TAKE CALC 2 OVER SUMMER!!! Honestly, I took this subject over the 2025 summer term, and I had the best lecturer ever: Dr Binzhou Xia. He was such a good explainer and really took his time walking us through the techniques to solve the questions. If you do end up taking this subject over summer, I'd suggest it be your only subject because you have to learn 12 weeks of content in half the time. FYI, you're not allowed a calculator, so if you took A-level Maths, it does take a minute to adjust to using a unit circle for the first time, but my tutor took time out of the first tutorial to help everyone who hadn't been taught any assumed knowledge. The summer term layout is 6 lectures and 2 tutorials a week. You do a week's worth of content in one day (Wednesday and Friday, when I took it). You have a morning lecture, a noon lecture, and an afternoon lecture, then a practical. I have to stress this: you CANNOT afford to be behind if you take Calc2 over summer. It is very easy to get left behind, and it's not the same as being behind during the normal semester- you will be WEEKS behind. Assessment-wise wise it was also so tame. We just had 3-4 written assignments, which were not bad at all, as well as a written mid-semester test, which was okay. AND ofc the 3-hour exam. Exams will always be exams, but honestly, he does sometimes drop exactly what's going to appear in the exam lol. I ended up with an H1 and a very strong desire to take another math subject over summer :)

While I really can’t relate to those with crazy 90+ grades, I still managed to get an H1 in this subject because it generally relies on solving all the practice problems that they provide you with. Considering I’m a bioscience major as well, I’ve heard of so much criticism against math subjects’ difficulty, but honestly, they were amongst the best taught at uni. Biology students are just biased because they have a certain unjustified aversion to maths in general. Don’t believe anyone who tells you something is a “WAM destroyer”, because there’s no one formula that works for all. As long as you put in the effort, you’ll reap the rewards (usually). Besides, I ironically got lower scores for some biology subjects more relevant to my major, so I have very strong objections to those rumours against math subjects.

Calculus 2 is a deep dive into advanced calculus concepts, providing essential mathematical tools for anyone in Data Science, Engineering, or related disciplines. The subject covers topics like sequences and series, multivariable calculus, and differential equations. The lectures were clear and well-structured, with a balance of theory and application. Tutorials and workshops were invaluable for solidifying understanding, especially when tackling challenging problem sets. Assignments and tests were designed to push students' understanding and problem-solving abilities. While the subject can be challenging, consistent effort, active participation, and regular practice made it highly rewarding. I achieved an H1 (97) in Calc 2, and I attribute this to diligent practice, reviewing lecture materials thoroughly, and working through additional problems. This subject is rigorous but equips students with critical skills that are highly applicable across many fields.

This subject is a breeze, I did minimal study for this subject, barely did any of the exercise questions and watched every lecture at 2x speed, still ended up with a H1.

I can't believe I am saying this but I enjoyed Calculus 2 and even way more than linear. I failed initially because I did not put in the time and effort. I did it for the second time and just practiced more and just kept up. Truly found it interesting and just makes me feel challenged. It is not too hard to understand and the ed discussion board was helpful when I got stuck with questions. The subject is just overall well organized and the tutors were great. I went from a 20+ grade fail to a H1 I recommend this! Also, I did this over the summer with another class.

Imperfect, but probably the subject I enjoyed most this semester. The content builds closely on material taught in VCE, and if there's anything you didn't nail down during spesh (or Calc 1) you'll have a chance to refine it when applied again here. My main grievance was that it felt like a very rote subject, which came down to the fact the subject is pretty much purely computational. Some of the assignment questions required some creativity, but on the whole I felt as though questions were quite repetitive. Derivations were discussed where convenient, but typically in brief. Of course, this was the scope of the subject and if you're ultimately interested in the subject for application's sake, they execute it well and you are well supported. I was lucky to have a knowledgeable tutor, and the rest of the teaching staff are happy to provide support. The subject is well organised, and communication between staff and students is active. One aspect I enjoyed was that at the end of the tutorial handouts each week, there would often be attached a sort of 'extension' question which introduced you to further concepts. These questions invited you to develop ideas about the methods you were practising and the objects you were manipulating. If you're keen to learn about the mathematics itself, however, I would urge you toward the advanced version of the subject, which apparently emphasises the aspects I found most wanting.

A good subject! The professor who runs the subject is great and explains things really well. I found that the lectures were a perfect length and went through a digestible amount of content. That being said, as there are three lectures per week, I would advise you to keep on top of them and don't let them pile. The pracs were pretty chill -- you just do questions in groups on interactive whiteboards. The exam was quite long and difficult but fair. If you come from a spesh background then a lot builds on that knowledge.

tl;dr - good subject, challenging but rewarding, do the work and try to enjoy learning the new concepts (+ why they are useful) and it will most likely pay off. This is a really good subject. Do not be afraid of it or dissuaded by past student's comments as to its difficulty. If you work hard by doing all the tutorial sheets and problem booklet (imo most useful tool) a H1 is achievable. I didn't do specialist or higher level maths in high school but was able to achieve a H1 (82) with some consistent work and by showing interest (doing MAST10005 definitely gives an idea to the pace of learning - but MAST10006 is notably more difficult obviously). Get help when you need it in consults as the tutors are often sitting in zoom rooms alone and very helpful. Past exams are good to do but I would not recommend focusing too much on the hard questions - learn how the questions are written and how you can extend/apply your understanding to more difficult questions. All of the exams have some really tough questions on them. The exam is never going to be easy - it is going to have some very difficult questions on it to separate 90s from 80s from 70s, etc,... One thing I would recommend is get good at algebraic manipulations and calculations with annoying numbers. The exam questions will never have nice numbers to work with and it is important that stupid mistakes are not coming from getting addition/subtraction incorrect. Assignments are weekly but I think they are relatively straightforwards and you should be able to get full marks if you review tutorial questions carefully and are rigorous in your solutions. I personally think that the problem booklet is the most useful tool at your disposal - it exposes you to a wide range of question types and also gives you repetition. Topics such as trig/hyperbolic substitutions are invariable on exams but require particular methods/workings. Use of the discussion boards will help to get an understanding of what some full solutions may look like (only answers are provided with many questions stating "explanation required, etc..").

This subject was difficult but also great fun! I would strongly recommend anyone interested in maths to do it.

Can be very hard if you don't adjust to university level maths quickly, but overall it is a very interesting and rewarding subject. Trithang is an excellent lecturer and there are a ton of resources given to students to excel. Standard subject where you are given partially filled lecture notes to fill in as you watch the lectures, and you are given a problem booklet to do problems after watching lectures.