http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summation

here is a good list of 'identities' just to get you primed. I don't want to go too far into it if you don't need it yet. But it looks like a couple of the simpler ones may appear.

Is this calc 1? what is the last topic you will do this term?

thats weird, I didn't do any real series until calc 3....