CU Boulder APPM 1360: Calculus 2 for Engineers
APPM 1360 continues the engineering calculus sequence: integration techniques and applications, improper integrals, and infinite series through Taylor's theorem. CU Boulder engineering students widely consider it the harder half of the first-year pair.
Fennie is independent and not affiliated with University of Colorado Boulder. This is an unofficial study guide.
What makes it hard
Two separate walls: integration technique selection is a pattern-recognition skill that only volume builds, and the series unit is conceptually unlike everything before it, demanding convergence reasoning instead of computation. Students who scraped through 1350 on shaky fundamentals usually meet the harder wall here at full engineering pace.
What you'll cover
- • Techniques of integration
- • Applications of the definite integral
- • Improper integrals
- • Sequences and series
- • Convergence tests
- • Taylor's theorem and power series
The APPM 1360 study guide
How to study for CU Boulder APPM 1360, step by step.
- 1
Do mixed integral sets from the first week
Knowing whether an integral wants substitution, parts, or partial fractions is APPM 1360's first exam skill. Topic-sorted homework can't build it; only large volumes of mixed practice can.
- 2
Keep differentiation and algebra warm
Integration punishes weak APPM 1350 skills twice as hard. A short weekly refresher on derivatives and algebraic manipulation stops old gaps from resurfacing inside new problems.
- 3
Start the series unit before the course does
Convergence reasoning is a conceptual leap that needs more sittings than computation ever did. Read ahead before the unit opens. At engineering pace, learning it in real time is the standard way students drown.
- 4
Build a convergence-test decision chart
One page: each test, its conditions, the series shapes it handles. Practice classifying series rapidly with the chart, then without; exams grade the choice of test as much as the execution.
- 5
Simulate the timed exams before each one
Mixed integrals plus series questions under real time limits, no notes. The curved common exams are built to break untimed-homework confidence, so rehearse the actual event.
Today
Today's APPM 1360 plan
What a Fennie Daily Plan looks like for APPM 1360. Yours is built from your own syllabus and adapts every day to your deadlines and progress.
First plan free, no card required. Fennie is independent and unaffiliated with your school.
FAQ
Is APPM 1360 harder than APPM 1350?
Most CU Boulder engineering students say yes. Technique selection requires volume-built pattern recognition, and the series unit is a conceptual leap that catches even students who handled 1350 comfortably, all at the same compressed pace.
How do I study for APPM 1360 exams?
Large mixed integral sets so technique choice becomes automatic, plus a convergence-test decision chart you practice with and then without. Then simulate the timed exam; the curve punishes accurate-but-slow as hard as wrong.
Why is the series unit in APPM 1360 so hard?
It's the first calculus topic that's more logic than computation: proving whether infinite sums converge using a toolkit of tests with specific conditions. It inverts how most students studied until now, which is why it rewards an early start.
More CU Boulder courses
APPM 1350: Calculus 1 for Engineers
APPM 1350 is the engineering college's Calculus 1, covering limits, derivatives, applications of differentiation, and intro integration. It's required for nearly every CU Boulder engineering major, and it runs faster and more applied than the MATH department's equivalent, with common exams across sections.
APPM 2360: Introduction to Differential Equations with Linear Algebra
APPM 2360 packs two subjects into one engineering requirement: ordinary differential equations and linear algebra (matrices, vector spaces, eigenvalues), converging in systems of linear differential equations. It's known for substantial MATLAB-based group projects alongside the exams.