The Lack of Preparation of Students that Enter Engineering Courses in Brazil

Engineering course starts with the basic disciplines: mathematics, physics, programming and chemistry. Many students have difficulties in Engineering due these basics disciplines. From all these disciplines, mathematics is the one that requires most years of preparation before the student enter the university, and Calculus I is usually the biggest barrier to these students. In Brazil, the most important high education system are the public universities, with the federal universities and technological institutes as the main system that covers the entire country with at least one unity in each of the twenty-six states. They are public institutions that provide undergraduate and graduate courses, and are some of most prestigious institutions in the country. In junior and high school, the system that provides education are provided by state and municipality, they offer public schools, but the families that can afford a private school pay these schools to their sons have a better education. To enter the university, the students compete in a national test, where the content of the junior and high school is tested, and the students from private schools have better results in this test. The students with higher results enter the federal institutions of high education. When the students enter an Engineering course, the number of students that fail in Calculus is high, reflecting the lack of preparation during the junior and high school years. This works tries to identify the initial knowledge of Engineering students in an introductory course of Calculus, when they enter the high education, and how much their knowledge improve during this first semester, to identify the impact of high education in these students.