It's True, Math is Used Everyday by Camila

It's True, Math is Used Everyday by Camila - April 2013 Scholarship Essay

Remember being taught something new in class and asking the teacher, "are we ever even going to use this in life?". It seemed to me that this questions appeared more frequently in my math class. Sure, not every lesson acquired in class was going to play a role in your career, but many of the skills learned will be put to use someday. It never bothered me though, because while others were complaining about the excessive amount of multiplication exercises we were given, I was excited to get home for the challenge.
My favorite thing about math was that there was always going to be a right answer. There could be lots of wrong answers, but there would always be a right one. In a sense, it was self rewarding. In other classes such as English, you could be asked a question that had multiple right answers. Although it's nice to have a great possibility of getting the answer right, if someone else gave a more intelligent answer, I'd find myself feeling simply silly for not thinking of the smartest answer. With math, if you knew the answer, you were "the smart kid in class". Even when I would get the wrong answer in math, the best part was to be able to backtrack and find your error. There aren't many opportunities in life to redo things, but math allowed that. 
Unlike many other subjects, you couldn't use memorization with math. If you wanted to reach a result, you have to follow a series of steps to achieve the right answer. Each step had to be completed in a certain order. I really enjoy baking, and I loved math so much because it was almost like a recipe. You were given a problem (the recipe) with factors and variables (the ingredients), and you'd have to follow each step (instructions) in a specific order to result in the correct answer (the final product). The best part about math, is that the more you practiced, the easier it got. Take division for example: at first it starts off complicated because you have to remember the order to follow, but once you've practice enough, it becomes like a recipe you've made hundreds of times, quick and easy. Just like in baking, you also have a textbook with different problems and explanations for each. 
In math, there is also a section known as "word problems". Many of my classmates would groan at the sound of those words, but I found myself getting excited. Word problems were basically riddles. They'd tease your brain but these tedious problems allowed me to build a lot of problem solving skills for the future. My favorite type of math, however, was Algebra. It dealt with many different series of events which I enjoyed a lot. It had a little bit of everything, which meant you really had to know your material. I loved algebra so much that I began tutoring it. I liked that you had to use both factoring, multiplication, and division to solve one problem. It was as if you were being ultimately challenged to see if you knew what you were talking about. The sense of accomplishment I'd get after solving a problem correctly was such a rush because it meant that I understood what I was doing and I was knowledgable for the upcoming test. 
The biggest reason math is my favorite subject, is because I find myself using it in comparing nature's beauty around us. Once I had be taught geometry, my mind would naturally find a comparison in what I had learned in math to something in nature. Take spider webs for example, although I am deathly afraid of spiders, their webs are artistic and beautiful creations that illustrate a geometric pattern. Bees also demonstrate a use of shapes and geometry. Bees use the shape of a hexagon to store honey because it uses the least amount of wax. We also use math in finding the age of a tree by counting the amount of rings it has in the core. Even we humans have mathematical principles. Our faces are symmetric when divided by an axis on the nose. Flowers and snow flakes also use symmetry. It's exciting to take something learned in math classes as simple as symmetry, and be able to use it in finding beauty in nature. 
While math may not be everyone's favorite subject, I found it to be not only my favorite, but the one I use the most outside of class. It came easy to me, and the fact that I had desire to learn more, allowed me to be successful in the class as well. Not only can I use it in my favorite activities such as baking, but I can use it in examining nature's creations. I won't apply every lesson I learned in math, but safe to say the least, math teaches us every day skills and is prominent in all aspects of life, that is why math is my favorite subject.