Is the title of a course capitalized if it has no specific name?

Question

Do the names of classes remain without capitalization if they are the simple names of subjects and not specific course titles?

The example that I am looking at is:

"She asked a question in calculus, but her teacher provided no assistance."

I understand that calculus as a subject is not capitalized, but does its status as a class change that?

I do realize that this could be considered a duplicate, but after extensive searching, the only answers I could find were the courses with numbers (e.g. History 101), and I was not sure if the subject name alone would ever be capitalized. The second part of the answer I received was what I was looking for and could not find elsewhere. — MonkeyManiac, Oct 10 '19 at 22:40

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '19 at 22:17

The name of a class is capitalized when you're using it as the name of a class. If the name of a class is a common word or phrase, when you're using it to refer to something other than the class, it would not be capitalized.

Examples:

I stopped studying math after high school. I got as far as calculus.

Professor Leibniz teaches Calculus I, Calculus II and Discrete Mathematics.

American history is my favorite subject.

American History, with Professor Clarke, is my favorite class.

Note: these kinds of sentences can be ambiguous when spoken, but when written, the capitalization can make the meaning clear.

I hate multivariate statistics (the subject)

I hate Multivariate Statistics (a specific class)

Is the title of a course capitalized if it has no specific name?

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