College Admissions Essay: My Love With Algebra

In the passed four years I have realized my passion for learning. Though like every other high school student I love summer vacation, at end of August I am excited and ready to go back to school. I have realized the power of learning and understood that knowledge can take you where you want to go. Not only that but I understand, being a middle-class girl, how lucky I am to have the opportunity of school and the option of college. Nevertheless, it is not that easy. College is expensive where ever you go and no one has thousands of dollars lying around to pay for it all. I have been blessed to have parents who saved some money to help me get through college, yet I will still have debt. Having a passion for learning and going into a science or

Prior to Math 2414, my knowledge of mathematics consisted primarily of the math courses that I completed at Salesian High, Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, and Alvin Community College during the fall, spring and summer semesters. During my four years at Salesian High, I completed three math courses, which included Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry. My education began with Algebra I, which focused primarily on linear equations and eventually taught me the basics of solving quadratic equations. Upon completion of Algebra I, I proceeded to Geometry, which centered on the basic elements of geometry and taught me how to use the Pythagorean Theorem. The highest level math class that I completed in high school was Algebra II. The Algebra II course further

I experienced by middle and high school math classes not truly recognizing the intrinsic value of them and arrived at AP Calculus AB my junior year of high school holding the same apathy for them. The popular culture and ideology regarding mathematics is that unless a student is going to study engineering, s/he will never use trigonometry, algebra, or geometry. The actual subject matter didn’t matter, only the numerical stamp of progress and success did. I let myself get caught in that train of thinking, and quickly considered mathematics another obstacle I had to grudgingly hurdle to continue my studies.

When it comes to STEM, the things that STEMulate my mind are the things that have to do with science and math. I really like the science part of STEM because it leaves me to explore, and I get to work hands on pretty much all of the time. I like the math portion of STEM because there really isn’t a time in my math class where we stop learning, and the effect of that is that I never stop thinking and I love it when I don’t stop thinking. I honestly enjoy working with the people at my tables in math and science class to build and solve everything, it gives me a chance to learn more about them and myself. I love my team members and even though I am a little “harsh” when it comes to working on and completing projects at times, I love how much I learn from and about them, when I

Geometry and Algebra are so crucial to the development of the world it is taught to every public high school in the United States, around 14.8 million teenagers each year (National Center for Education Statistics). Mathematics is the engine powering our world; our stocks, economy, technology, and science are all based off from math. Math is our universal and definite language “I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings.” (Rene Descartes, 1637).

There are an abundant amount of subjects that peak my interests, but mathematics will always be the one subject that intellectually excites me. At times, it is able to both challenge me to the point of frustration, but it later gives me excessive excitement and happiness for overcoming the challenge. Similarly, it is like a wave flooding in shore because it is at first harsh and difficult, but it gradually smoothes and simplifies. It is a subject that I can fully interact and manipulate it to the best possible way of understanding it, which I fondly love because I learn better hands-on. However, it was truly benevolent instructors, who increased my love in math and enlighten a new way of

I have always considered myself a mathematician; however, that did not keep this subject from being difficult. Math has a glorious way of growing you up. For me, it began in the first grade where I was introduced to the multiplication table; my instructor used to test us with mental exams and I remember enjoying it like I was playing a game and winning.

I loathe math. Numbers are extraordinarily dull. They don't have any depth. In high school, math felt irrelevant. When am I going to need logarithms? When am I going to say to myself “I sure am glad that I had to memorize the unit circle, I use that so often”? But as much as I detest numbers, they explain who we are. Numbers can’t lie, so who better to tell us who we are.

Math is all around us. Everywhere you go there is some sort of math involved consciously or subconsciously. Even though math is all around us, and everything we do involves math, I myself must say I dislike math. Research has shown there are many more people that dislike math compared to those who do like it. A survey done by a nonprofit organization named Change the Equation asked 1,000 middle school kids in 2010 whether they would prefer to eat broccoli or do one math problem, surprisingly more than half answered they would eat broccoli. Throughout the years, there have been many different strategies created on how to introduce and/or teach math to children.

Math is a subject that I have struggled with for a very long time; it is something that I always set aside. Math is something that I never saw myself using in my future and I thought if I put it off it would just disappear. When I came to the University I had to take Math 100 and Math SAX, which, unfortunately set me back on finishing math quite a bit because I did not put in the effort as much as I should have, and the amount of work they gave, was quite an overload. I took those courses twice and was still not put into a Math course at the University. That is when I started to push math away, but I have realized I cannot put it off and math is definitely important and we do need to know the subject no matter where we go in life or regardless

Since elementary school, I have always found myself fully engaged in math classes. In third grade, I began to speed up my education by completing two courses in one year. I repeated this in fourth grade to get even further ahead of my classmates. Due to my passion for math, I continued to pursue the subject throughout middle school and ended up at the very top of my class in math upon graduation. I also continued along this path in high school and by my senior year I will have taken every math course that has ever been offered to me. I enjoy the subject because it fosters inventiveness and challenges me to find new ways to solve problems. Math has allowed me to think in a logical manner in all situations and is the reason for my success in

Throughout all my years of education in elementary, math was the subject I hated the most, but now that I got older I realized that this subject has started to grow on me. Not until like about the 7th grade was it that I realized that math is really useful in life and I also realized that I wasn’t bad at math. The reason math interests me is because I like a challenge, if I don’t understand an equation I try to find out the steps myself and try to break down the steps in the equation in order to comprehend the problems. By doing this I ended up improving my analyzing skills. Because of my interest in math I gained an interest in the field of engineering. I looked further into the field of engineering by shadowing a mechanical engineer. I reached

As a child, math has been one of my greatest interests. As a freshman, I took Algebra 2 which is still, till this day, one of my favorite classes to be enrolled in. While taking this class, I learned how much someone can do with math and all of the possibilities with different formulas and values. This year, I am enrolled in math analysis and trigonometry. With this class being more challenging than Algebra 2 I am able to differentiate the different types of math I can use in my current school

Luckily, I had a class that I used to relieve all my stress in, Algebra 1. I didn’t need to know English to understand numbers. Math has been my favorite subject since forever and that time was not the exception. I understood every single problem the teacher explained from the first example. I was really into that class that one day the teacher noticed that I had potential. So after a month or so he recommended me to take Algebra 2 instead. I decided to give it a try.

Mathematics, like every creation of man, have evolved without really knowing how far you can get with them: the scope of the computer, physics, chemistry, algebra, all are evidence of this. Every aspect of our culture is based in some way or another in Mathematics: language, music, dance, art, sculpture, architecture, biology, daily life. All these areas of measurements and calculations are accurate. Even in nature, everything follows a precise pattern and a precise order: a flower, a shell, a butterfly, day and night, the seasons. All this makes mathematics essential for human life and they can not be limited only to a matter within the school curriculum; here lies the importance of teaching math in a pleasure, enjoyable and understandable way. Mathematics is an aid to the development of the child and should be seen as an aid to life and not as an obstacle in their lifes.