Reading for the Calculated Win by Kaylin

Reading for the Calculated Win by Kaylin - June 2024 Scholarship Essay

I hid behind the couch, frightened, but, risking a peek over the edge to see if the scary part of the show I was watching with my older siblings was over yet, and slowly abandoned my hiding spot to rejoin them on the couch as the conflict came to resolution. Little did I know that the titular disposition of this character would be descriptive of me in the coming years. The scary show in question: Curious George.
Despite the effect that a children’s tv show had on me I continued to love stories and the wealth of information they offered, and became a full blown bookworm in my tween years, reading about everything from gymnastics to horseback riding. However, as I got older, unfortunately I read less overall. Much of this could be attributed to the busyness of high school. As I said before, I am inherently curious and that meant that I joined just about everything I could fit into my schedule, including the advanced math track. Like many others, math has always been my least favorite subject, but I was one of the ‘smart’ kids and there were no other advanced offerings at my school, so it seemed like the logical choice. Fast forward to my junior year where that put me in the brand new AP Precalculus course, which I felt generally unqualified for and was not very excited about. Around the same time, I read Calculated by Nova McBee because it sounded like a fun, action-filled novel of international proportions, but what I discovered as I read this book for entertainment, was an appreciation for math.
By being inside the thoughts of the math prodigy main character, I came to appreciate math as a way of understanding the patterns and designs in the world around us. This led to a shift in mindset from learning sinusoidal functions for a test or grade, to learning because I wanted to understand another piece of how the world works, which in turn gave me more patience and motivation in class. As to whether or not this led to traditional academic success, we will have to wait until the AP scores are released in July, but, although I have not suddenly become a math prodigy, my personal, long held love of books changed my disposition towards math, which counts as academic success in my book, along with the 'A' that I got in the class.