From Swim to Math by Quintus

From Swim to Math by Quintus - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

The idea of being a math nerd scared me when I was younger. Math nerds are losers, after all. They are the ones who go through life with no friends. They are the ones that are picked on, laughed at, bullied. I wanted to be popular; I wanted to date the pretty girl. I did not want to be Jimmy Neutron, who goes home every day and does math homework instead of hanging out with friends. Instead I wanted to be Drake, from “Drake and Josh,” and be the popular guy that everyone likes.
I tried my best to run from the label. I played baseball for five years. I tried basketball. I gave tennis a go. I began competitive swimming at the age of six. My dream was to be an Olympic gold medalist. I practiced as many as six days a week. Every weekend seemed like another swim meet in another town. Everyone at school could look at me and could immediately tell I was a swimmer. My hair was always blonde from the chlorine in the pool and I rocked a constant tan line where my goggles sat on my face. I wore Under Armour shorts, swimming t-shirts, and Nike shoes. Unless I was forced, I never wore a pair of long pants in my three years of middle school. I always figured nobody would confuse me for a math nerd if they thought I was an athlete.
As much as I tried to escape the label, I realized my true passion was math. I think I always knew, but it took me a long time to finally embrace it. When I was younger, my mom always bought me math games where I could stack cups to form different shapes or use an abacus to add numbers. I have memories of solving multiplication tables in third grade much faster than everybody else. During car rides to out-of-town swim meets, my parents would quiz me with two-digit multiplication problems and see if I could beat the calculator. I remember getting scolded by the teacher for answering too many math questions in fifth grade. Even though my body was committed to swimming, my brain was always wired for math.
No matter how much I wanted to avoid becoming the math nerd, I gave up running from it before I left middle school. I realized I can be myself with other people – even though I am the math nerd. I wasn’t bullied as much as I expected. Nobody gave me a wedgie in the hallway or shoved me inside a locker. People didn’t laugh at me, either. I realized being a math nerd did not degrade my personality. In fact, it even helped me connect with people. I learned other people respected me more than I ever thought possible.
My passion for math brought more opportunities. I made friends and earned tutoring jobs that would not have been possible otherwise. Not everyone I tutored was a poor student. Many of them are enrolled at high-level universities. Math also helped me make friends. Some people approached me with math questions; the next day they would say hi to me in the hallway or invite me to lunch. Soon enough the math nerd stereotype disappeared from my mind and it didn’t bother me anymore.
I enjoy being the math nerd. When I have free time at work, I calculate the first 100 perfect square numbers in my head. I even posed with a calculus book in my senior portrait. I used to beg my parents to take me to used book stores to buy calculus text books; now I drive myself. I spend my free time working math problems from old Mu Alpha Theta competitions. The label I once ran from no longer scares me. I now introduce myself by saying, “Hi, I’m Quin. I’m the math nerd.”