The Birth of The Math Bean

After rejecting the veterinarian idea, I started to consider different careers that I might enjoy. I pondered the subjects in school that really interest me and make sense to me for the most part. I’ve always looked forward to going to math class each day because my favorite part about math is that there is only one answer. The feeling I get when I reach that final answer after much work is grand. It’s a feeling of great accomplishment.
The bad aspect about math and me is that at first when I am trying to understand a new math concept, I get frustrated because I usually can’t figure it out right away. After much practice, though, I know the concept quite well. If one practices the wrong way, it will continue to be wrong. Practice makes permanent. Also, I feel that I am not advanced enough in the math area to go on and study it in college for a future career. Many of my fellow schoolmates are way farther along in math than I am like AP calculus and such. That kind of drains my spirits because I am “behind” but I have a theory.
My theory is about AP courses and math in general. I feel that college courses are meant to be taken in college for the most part, not high school. I personally think that one must get the basics down of a particular subject (especially math) to be able to understand the entirety of further learning. In addition, to back up my theory, I once talked to the head math professor (Dr. Lynn Olson) at the college I am planning on going to and he said that pre-calculus (which is the course I’m taking now) is perfectly fine for entering college as a math major.
I was pretty sure that I wanted to pursue a career in mathematics in the future but just to make sure, I went to the Cedar Valley Science Symposium at Wartburg College in January 2010. There, I took part in a workshop on Graph Theory with Dr. Lynn Olson. The class very interesting and like all other math, I didn’t catch on right away but it eventually made sense. Dr. Olson definitely made mathematics entertaining. Unlike the year before with I went to the symposium, this time I felt surer about my decision.
So, now I am planning on going to Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa to study mathematics and to hopefully become a mathematician someday. When I tell people that I want to study math, the first thing they ask is if I want to be a math teacher. No. At this point, I don’t want to teach it. I would rather apply math concepts to the real world.
In the end, I decided that I can always volunteer doing something that helps animals like at the human society. Doing something related to math is harder to volunteer with and I find the particular subject to be rather intriguing. I want to be The Math Bean.