Yea I took all of those math classes. For most programming you will never need to use calculus. HOWEVER...
Calculus teaches you how to think. I look at it as a way to supplement your logical and problem solving skills. As there's the "Calculus theory" part which is extremely simple once you "get it", and the problem solving part that lots of people fail because it requires Algebra/Trig/a bit of Geometry to do well in. It really is butt easy to explain rate of change to a 3rd grader (that's how I introduce it). Cal 2 is the most difficult, and then Cal 3 is easier than 1 since you know everything and you are just doing it on multiple variables now.
Linear algebra IS important. Very, very important. If you want to do anything in regards to optimization you will need to know it. Luckily, imo, its also fun. I used to do a lot of this stuff in Excel.
Discrete math is probably the most valuable as it deals with sets and probability . If the program is for real, they'll probably give you some programming problems to do on collections, arrays, and matrices. If the teacher is dope you may even get into game playing, betting, stuff like that. As an aside, I find that some people who struggle with the algebra/trig types of math are extremely good at discrete math. They are very different for sure and if you are into stuff like card games, dominoes, games of chance -> discrete math is going to make sense very quickly for you.In fact I'd say if you are good at discrete math your chances at being a good developer are high. I'm not in the field and thus no expert, but I remember everyone who was good in these classes could basically understand programming problems well because they were able to separate the items from the actions needed to be implemented on them. Which almost maps to abstracting the implementation of an algorithm being separate from the data structures needed to support it.
I left CS the start of my senior year, and some of the classes were meh. But honestly - a CS degree is amazing for understanding how lots of things work. Even learning basic game theories in my AI classes was a huge help as I used to play lots of games for $$ back then. And you can ask others in here that are in the related fields, but imo, Computer Science stuff is basically just showing you how we developed computers to do stuff your brain already does. Stuff like sorting, searching, heuristics, software engineering -> just abstracts of what your mind already does. And I think once you "get" this, you realize CS is indeed lots of theory, but stuff that isn't ridiculously difficult to understand (at the undergraduate level anyway). Once you learn how to think like a programmer, solve problems, and implement different methods with a basic understanding of some of the theories behind it, you are good to go. No one is expecting you to create a 5th dimensional Turing machine, but they do expect you to understand A* search. And if you can do that, you won't be worried about learning a new programming language because you already know the logic behind what you need to implement. You're just picking up different lego blocks.
why not just quit?
