This past fall I had to take a differential equations course. I needed some help because I didn’t like how my own professor presented the content. It was confusing and hard to follow.
About halfway through September I took a quiz. And then I was like, “All right, I need an alternative immediately.”
That’s when I came across Jenn on a YouTube ad for Calcworkshop. After watching that first video on Calcworkshop, I liked the layout of the lecture itself so much because it was so clear and easy to follow that there was no question from that point on.
I found that I was picking up everything quicker and that makes a big difference for me. Especially with engineering, there’s not a lot of time to sit down and dwell on all these little details.
So the fact that it was coming quickly, and it was very clear, kind of had me sold after that first video.
And from that point on I kept watching every video on Calcworkshop.
Lecture Replacement
I kind of ignored my own professors lectures.
I would look at what my own course was covering. Then I would go to Calcworkshop and instead of watching my own lecture, I would watch Jenn’s lecture at the same time that I would’ve normally watched my professor’s lecture.
So I just kind of replace it.
I fit into my schedule and followed along.
Matched My Course
I found the big difference was the examples on Calcworkshop were very relevant and touched on every little subject.
So instead of five examples in one topic, but none over here. It was very diversified in a good way, which I liked.
It’s as if Jenn kind of figured out all the different types of problems you could come across and made sure to touch on all of them.
Every single lesson matched what we were doing in class. I was honestly surprised at how accurate it was, like 90% overlap.
The Overviews
But I think what made the biggest difference for me is at the start of every video, Jenn would spend a few minutes and say, “We’re gonna do this step, and this step, and this step. So then I had an idea what was coming and that made all the difference.
I think that alone really set it apart from other videos that I had come across.
What I also liked about Jenn’s course is she would stop say, “By the way, we’re using this technique. And if you don’t already know it, go back and watch this video.”
So I did that a couple times. I would go back and touch up on some previous concepts that I needed work on.
Jenn’s Delivery
I’ll just add that, I think Jenn speaks very clearly and at a good pace. I think that made it easy too. Because I have found a lot of my professors in the engineering program are not very clear with their delivery.
Like she really slowed it down, as if she was talking to a first grader, which helped a lot. Like there’s no shame in slowing it down, to help everyone understand it, right?
So that was a big difference maker!
The Visualization
Another thing I forgot about but I just remembered now was the color coordination actually goes a long way for me.
She’ll write one color say blue here and green there and then it’ll connect down to another color further in the example so you can see how the process moves along.
All those colors definitely helped me visualize what’s coming from where. I like that a lot!
I was really impressed.
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