

Again, if you want to seek out those hardcore classes (which frankly Booth has more of than other schools), perhaps. But schools that are more case based tend to be more spreadsheet intensive when it comes to quant/data analysis.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

I will add this. If you want to be super-quanty, Booth and Sloan will provide opportunities in spades. Many of our data mining and analytic finance classes are half MBA students and half Econ/finance/CS Ph.d's. Makes for a rough curve, but you're definitely learning the state of the art.

So, the quant school moniker really applies to the right end of the spectrum.

 

In my experience at Booth there are a good number of classes where not having a solid calculus background would handicap you significantly, but they are avoidable if you don't want to take them. I have taken more derivatives and partials in the past two years than I anticipated.

 

This may not be true for you because you are a finance major and you may have taken lots of quantitative courses and econometrics courses , but most students need either calculus or business statistics to get in. Admissions officers use these courses to measure how fluent you are in quantitative analysis. Yes, they use the GMAT quant scores more, but it is much easier to make your case for admission if you've taken one of these two courses. And done well. It assuages any worries about whether you can keep up in a very fast-moving curriculum with fast-moving students who have STEM training. Remember, you don't want to be the one holding your team back.

You will use statistics in business school and after. I have used it nearly every day of my 25+ year professional career, even when I wasn't in finance.

Betsy Massar Come see me at my Q&A thread http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/b-school-qa-w-betsy-massar-of-master-admissions Ask away!
 

Tepper asked about Stats and I think 2 Calculus courses. I didn't even take 2 calculus courses in undergrad and had a B in the one I took. However, I aced my stat courses, including some courses that incorporate stat like Marketing Research (not sure if they looked at it). So I would think at least at Tepper (a quant school) they look at stats more.

Oops, not a top 15 school. But still a quant school.

 

If you take calc I during your second semester and ace it, it shouldn't be a problem. If your considering going into finance just make sure you ace all courses that involve numbers in any way.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."
 

I attend a non-target in Florida, and have to take either business calc or calc 1 for any major in the college of business. Its fairly easy, only if it is easy for you to put the time in to learn it thoroughly.

 

I can't believe you don't know this OP, but everyone who works in investment banking knows how to solve PDEs in their head and can recite the inter-universal techmuller theory by heart. If you're going to become CEO it's a must to know how to solve the Riemann Hypothesis.

Just kidding,everything up to ODE is child's play and in most cases these things aren't really necessary to know unless you want to get into a MFe program which in that case it's still more than enough. So long story short don't listen to your math professor, but engineers/math/compsci undergrads are viewed in a good light by hiring firms.

 

if you can do well in them, you can def get into the quant market, which has better hours, deals less with clients (if thats how you want it), and is easier to find a job in (if you have the chops). For IB, it will help you stand out from a crowded field if you don't have a network or some in.

Do you go to a target?

 

You are most likely fine. Calc 1 may be a bit more rigorous but it's still plug and chug in the end. Unless you plan on taking Analysis (hint: don't) and learning why/how all these theorems actually work the way they do, there really won't be any advantage of Calc over Bus. Calc. You could go to some grad school sites and see if Calc 1 is a required class but I'm guessing if the Business Calc is the one required for your major that they don't have an extra requirement.

This to all my hatin' folks seeing me getting guac right now..
 
Cruncharoo:
You are most likely fine. Calc 1 may be a bit more rigorous but it's still plug and chug in the end. Unless you plan on taking Analysis (hint: don't) and learning why/how all these theorems actually work the way they do, there really won't be any advantage of Calc over Bus. Calc. You could go to some grad school sites and see if Calc 1 is a required class but I'm guessing if the Business Calc is the one required for your major that they don't have an extra requirement.
I was just assuming gmat score and I guess work experience would be the most important for a top grad school no? Plus is there is no calculus on the GMAT right?
Mps721
 
Cruncharoo:
Calc 1 may be a bit more rigorous but it's still plug and chug in the end. .

You didn't take a real calculus class if you consider calc 1 plug and chug, it sounds like you took pre calc.

"The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets." -John D. Rockefeller
 

Take real calculus, trust me. Your interests may change at some point and you will be happy you did. And the concepts of calculus are all over finance but whoever said calculus is "plug and chug" definitely didn't have a strong professor who emphasized calculus theory well enough.

The concepts in calculus are all over even basic finance so yes I would have to say it would be very beneficial for you to do probably calc 1,2 and calc based probability for an MsF or MBA.

 
jktecon:
The concepts in calculus are all over even basic finance

Umm, no they aren't. I took calc 1-3 in college and used literally zero of it for the 3 CFA exams and my current job (banking).

You might need it for an MSF (ask ANT), but you won't need it for your job unless you are in some sort of quant role.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

You won't ever need the deeper math for basic banking and finance jobs. That said, I think it is still a good idea to take the slightly harder course and actually get something from it. If nothing else, you will gain some problem solving skills and actually be challenged. FYI this does not apply to subjects such as english and all that fun stuff.

 

At this point I am already 3qts of the way done with this bus calc class and I am looking at an A+. It doesn't make sense now to go back take precalc and then calc 1. An extra 2 semesters I can spend double majoring or something.

Mps721
 
jktecon:
good send the resignation letter to your boss immediately. Your ignorance is in fact more harmful than you are aware.

Someone has spent too much time in the classroom and not enough in the real world.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

OP, you're overthinking this. Nobody cares about the difference between business calc and calc 1 unless you're doing things directly related to math. As far as the concepts, it's not like Business Calc isn't calculus. If you ever for some reason need to know some calculus concept in finance, it was probably taught to you in business calc in some form or another.

 

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