The Most Applicable Brain Teaser by Kimberly

The Most Applicable Brain Teaser by Kimberly - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “calculus, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.” (Twelfth Night 3.1.33-34) Technically, Shakespeare was speaking of foolery, but I believe the gist applies to mathematics in my life. In seventh and eighth grade, my sister and I would stay late at math team meetings, sometimes by an entire hour, just to keep solving algebra problems for the fun of it. In ninth grade, I found the mechanics of math so simple that I was doodling on my paper as my classmates struggled for the entire class, so I decided to take two math courses online instead of stay in the class, just because I wanted to keep learning. It seems rather bland to imagine standing in front of a score of students as a professor, boringly bashing their ears with vocabulary they may have barely begun to recognize, plodding through derivative after derivative. Yet, my love for the methodologies of calculus makes me imagine this as anything but boring.

Now, in my senior year, I’ve finished off the calculus classes at my school and am shipping myself up to Dartmouth, 20 minutes by bus, thrice weekly to explore the world of calculus further, and I couldn’t be more excited. Calculus is my old friend, and the way it follows set guidelines, if you’re willing to put the effort into which ones it follows, can be almost poetic. I find nothing more satisfying than solving brain teasers and, to me, calculus is the most satisfying, not to mention most practical and applicable, brain teaser I’ve ever come to conquer. The ability to instill the passion I have into other people, or even just to see it in students, is what I think would be the most rewarding part of being a college mathematics professor.

I’m not sure what I want to do with my life, or even in college, but I know I’m strongly considering becoming a math major. I honestly don’t know what professions, outside of being a professor or tutor, there are for math majors, but the idea of delving deeply into mathematics excites me. Not to mention it’s far more practical than other enticing options, such as theater and photography. Math has a rhythm that I’ve always been excited to point out to my peers. In the classroom, surrounded by seniors in AP Calc last year, I was one of the first who people turned to when they wanted help on a problem, and I was always willing to give them that help. I think this would translate well to office hours as a college professor. I’m willing to sit down with people and talk all day about calculus, not just to help them learn it, but because it’s something fantastic and logical to me. I think every great professor should be passionate about what they teach, as my few excellent teachers in high school have proven to me. Furthermore, I believe math may be the only thing that I can explain simply to someone. They say you only truly know something if you can explain it simply.

For these reasons, my passion for calculus excites me to believe that I would truly enjoy being a college calculus professor, as well as the fact my grades have been very good. I’d also love to know more about calculus than my father, because that’d really be a turning point in my life. Truly, if I were to teach anything at a college or university, the probability of my choosing math as a profession would be high.