How I Failed in Math

Am I good in math?

Depends on who you’re asking. To my family and friends, I’m a wizard; but to my professors, I know next to nothing.

As for me, I always know that I’m good at numbers and I am fascinated with Mathematics starting at a young age. No, I’m not the studious-nerdy type of person and I don’t wear thick eyeglasses. Honestly, I rarely paid attention to my homework and I’m prone to skipping classes because as a kid, I would rather play than stay in classroom.

But I would make it up during exams. I passed. Always.

Until I reached college where I failed miserably.

_{image from pixabay}

Things changed and I began taking my studies more seriously, particularly Math, when I was chosen by my Grade 5 teacher to be one of three students who will form a team to represent our school in Math competitions. Her selection process is simple: she gave a written exam and whoever lands in top 3 makes it to the team. I am the third.

So I became part of a team that would compete for our school for the next two years. Now this teacher is very competitive and had a history of sending our school to the National Level. We are just a small public school, not even a Science school who have access to special funds and advance curriculum so for us reaching that far in Math Olympiads is a super feat!

To achieve that, we have to undergo a rigorous training which includes a lot of mental calculations. Every day, after our regular classes, we would stay in school for extra few hours for our training sessions. We would begin with flash cards to memorize multiplication and division of double digit numbers, square roots and exponents, and fractions to decimal conversions and vice versa.

After heating up, we will then proceed to solve problems individually and then together as a team. Mrs. Martin, who serves as our mentor and coach would teach us all the math tricks up her sleeve. And when I say tricks, it’s almost magical. You would never believe how this Math teachers make everything so easy. Her solution is straight-forward and “short-cut” because we need to get the correct answers to win, right?

To win in Math Olympiads, you need to answer questions as quickly as possible. In the school levels, speed is not really that necessary because usually the contest is in written exam format. But as the competition progress to division or national levels, the ability to do mental calculations is needed because you need to give your answers before the time expires, usually 30 seconds. Tougher formats requires you to press the buzzer first before you can get a chance to answer.

So speed matters and shortcut rules.

Mrs. Martin taught us all the shortcuts in solving problems that enable us to reach National Levels where we went toe-to-toe with students from mostly Chinese schools who were really Math geniuses. These are the guys who would eventually win and represent the Philippines in International competitions. We never beat them, but we are one of the few representative from our public school system that compete with these rich kids. So we must be that good.

How then did I fail?

Remember the shortcuts and tricks? It turns out that you can’t really do much of that when you’re majoring in Mathematics in a University.

To give you an example here’s a video from youtube of how to easily solve a "legs and head" Math problem which is commonly asked in competitions:

_{Video from The Brainy Owl}

Easy right? That's exactly how our coach taught us.

legs / 2 - heads = no. of four legged animals

heads - no. of four legged animals = no. of two legged animals

We would solve this kind of problem mentally as the emcee is giving it over the microphone. If we got it wrong then, our coach will roasts us after the contest.

While it's cool to be able to do mental calculations, we were never taught of the underlying mathematical principles behind the questions.

I started to notice my deficiency when I encountered this problem in high school. Of course I gave the right answer easily. But my teacher did not give me the points because I did not provide the necessary solutions. I did not even know how to write the proper equations in solving that legs and head solution.

Going into college, I was not able to got into the Accountancy program, my preferred course. And with no other "interesting" course to take, I took B.S. in Mathematics. I was not really sure of myself that time if I really wanted to major in Math but my close friend who happens to be a senior Math major that time encouraged me because she always knew that I’m good and that I would excel in this field.

“You can do it!”, she said.

It turns out, she's wrong. I can’t.

My days in the university were the worst day of my life. Everyday, I would face professors who breathe mathematics. These are the guys who wrote textbooks being used in our schools.

In exams, my answers, even if correct, would not earn enough merit if I can’t show how I solved it. Answers without solutions are wrong especially if you are a Math major. You would even be a suspect of cheating or copying.

During recitations, I would try to solve problems based on how I was coached and I would not use conventional equations because honestly, I can’t. Of course, they would not accept it.

At the end of the semester, I found myself with 2 failing grades - Algebra and Trigonometry. Two fundamental subjects that I need to understand deeply in able to advance to more complex courses.

I was devastated.

For the first time in my life, I’m staring at failing marks on subjects I was supposed to excel. It was surreal. While I know that I had it coming, I still can’t believe it. And my parents and friends thought that I was joking. I wished.

For the next three semesters, I struggled to pass my back subjects. I spent summer re-taking Algebra. While I barely got a passing mark, my heart knew that I would never make it to higher years. I tried but I can no longer put my heart into it. Deep inside, I had given up.

My favorite subject is now my nightmare.

I abhor it. It came to the point when I would have bad dreams about Calculus and my professors and that I would curse numbers and equations.

In spite of that, I spent another year struggling to stay alive in the Mathematics program. But after failing Math Analysis twice, our program head gave me the ’coup de grace’ and told me that they could no longer accept me in the coming semester and that I should consider changing my career path.

To my surprise, that was the most liberating and comforting words I heard from her.

I moved to another school and took IT. Of course, it has Math subjects too but we were given some slack because as they say, we are not Math majors.

Looking back, I realized that I learned a lot of lessons from my failure. That I should have taken extra efforts to learn the things that were never taught to us by my coach. Or that I should have not put my confidence in my skills derived from mastering mathematical tricks.

Up to now, none of my former teammates, especially my coach know of my misadventures in college. I just could not tell them.

Going back to my introductory question: Am I good in Math?

No. I am honestly not.

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There's opportunity in every failure. Follow Random Collective by @st3llar.

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