Course Descriptions

Area I - Communication and Mathematical Skills

Area I requirements help students enhance abilities central to academic success, including the abilities to write appropriate academic conventions and to formulate and interpret mathematical models.

Introduces students to principles of effective written communication and critical reading. Stresses invention, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment, along with effective critiquing and collaborating.

Adapts principles introduced in ENG 101 to typical university writing tasks. Stresses writing effectively within various contexts, reading critically, and using source materials effectively in argumentative and research writing. Prerequisite: Grade of C or better in ENG 101.

An application of mathematics to modeling real-world problems that combines critical thinking and mathematical skills in a way which applies to life and career. Includes such topics as financial management, quantitative and statistical reasoning, voting theory, and other topics from the behavioral and natural sciences. Prerequisite: DEV 095 or equivalent or at least level three on the math placement test.

* Substitutions: MTH 143 or MTH 228 or MTH 229 and 230 or STT 264 and 265 or STT 160.

Discovery of fundamental concepts and skills of quantitative reasoning by exploring real-world data from many disciplines. Data collection, organization, display, analysis, probability simulation, variation and sampling, and expected values. Students work with appropriate software and graphing calculators. Prerequisites: MTH 126 or MTH 127 or at least level four on the math placement test.

Functions, rates of change, limits, derivatives of algebraic functions, applications including maxima and minima, exponential and logarithmic functions, and indefinite and definite integrals with applications. Not for credit to students with credit for MTH 229 and 230. Prerequisite: MTH 128 or 129 or equivalent or at least level five on math placement test.

Conic sections, functions, limits, continuity, the derivative, derivatives of algebraic and trigonometric functions, and applications of the derivatives. Prerequisite: MTH 131 or equivalent or at least level seven on math placement test

Definite integral, antiderivatives, fundamental theorem of calculus. Derivatives of logarithmic, exponential, and inverse trigonometric functions. L’Hôpital’s rule. Integration techniques. Applications of the definite integral. Prerequisite: MTH 229.

A nontechnical introduction to fundamental ideas in statistics. Statistical ideas are introduced through examples, showing how statistics has helped solve major problems in various fields. Prerequisite: MTH 126 or 127 or equivalent or at least level four on math placement test.

Numerical and graphical methods for finding and summarizing important features of data. Principles of designing experiments for collecting data. Introduction to probability. Use of statistical computing package to apply methods and illustrate concepts. Prerequisite: MTH 126 or 127 or equivalent or at least level four on math placement test.

Confidence intervals and hypothesis testing introduction. Applications to means, proportions, two-sample comparisons, contingency tables, linear regression, and analysis of variance. Use of statistical computing package to apply methods to data sets. Prerequisite: STT 264.