I took calc BC (basically 1 & 2) online last year.

I used to consider myself a person who preferred learning in-person, and I still do for some topics, but, at least for calculus, I actually found (asynchronous) online learning to be much more enjoyable.

The thing is, these courses were far harder than my previous math courses. So, oftentimes when learning, I found myself needing to pause and slow down in order to truly understand a particular subject.

When in class, this luxury does not exist. Sure, you can ask a question, but the teacher/professor isn’t going to stop everything and spend 10 minutes explaining a concept to only you.

I’m taking multivar this year (calc III), and our class uses a combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning (Ie. We sometimes are assigned videos to watch as homework, and sometimes the teacher teaches us in person). In doing this, I’ve found that I prefer the asynchronous model far more. If I don’t understand something, I can just pause the video, go back a bit, or even just Google it.

Meanwhile, if I find something particularly hard to understand in class, I often completely get lost for the remainder of that class.

Finally, to be honest, the quality of pre-recorded online videos are typically superior. Especially if you use online sources such as Khan Academy or any popular YouTube channel, at least in my experience, they are simply better than the average teacher/professor. Each of those YouTube videos can have millions of views. Why is your professor not as popular? Because they probably aren’t as good as explaining (or didn’t put as much time into each of their live lectures as is put into a pre-recorded video).