Required Skills & Materials

Occupational Math - Business
1. Course Information
Required Skills and Materials

Skills

Motivation: To successfully complete an independent study type course you must be able to motivate yourself to study. Procrastination is the single biggest reason for poor performance in these courses. If you stick with this course, you will learn something more important than math. You be able to take control of your own learning.

Navigate the Internet and Web Sites: You should be able to access a web site given its web address. You should be able to explore a web site by clicking links and using the browser's forward and back buttons.

Send and Receive E-mail and Attachments: E-mail is a critical means of communicating with your instructor. You won't need to use attachments very often (maybe not at all). But, they can come in handy in case there is trouble accessing a web site. Your instructor can send critical files to you as attachments if you are having trouble accessing them through the web site. When you send a email make sure write something in the subject line. Emails without subjects are considered spam and automatically "trashed".

Download and Install Programs from the Internet: There is one program that must be loaded on your computer to access necessary information. You may already have it. Adobe Acrobat Reader is used to access printable files such as the syllabus and tests. This program is available for free. Look below under the materials section for a link to this program.

Materials

Text: Occupational Math - Business, Peter C. Esser, Lulu.com Inc
Contact SWTC Bookstore for details & pricing.
Bookstore e-mail: ndevlin@swtc.edu

Scientific Calculator: Any calculator listed as a scientific calculator will work just fine. You can find them at any discount store (K-Mart, Wal-Mart, etc) from $10.00 to $15.00.

E-mail Account: E-mail is the primary means of communicating with your instructor. If you own a computer and have Internet access then you will have a e-mail account through your Internet provider. There are also a number of providers that offer free e-mail accounts. Microsoft and Yahoo are two examples.

Computer with Internet Access: The majority of the course content is in the textbook. However you need Internet access to view this web site and some course documents and evaluations.

Web Sites:
The Occupational Math Web Site (You're looking at it right now) contains the information students need to navigate through the course.

The Math/Science Resource Center a large collection of math and science materials developed by instructors at Southwest Tech including some materials that are required for this course.

Software:
Adobe Acrobat Reader - This is a program used to view "pdf" files on the Internet. Saving files in "pdf" form is a very common way of making documents available online. The syllabus, quizzes, and tests are all available in this format. You may already have this software. Click the following link: Sample PDF file. The file will appear if you have the software. If you can't access the file, click the icon below and follow the directions to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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