What IS the best way to study Calculus (independently) ? Flashcards? Review tons of examples? Read from the book? Anyone know some good tools?

1. Memorize the important facts so they become second nature to you: things like the definition of the derivative, derivatives of products and quotients, derivatives of x^n, sin and cosine, the chain rule. And know the basic trig identities inside and out: formulas for sin(2x), cos(2x), sin(a+b) and cosine (a+b) come up all the time. So does fundamental algebra stuff like conic sections.

2. Then practice, practice, practice. Do tons of examples.

The best way depends on how you learn best. Having a knowledgeable person explain and to talk through your solutions with can help those who like to hear information.

If you are a visual learner, Mathematica is a wonderful tool for students of Calculus to be able to plot functions and their derivatives and integrals. It will also show you ways of doing problems which may give insights.

I'd also suggest though, that you can only learn by solving the problems yourself - it's in the work that the learning occurs, and new brain connections are made.

If you can, find calculus problems related to other interests you have, i.e. rates of change of vehicle trajectories if you are mechanically minded, abstract proofs if you are an abstract thinker, economics problems in optimisation if you are interested in the money system etc.

Good luck.