This week in AP Calc was about completing the fourth chapter. This added some, what seemed like, practical applications for calculus. Minimizing and maximizing seem like skills that could be very useful in the future. The ability to take one objects volume and maximize it inside of another volume definently would be useful in the future of engineering.
The hardest part about calculus is keeping all of the rules straight. Understanding the rules is not something that requires a lot of brainpower, remembering the rules and when you should use them. Once you understand how the derivative relates to the actual, function, the only issue is that you have the right derivative.
I've found that as long as I do not forget the base rules when working on a difficult problem it is easy to get the correct answer. For example, turning that picture over there into a box with certain sizes would be easy if I could keep all of the x's and y's straight.