[ianai]

True, but linear algebra being the crux of so many disciplines the linear algebra course should be especially emphasized and clear. It's not the place to throw random hurdles. It's the place to get this information into the students' brains 100% so they can leverage that knowledge correctly later. More of a foundational course in that sense. Like if you were pushing out liberal arts majors without any grammar courses.

Edit-

Now, the course says it's for students considering a major in STEM. I wonder if the business side of the college means to say: "Students who got into Princeton ostensibly to study some area outside of STEM but who are now thinking of going into STEM. They may take this course then add to our STEM student roster by switching majors and we don't want that for business reasons. So here's a course that will push back all but the students who have a good case to be in STEM."

[ghaff]

>Like if you were pushing out liberal arts majors without any grammar courses.

I would expect very few liberal arts majors (who aren't majoring in linguistics) would take a grammar course.

Linear algebra is actually sort of interesting. Before computers were commonplace I'm not sure how widely taught linear algebra was. I certainly never took it but was admittedly not a CS/EE major. I do remember a robotics course I took in grad school that involved doing these ugly matrix operations by hand. (No Matlab.)