It was the first time I played a card game with my grand-parents, when I knew I had a liking for numbers. Since then, my love for numbers grew with every math course I took and it continues to grow even to this day. At thirteen years old, someone mentioned to me the possibility of being an Actuary. From the time I researched exactly what it was, I knew it was what I wanted to pursue. I understood that it is a difficult career path but my determination has led me to this point and hasn’t wavered since the first day. Graduate study is just another step in the career path I chose and the fact that I come a Caribbean family, where none of my immediate family has gone to grad school only motivates me even more. Currently, I am enrolled at the University
At 17 years old, I had the grueling task of deciding how I wanted to spend 40 plus years of my life. I always aspired to land a career in the medical field, so I majored in biology like most pre-med hopefuls, but during my junior year, I no longer desired to become a physician. The medical field was calling out to me, but the specialty of focus was incorrect. After graduation, I went back to the basics and put my nursing assistant certification to use.
I think it is safe to say math has always been a passion of mine. I remember learning to count to 1000 in first grade. When I was finally able to do it without any help, it was like swimming for the first time, eating the ripe tomatoes I grew myself, or putting together a new song on the guitar. The feeling of accomplishment cannot be recreated. As we get older, this feeling becomes more difficult to achieve. This only increases my motivation and determination to learn something new. AP calculus has been a roller coaster of learning. Despite the struggle and rigor, I learned valuable skills that will help me in my future aspirations. Taking the AP Calculus exam gave me a rush of accomplishment. I have built a knowledge base because I am constantly
At the age of sixteen I began working in the family business doing loss mitigation. I advanced my knowledge in the mortgage industry by working at various law firms as well as mortgage companies, building a career in loss mitigation that I knew I would have regardless of my relationships or the path that college took me. While I was taking six classes a semester at UNF and working as Warden for Alpha Chi Omega, I was also working forty hours a week to support myself financially.
In the first months of college, I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to pursue architecture, finance, or engineering; I was utterly lost, unlike many of my peers. Over the months, I pondered on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Then, I realized I was never interested in obtaining a job where I would sit at a desk and stare at some numbers on a computer screen for 9 hours every day. Through my daily routine and utilization of time, I realized I found less joy in the courses I applied least outside of the classroom, yet was intrigued that with the many hours I worked in the studio. I could work on a skill in which I could use in the career I wanted; a path in which I could leave a legacy through molding the world the way I wanted to see
I realize that there have been many things that have influenced my growth as an individual. However, because I am so often drawn to ideas in math and science, I’d have to conclude that these two fields of study pose the most compelling as far as personal development. My interest in these fields have impacted who I am today. As a younger student I did not really care much about school. In fact, my second grade teacher pronounced me a failure, but my parents believed in my strengths, and gradually school turned a corner for me. By the end of my sophomore year I had begun watching lectures of theoretical physics, and deep space astronomy from the World Science Festival. I went into my Junior year very ambitious and self motivated! My cumulative GPA within
When I was 5 my life changed completely. My sister and I were abandoned by our mother and father. I was then raised by my aunt and uncle along with my grandparents. I was taken in and loved as if I was their own. I want to show them and myself that no matter what happens in life that I can succeed and accomplish anything I set my mind to. Therefore, I am pursuing an Associates degree and the first generation in my family to go to college first generation in my family to go to college.
Ever since I was younger I was full of wonder, which could be argued that it translated to a love of math and science. As I began to mature this wonder would keep me intrigued in learning an created an excitement for school. I started my education in Houston and am excited to continue it at such a great school like Texas Tech and thanks to this scholarship that will be possible.
I did not realize I wanted to be a physician until three years ago. Once this realization occurred, I worked very hard to overcome the shortcomings in my undergraduate studies. I have maintained a job in order to pay for undergraduate and graduate coursework. This has forced me to enhance my time management and multi-tasking skills, which in turn have allowed me to be exposed to countless experiences and activities.
As I started my undergraduate journey, I never thought I would end up where I am now. When I entered college, I thought that my degree in chemistry would be a stepping-stone on the way to medical school. My one and only goal, at the start of college, was to work as hard as I could to ensure that I would one day become a doctor. However, along the way I figured out that medical school was not where my passions lie.
The benefits and opportunities to embrace engineering far outweigh the difficulties in the process, but despite this, my pure love for mathematics has been the major contributor to my ambitions. From a young age, I found math incredibly enjoyable. The order and consistency found through something as simple as the order of operations served as a driving force to my curiosity and dedication to the subject. As the mathematical concepts intensified, I was able to adequately keep up and enjoy the journey along the way. While signing up for my senior year classes, the decision to take calculus was made easily. While speaking with the instructor, Yvonne Sebastian, I discovered that her love for math was derived from similar feelings. In an interview with Sebastian, she stated, “Math is a beautiful thing. Numbers are incredibly simple, but they can be used to calculate very complex scenarios. No matter how difficult a problem may seem, there is always a solution, an answer that can be found and understood through the power of math” (Y. Sebastian, personal communication, February 14, 2017). Interacting with a teacher who understood to a great level of degree my similar feelings regarding math has been an incredible motivator in my desire to pursue a career which incorporates mathematics frequently. For any individual to be happy with their occupation, I would argue that they must experience a desire to progress
For as long as I can remember learning has always intrigued me. I desired to be the best at learning to read in first grade, the best at learning multiplication facts in fourth grade, and the best at learning to titrate acids and bases in eleventh grade. Striving to learn the most has simply become a habit of mine. Throughout high school, my schedule was always filled with honors and AP classes allowing me to learn more and more everyday. After school and practice my nights were spent doing hours of homework to keep up my academic record. The amount of work I put in has paid off as evident by my transcript. I am ranked 6th out of a class of 296 with an over 4.0 gpa. Last year, I received a five on the AP Calculus AB exam and fours on AP Language and Composition and AP Chemistry exams making me an AP Scholar. Thankfully people were not exaggerating when they said hard work reaps rewards. My day in and day out diligence in school that stemmed from a love of learning led to my acceptance into Carnegie Mellon. The interactive intellectual environment draws me toward the prestigious school. I hope to one day graduate from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and to then begin a successful and purposeful career ignited by my
Two decades and many existential crises later, one single aspect of my life has pulled me through: that passion I experienced as a child. I have questioned the source of this motivation more than once, and have sought out to put myself in all possible situations that would predict how I would feel later in my life as a doctor to make sure this passion was not mere infatuation.
As a mathematics major, the concept that most people overlook is that I did not choose to study mathematics because I do well at it; I chose to study mathematics because it makes me smarter. In fact, all throughout junior high and high school I was in remedial mathematics classes and worse, I did not even place into a freshman year mathematics class in high school. I had to re-take 8th grade mathematics. However, something about mathematics excited me. Maybe it was the fact that mathematics never came easy to me and I wanted to prove to myself that not only could I pass mathematics classes, I could actually understand and excel at them. For me, mathematics is not about the arbitrary numbers, trivial solutions, meaningless formulas, or repetitive computation: it is about the progress of knowledge and human understanding.
I am an ambitious, creative and enthusiastic individual. Since childhood I have enjoyed maths, as it is challenging and consists mostly of problem solving. Therefore, wanting to further my career in finance and accounting. I am a sociable individual who gets on well with others. I am computer literate; therefore I am familiar with software's such as Excel and publisher, and I believe that this skill will help with my progress in accounting. I work well on my own and within a group, which makes me an ideal candidate for an accounting degree.
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