My love for math began when I was just seven years old in my 1st grade classroom. My teacher brought me up to the front of the room and announced that I had won the “math award” for the month. This meant that I had done the best job staying focused in class and understanding the material. Although I had won an award based on simple adding and subtracting, it meant the world to me and I was determined to always stay ahead of the curve when it came to math. So starting from that day until the end of the school year, I did extra practice worksheets after school for fun. I continued to do this until I had mastered all that I could as a first grader or as much as my short attention span could handle. When summer rolled around and most kids were outside playing, I read math textbooks instead to try and get an extra leg up on the competition in the following years class. My parents were always supportive, but once the other kids heard about this, I was teased, called names, and constantly put down for simply doing what I loved. Since I continued to do all of these nerdy things for several years, I had rough elementary and middle school experiences, but that never put a stop to my enthusiasm for number crunching. I practiced every day, until I started high school, but then there was no longer time for the extra reading because of how busy I was. While I don’t sit inside and read textbooks during my summer anymore, many years later when it was that time to apply to college, I couldn’t think of a better major for myself than math. And now I go to Calculus 2 class four days a week, thankful, but sometimes a little regretful, that I was a 1st grader with a huge passion and the strength to persevere.