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So much mathematical modeling is based on systems of differential equations. It's difficult to understand the conceptual approach without some basic understanding of calculus.

You CAN model predator-prey dynamics or disease spread using Monte Carlo techniques, but you can't read the historical literature without some grasp of differential equations.

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Differential equations is kind of the same situation. The important intuitions are more likely to come from repeatedly applying a function to an input and seeing where that takes the simulation, than by doing DiffEQ practice problems.

There will always be some brilliant people that breeze through a hard course, and effortlessly acquire the intuition, and then wrongly attribute their understanding to the course. That doesn't help the rest of us, who are much more likely to build intuition by guessing about the outcome of a program and then checking if we are right.

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