College Admissions Essay: What I Learned In High School

The second semester of this course made me question my passion for math. I understood concepts and the curriculum but I would never do well in the practice AP Tests my teacher gave us weekly. The tests would be curved tremendously and the grades I received were a lie. 9/45 does not equal a 70%. I felt true resentment.

Furthermore, I realized that this semester was going to be particularly challenging because of the Pre-calculus and Calculus hybrid course I had enrolled in; math has not always been my best subject and taking a fast-tracked math course was sure to be disastrous. Nevertheless, I was determined to make A’s in all my classes. After the first week of classes, I could already feel myself becoming overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to do in such a short amount of time. Not to mention, how disappointed I felt in myself when I received my first quiz grade for my pre-calculus class, I had bombed the quiz terribly by making a 65.

After all, math was one of my best subjects. I had never really had an experience where I just couldn't understand the concept of a math problem, of how it was solved and why. Our teachers has warned us back in elementary school, that one day we would hit an invisible wall and not ease through classes. That one day we would struggle with understanding a problem, a concept or even a subject. I had never believed them, thinking this would never happen to me, that I could somehow avoid this wall of confusion and just walk right through. But there I was, utterly confused and frustrated at a simple problem that everyone else could solve. Why was I not seeing it? Why couldn't I understand the solution? I asked myself. For the first time in my life I really struggled to get an A in a class. I had my sister tutor me almost every day, preparing for a quiz and then the next, and the next. I came in to my teacher for lunch and he helped me step by step. I studied for tests, and worked hard. And my work payed off. I got a high A in the course, and a lot of experience from it. It taught me how to work hard for something, to earn a good grade when you deserve it, and it gave me the skills I needed to get As in the high school classes I am taking this

During my second semester at Southwest Mississippi Community College, I had finally gotten comfortable at the school: I had made friends, and I was doing well in all of my classes. Well, all except for college algebra. I have never been good at algebra; this class was no exception. I tried my very best to understand the material, but my mind just could not comprehend much of the material that we covered in class. Because of my own inability to understand the material, I never finished any of my homework, and I did not do well on any of the tests that I had taken. I had later come to realize that my inability to understand the material was not the fault of anyone but myself.

I have excelled tremendously in math my entire life and have always been placed in the highest group of math students. After passing the AP exam for Calculus AB, I imagined my AP Physics class would be a breeze, these expectation quickly fell apart after my first week in

During my second year in a high school, I made the foolish the decision to take three Advanced Placement courses despite my counselor's warning; only three other students my age chose this course of action, yet I was guileless, headstrong, and ready to move into the fray. The three classes were Advanced Placement Biology, Chemistry, and World History combined with a rigorous cross country eight-mile cross-country run, and a demanding pre-calculus class. I went into AP Chemistry not knowing a thing about chemistry. I remember feeling a sense of insecurity around my peers, who were far more intelligent than I. As I sat listlessly in my one-armed desk chair, I could not grasp the words coming out of the instructor's mouth, vocabularies such as

This is why there are Honors, Curriculum I and Curriculum II classes for different people. I would consider myself to be pretty good in math, but once I was placed in the most basic math class. Guess what? I was bored to death, already knowing how to solve quadratic formulas but having to redo 3x4 and 5x2 and watching my neighbor complain about how challenging it is to calculate 3x2 is very, very, insanely “exciting” I’d say, if you know what I mean. Although I’ve got 100%’s on every single thing, I wasn’t learning anything, not even if Descartes had yellow teeth or not! (How would you learn about that Descartes guy if you were asleep most of the time?) Likewise, if I were to be placed in the most rigorous class (probably Senior Honors), I’d be dying! I’d be stressing out every single moment, and there won’t be any time or state of mind for learning anything once again, and I still wouldn’t know the color of Descartes’ teeth! Guys, this is very

Growing up, I was always one of those students who never got anything less than an A. From proudly receiving stickers and praise notes in elementary school to non-stop studying for an algebra test, I’ve always expected an A on my assignments. But then came junior year of high school. I had signed up for one of my school’s most demanding courses, AP Calculus AB. On the first day of class, the teacher explained the depth of the material we would be learning, telling us that it would cover a wide range of math, and showed us a brief introduction to it. He also mentioned that it was a course where we would have to take time and learn the material on our own. Having gotten straight A’s since the day I started attending school, I had no worries towards these statements.

