Numbers with meaning by Andy-Chanel

Numbers with meaning by Andy-Chanel - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

Math has always been something I actually enjoy. I like that it has clear rules: the problem either works out or it doesn't, and that there's a kind of honesty in that. So when I registered for Intro to Finance, I expected it to feel like home. Instead, it became one of the hardest classes I've taken at UIC, not because the math itself was unfamiliar, but because Finance asks you to use math differently than ever before.

In my earlier math classes, a number was just the beginning of a decision. Learning concepts like the time value of money, present and future value, and how interest compounds over time meant I couldn't just solve for an answer; I had to understand what that answer meant, why it mattered, and how it would change if even one variable shifted. The math was familiar. The thinking behind it was not.

At first, that was frustrating. I would work through a formula correctly and still get a homework problem wrong because I had misunderstood what the question was actually asking, financially, not mathematically. I remember redoing a present value problem 3 or 4 times, convinced my arithmetic was off, before realizing the real issue was that I hadn't thought carefully enough about the timing of the cash flows; the numbers were right. My reasoning wasn't.

That class forced me to slow down in a way pure math never had. I started writing out in plain language what each formula was actually telling me before I touched a calculator. I asked myself what a return really represented or why a dollar today isn't worth the same as a dollar next year. Once I made that a habit, the math started working with me instead of against me. My Grades on problem sets improved, but more importantly. started to actually think like someone making financial decisions, ns not just someone solving for X.

That shift has stayed with me. Working in UIC Athletics Development, where I track donor reports and scholarship funds, I now catch myself asking the same kind of questions Intro to Finance taught me to ask: What does this number actually represent? What assumption is it built on? What happens if that assumption changes? That habit of interrogating the meaning behind the math, not just the math itself, is exactly the kind of thinking I want to build a career on as a future CPA.

Intro to Finance humbled me in a subject I thought I already understood, and that was the point. It taught me that liking math isn't the same as thinking critically with it. Real understanding means questioning what the numbers mean, not just trusting that you calculated them correctly. That lesson didn't just get me through one hard class; it's shaping how I plan to approach every number II touching my career.