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ODEs as taught in a first-course undergraduate course is precisely a bag of tricks.

That you will never use in real life.

The chapters are first, second, and higher order were all a bunch of useless tricks. Then they introduce you to series solutions, where it starts to feel useful, and then they hit you on the side of the head with useless transforms.

ODEs are taught the way they are taught out of tradition, a bad tradition.

Those useless transforms (are you referring to Laplace and friends?) are pretty useful in EE.

Yep, the transforms and series solutions are actually the most important part of ODEs, not just in EE but also in PDEs.

All fair criticisms, but I was recollecting on reading Boyce & DiPrima where the Laplace was relegated to IVP.

I was left with feeling that I had only learned yet another trick until I read Churchill & Brown's Complex Variables and Applications.

Indeed, and lame ones at that. I've found the qualitative theory of ODEs infinitely more interesting and useful for working with real problems.

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