When I entered college, I chose to re-take Pre-Calculus. At the time, I knew I would have to take Calculus to later take a Calculus-based Physics class. Unfortunately, I fell very behind on my homework and thus could not keep up with

I had always had a bittersweet relationship with math. In middle school, I was put in math classes that were advanced for people in my grade. Although I enjoyed the subject and did well initially, I eventually began to struggle. I wish I could say that my failure in my Math Analysis class came as a surprise to me, the A student who would have gone to any tutoring center and after school study group if aware. However, I had been receiving C's in math for some time and told myself that with an extra hour of studying and some optimism, I could magically jump to an A.

For the past three years of my high school career, and now my fourth, I have made it an obligation to continually expand my horizons in regards to math; when I cannot fully grasp an idea or concept, rather than giving up, I relentlessly pursue the idea until it is understood. During freshman year, math did not come easily to me. I was forced to go in early some days because, simply, I did not comprehend the concepts. However, taking initiative with my school work, and constantly working through problems that were difficult can be deemed one of the best decisions I have made. Although my final grade may not have been an

In junior High School, things started to turn around for me. Although I was still placed in lower level classes, I developed a love for learning. In the years to come from Junior High to High School, I had a strong urge to make up for lost time. One class I started to excel in was the one I used to have the most trouble with, Mathematics. It seemed as though the once boring and complex equations now seemed meaningful and simple. As I progressed into 8th grade, I was able to advance to normal classes. I felt that the hard work I put in was finally paying of. At this point, I felt that I could handle a higher level. At the end of 8th grade, I took the necessary procedures and tests to try and get into honor - level courses in 9th grade. After taking a summer course of Algebra 1 and several tests I was able to succeed and take the classes. The experience was great. I felt that I was finally going the right direction

Many dreams start with cliché stories. As the judge of my essay, you have read hundreds of them, and you probably enjoy them and at one point you become weary of them.

It all started in sophomore year when I was assigned to an Algebra 2 & Trigonometry class. Each year my math course was getting harder and harder to deal with. Algebra 2/Trigonometry was a math course I couldn’t understand. Mathematics isn’t my best subject and even though I get good grades I expect more from myself. I tried almost everything from studying old Barron’s Regents books to going to Khan Academy, an online website that helps students or even teachers strengthened their weakness in any subject. I can officially say my biggest setback was failing the Algebra 2/Trigonometry Regents twice back to back. The first time I took the regent I knew I wasn’t ready for it. I doubted myself because I had absolutely no clue how to solve algebraic equations and trigonometric functions. The only reason I took the exam was that my teachers told me to try it. I like to go by the saying “You never know unless you try.” So I said to myself “why not” and then I went into the examination room and took the test. Even though I passed my geometry class, I still failed the exam, which made it challenging for me because I couldn't take over the class again to get extra help.

Throughout the term I had always felt like I was recieving all of the neccesary information, I just could never seem to be able to fill all of the holes to problems. Either slight deviations of problems that I didn’t devote enough of my time to, or some sort of algebraic notation that I wasn’t familiar with yet. Whenever I did run into failures I covered my last few steps and made sure I was capable of the past information but everything would just continue to race past me and hop onto new things. None of the paces I was set on in high school could even be compared to how fast we were moving at PSU. I was intaking ten fold the information than I ever had in my entire life, and was quite dazed doing so. It seemed as if almost every quiz felt like another slap in the face that I had to continue to shake off. Nevertheless, I continued to press on as hard as I could and spent hours on end, every day, in order to cover as much of my Calculus curriculum as possible. At some points I began to experience an unshakable sort of worry in the back of my head that urged me into doing math for days straight, to the point that I felt like all I ever was doing was math, even with my other schooling. No matter my continuos studying, my grade was scheming more and more towards absolute failing.