Calculus I is the gateway to every quantitative degree in Florida and, by a wide margin, the course that decides whether students continue in them. The statewide description is recent and specific: students develop problem-solving skills, critical thinking, computational proficiency and contextual fluency through limits, derivatives, and definite and indefinite integrals of functions of one variable — algebraic, exponential, logarithmic and trigonometric — and their applications.
It is carried by 39 Florida public institutions. ⚠ The credit value is not settled: 31 carry it at 4 credits and 16 at 5 — see Offering Notes, because it affects your degree audit.
⚠⚠ The statewide title carries the (GE CORE) marker.
The calculus sequence is not a destination; it is the gate on most quantitative degrees in Florida. It is named on the Mechanical Engineer path in this repository and is required by every engineering discipline, physics, chemistry, computer science, economics, statistics and actuarial work. More students leave engineering over this sequence than over anything in the major, which is the honest reason to take it seriously early.
The statewide title carries the (GE CORE) marker, identifying a course on Florida’s limited General Education Core list (s. 1007.25, F.S.). A core course satisfies its general-education subject area at every Florida public college and university and carries that status in transfer — stronger than the ordinary “guaranteed transfer to an institution offering the same course” promise.
This is the most important thing on this page, and it is in the state’s own words. The SCNS record for the calculus sequence carries one shared topic list across MAC2311, MAC2312 and MAC2313 — the descriptions for the second and third courses are identical — and it ends:
“The above topics apply to the entire Calculus with Analytic Geometry sequence. The order of topics may vary in the total Calculus with Analytic Geometry sequence. Therefore, transferability is guaranteed only if the entire sequence has been completed.”
⚠⚠ Note what that excludes. The same record’s transferability field reads “guaranteed transfer to institution offering same course” — but the prose says the guarantee attaches to the completed sequence, because institutions order the topics differently. Transferring after Calculus I or Calculus II is exactly the case the guarantee does not cover, and it is a very common thing to do.
What to do about it: if you expect to transfer mid-sequence, finish the sequence at one institution where you can. Where you cannot, take the syllabus and a topic list to the receiving department before you enrol in the next course, and get the placement in writing. A student who has done series but not multivariable material, or the reverse, is the case this warning exists for.
Florida requires designated mathematics coursework for a degree (Rule 6A-10.030). ⚠ A grade of C or higher is required for a Gordon Rule course to count — a C-minus does not, which is stricter than passing and catches people out. The designation is made by the institution rather than by the number, so check your own institution’s list.
SCNS records what a dual-enrolled high-school student earns, and across this gateway it runs opposite to expectation. The recently revised General Education Core entries — Calculus I, Physics with Calculus I, General Chemistry I, Composition I, Statistics, Anatomy and Physiology I — all record ELECTIVE high-school credit. Their unrevised second halves — Calculus II and III, Physics II, Anatomy and Physiology II — record MATHEMATICS or SCIENCE.
So the first course of the sequence, the one most likely taken in high school, carries the weaker high-school credit. The college credit is unaffected either way. ⚠ If you are relying on this to fill a high-school graduation requirement, confirm it with your counsellor and your district articulation agreement first.
Thirty-one institutions award 4 credits and sixteen award 5. The state’s own record says “credits: 4-5 semester hours”. The five-credit versions generally carry extra scheduled contact time rather than extra content. Check the number your degree audit expects — in tightly budgeted majors a one-credit difference surfaces late, at the final audit.
Generated September 17, 2026 · Updated September 17, 2026