I Believe in the Chain Rule! by Michael

I Believe in the Chain Rule! by Michael - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

There is no sight like the one I saw in my first day of Calculus my junior year in high school. The whole class sat down, scared of the dreadful calculus that was to come. Mrs. Underwood, the teacher, was just standing in the front of the class with the slightest of grins on her face. She knew the type of torture we were going to go through over the next semester, and it seemed like she enjoyed that. Without any further warning, she starts screaming, "I believe in the chain rule!" No one knew what was going on, what that meant, or even if it had anything to do with calculus, but from that point on, I knew I was going to enjoy this class solely because of Mrs. Underwood.

After a couple weeks of the class, the hardest one I have ever taken I mind you, I went in after school to get some one-on-one help because I had been gone from school quite often because of golf. I sat down and explained my ordeal with her, and instead of helping me with math, we just talked. Talked about everything you could think of. Talked about how her and my father went to college together, how she had my older sister in class (and how much smarter I was than her *wink wink*), all the sports she used to play in her hometown in Arkansas, even what career I wanted to pursue later in life. From this conversation, I realized just how much of a genius Mrs. Underwood was; she was writing calculator programs for NASA and moonlights as a Texas Instruments liaison to our local Staples. The fact that she was incredibly smart was not what sparked something in me, but the fact that she was a 4-sport athlete jolted my interests. I always had been one of the "smart kids" and had kept my 4.0, but at the same time I played many different sports and was embarrassed of my academic accomplishments. If you thought I was going to gloat to the whole basketball team that I just placed 5th at the district math competition then you, my friend, are wrong. Mrs. Underwood taught me that it was okay to be the smart kid; that being smart and open, not cocky, about it will get you farther in life than throwing a big orange ball in to a basket. She taught me that having a solid base education in all the four core subjects is more important than being able to hit a golf ball farther than everyone else. No matter what you think you can do outside of the classroom, your education will always be a benefit to you.