I was talking to a chemistry prof who was complaining that students who passed the integral calculus didn ' t understand anything , they don ' t even understand Riemann sums . The engineering department took over teaching calculus for a while then gave it back to the dept of mathematics . We teach students very reasonable things and if they master what we teach they will indeed have learned calculus but there are many obstacles . First , students who only understand half the course can pass because that ' s just how course evaluation works . Second , students cram before the exam and so get a passing grade , but they promptly forget everything as soon as they step out of the exam . Just try asking a math question to any person who has not been doing it for several months , e . g . a recent graduate . Third , we do teach the deep meaning of things in proper math classes but students in the chemistry department don ' t have the chops to do that kind of stuff .