I remember having paid about $75 USD per credit for a few calculus classes that were never used in a binary world. Should have paid more so i could have learned some better calculus.
Tried it and it doesnt work.
Some people are good at learning from textbooks. Some people need to learn things a different way, needing examples and motivation for the techniques. I suspect you are the latter.
I wish I had to the time rant about education, but I simply don't have the time to do so. I will say this. When I fail at something, failing has a different effect on me - I suspect that failure has the opposite affect than you - I refuse to give up, even if it takes me the rest of my life to get it. So, you tried learning Calculus some time ago, failed, and you gave up?
I tell my students that maybe the most important word in any competitors vocabulary is,
Perseverance. I defined this for my daughter long ago as, "when we keep going even if we don't want to or think we can't."
The key to learning is to take a systematic approach, and then practice with lots of repetition. Figure out where you are failing, go back and fill that hole (probably trig or "pre-calculus"), then take the course again. Do this ten times if need be, and
THEN tell me you didn't learn Calculus.
"Do or do not. There is no try"