Personal Statement - Allen L.

I have challenged myself a lot while on this planet. But, I feel like it is critical to achieving my dreams and learning more about certain topics.

One time I challenged myself was very recently. It was in fifth grade and I decided that I should start doing competition math instead of school math. I felt like school math was too easy and I should try something new. Once I had unlocked the door to competition math, I was amazed at how much more I still had to learn. Being the procrastinator I am, I felt like I could always wait until tomorrow and then start everything. But, there was a small voice inside me that said, “Start today!”

Once I had started, I was quite dumbfounded at the difficulty of some of the problems, some of which had topics where you learn in high school! When I first started, I wanted to quit because I didn’t understand a lot of the problems, but I kept on persevering and forcing myself to continue. I thought, “This challenging will help you in the future,” as my motivation to keep going. I stuck with it and heading on into my first competition, I felt scared yet overjoyed that I was going to apply all of this knowledge into a series of tests. Day after day, I kept doing problems and even over summer break, I was, I guess you could say, "grinding" them. It felt like I had for once accomplished something when I tied for first at the competition I went to.

Now that I come to think of it, I think that this challenge has drastically changed my life. I have now focused on math more and continued to love it. I feel that this out-of-comfort-zone experience has changed me from a kid who only followed school curriculums to a person who does challenging high school problems. Though I might not have won at everything, I feel more accomplished than winning every competition possible, even worse, not joining any competitions at all.

While doing competition math, I learned to keep on trying. Learning to keep on motivating myself, and get out of my comfort zone. It might have felt boring at first, but I felt like it paid off. I now have immensely improved my math skills and I feel very proud of myself.