Math Autobiography

My “ah-ha” moment in mathematics happened to me while I was in college. But before I can get into this moment, I must share a little background information about my math experiences in high school and elementary school. Now, when I was in elementary, I was not the brightest of kids. I had to go to tutoring and speech therapy. Although I studied and tried really hard to get good grades, I struggled in almost all of my classes. It seemed like nothing I would do would help.

Now, although I was not that bright in elementary school, I found myself slowly getting better at school—and math in particular—with age. Even though I did not take advanced math courses in high school, I found myself getting good grades in math, without even trying that much, and getting praised by my math teachers. I thought this was kind of funny because in elementary school I worked really hard and struggled to maintain even a passing grade in math, but in high school I studied less and found it a bit easy to get good grades in math. (The high school and elementary schools I attended were pretty good schools, so the quality in

When I began taking Essential Elements in Mathematics I, I was quite nervous because everyone I knew, who had taken the course previously, was telling me how hard it was going to be. I kept thinking back to my days in elementary school and wondering, Am I going to be able to pass these classes? Luckily, I had grown up quite a bit since elementary school, and I was a bit better at mathematics than before. I mean, I did have to study like everyone else for these classes, but it was not as daunting as I thought it was going to be. Before I knew it, I found myself tutoring some of my peers for this class. It was then when I had my “ah-ha” moment. I realized that I was not as slow as I previously thought myself to be and that I was quite good at math (to an