Calculus? sounds like math ...

When I was in school, at first math was boring. Later, it became difficult but interesting.

Our local west German school system allowed for selection and deselection of certain classes (Note: deselection possibilities have since then been restricted, even before the Pisa report about below-average German pupils was published). So when I examined my timetable, my marks throughout the years (declining math marks), and the selection rules, I discovered that if I keep physics and biology classes, I can deselect math, thus raising my mark average and reducing homework. Of course I did it.

Luckily, later at the university I took classes in statistics and the like, topics that I should have learned in school years ago, but somehow hadn't. Nowadays I sometimes wish I had learned even more math, maybe it would make me a better programmer.