Winter Session 2026 Survey of Calculus Online Course Info - Distance Calculus

I highly recommend this course. I started the Kennedy School at Harvard with a last-minute admission, but my application required the Liberal Arts calculus course, so I had to finish the course in 3 weeks. Diane was an awesome instructor! The class was surprisingly interesting. If you need to take calculus fast, this is the program to use.

The program used gives an amazing insight into everything that's happening, that you wouldn't get in a traditional course. All of the lessons are clear and clean, and the professor is very helpful along the way. I learned a lot and am happy with taking this course

This course is amazing! I took it as a requirement for admission to an MBA program, and couldn't have been happier with the quality and rigor of the course. I previously took calculus two times (at a public high school and then a large public university commonly cited as a "public ivy"), this course was by far the best and *finally* made the concepts click. Previously I had no idea what was going on because terrible PhD students were teaching the course and saying stuff like "a derivative is the slope of a tangent line" - ??? but what does that mean ???, but the instructors in the Shorter University course explain everything in ways where it FINALLY made sense (e.g., "imagine a roller coaster hitting the top of a hill, there's a moment where it shifts momentum and you're not accelerating or decelerating, that's what a 0 rate of change is - that's when the derivative would be zero"). They explain everything in multiple ways and relate it to other concepts. It all made perfect sense when I finally had a good instructor. Really recommend this class

I will preface this review by saying that if you are looking to take the easiest course possible, cheat through it, and learn as little as possible, this is not the course for you. Below, I will provide my uncensored opinions to this course:

First, this course uses software called LiveMath. This software can be a little bit challenging to get the hang of, but once you do get the hang of it, it's super easy. Remember that for all new things, it takes a bit to get used to it. Overall, I was highly satisfied with this course. I thought that the instructions were extremely detailed, including a video and a textbook explaining every different concept. In addition, this course offered exposure to a lot of different aspects of finite math. I think that many would agree with me on the following, that, you know, when a teacher is passionate about what they are teaching, it is so much more enjoyable, and you can definitely see that in this course. This course can be challenging at times. Maybe it'll be easy for you, maybe it'll be hard, but I think it's important to remember that the things that challenge us are, you know, the things that make us learn and the things that make us better. There's also a math chat option for if you need help or if you have any questions. Overall, I would recommend this course. I actually initially went into this course looking for an easy course to just help me get the credit requirements, but it ended up being an amazing learning experience and completely shifted my perspective on math overall. And another thing that I thought was great in this course is throughout so many different lectures, the professor would explain how each different thing can be applicable in life. And I think that, you know, that is a lot of what people think about when they are learning something. They're like, will I ever use this? Do I need to learn this? And a lot of this actually is really applicable. And I think that even if, you know, you may not be doing these math equations in your future, I think that, you know, the psychology behind these and the rules can be applied to so many different fuacets of life.

After completing all the math offered by my highschool, I switched over to Roger Williams for Calculus II and onward. Overall, it has been a pretty great way to understand the topics online, with transferrable college credits. The exams are not terrible, and the courses cover the vast majority (if not all) of topics covered by traditional courses, with some unique ones added to. So far, I have taken four courses, with another one or two before I graduate.

The only problem with the course is the lack of pen and paper work. This shouldn't come as a crazy surprise with an online course, but there is not much emphasis on symbolic computation. Mathematica or other software does most of the heavy computation for you. The lectures usually show how to solve the problems through paper, but those skills are rarely put into practice. Literacy Sheets act as a way to do some of that (especially with the Calculus II & III course).

All in all, this isn't a huge issue. I just memorize and practice things like double integration, Laplace, ODE solving, matrix diagonalized form, row operations, etc. With a little outside work, this resolves itself. Without Roger WIlliams, I probably would not have been able to take any of these math courses in highschool.

So overall, a great choice for highschool advanced math, especially with transferrable credits.

The professor as well as the TAs give great feedback when you need help with problems and the videos are great at explaining concepts. Return time on work is good and the work is not too much to handle.