Career goals are extraordinarily important in ones life. For years before college decisions, my career goal has always been to be a high school math teacher. As time went by and the material became more of a challenge, my decision varied. I enjoyed the challenge and wanted to go beyond teaching high school. After my first college math coarse, the thought of setting my goal further to a college professor came to mind.
I do not have a particular individual that influenced my decision. However, my mother led me with advice and inspiration. For example, she advised me to go in as a mathematics education major, and if I desired I could go beyond that with more schooling in the future.
Although other options and ideas have gone through my mind, mathematics has always stayed on top. The options of what mathematics area to go into also crossed my mind, accounting for example. Through high school I was a swim instructor, I had eighty-two students all varying in age. It was a life changing experience, not only teaching them, but it's amazing how much you can learn from your students being a teacher. Therefore there is no doubt in my mind that I want to live my future life as a mathematics teacher.
There have been many positive experiences on my journey. Coming out of my sixth grade year with straight hundreds and no challenge in math, they had a conference and began an honors program. We had one class, my grades contributed to the start of that new program for my school.
In addition, there were also negative experiences. My school district never had a high school, my freshman year we combined with a local school district and made one. The students coming from the other school district already had a high school so they had more options and more classes. Coming from my school district if you were smart and had good grades there was nothing they could do for you. Coming from the local school district, they were able to start early in math or science if it was a strong point of theirs. Therefore I was not able to complete as many math courses in high school as I wished to.
Math, in my opinion, is a great subject because it is not reading a book and answering the questions. When given the problem, you will get the answer if you solve it. When given any other question, for example, who invented the light bulb, you can't solve that with an equation, you have to know it. That's what I love about math, the equations.
In conclusion, choosing mathematics as my major was not hard decision. I love the challenge math gives you. I love the subject itself. All my hard work paid off and I am here in college ready to become a math teacher.