When the Answer isn't Obvious by Stacy

When the Answer isn't Obvious by Stacy - September 2026 Scholarship Essay

My whole life math has never been a subject I naturally was attracted to & my test results showed it. Since elementary school I remember the long nights I spent staring at my math textbook trying to solve a problem and in the morning as we were going over the homework it seemed like all my classmates understood exactly what they were doing. Because of my confusion my test results weren’t always so great.
My teachers used to always just show the process with barely any explanation, skipping over the steps once most kids got the flow of the method while I still had to write out each step. Starting middle school I took it upon myself to put in more time to study math to improve my knowledge. I started off by taking notes on the material looking over my textbook. I thought I could find no better explanation of the steps but from the book itself. I soon realized that the textbook would be no help, the vocabulary was different making it hard to comprehend what it was telling me to do. Although the notes did help, they weren’t reliable as they weren’t exact to the problems I was working on so I still had questions on certain steps. I then moved on to youtube videos. I’m a visual learner & seeing what the books were talking about could help me understand the lesson. The youtube videos seemed like they were helping. Watching the math videos I understood what the teacher was talking about & seeing their examples. I paused & tried to figure it out myself, getting the answers right. The only problem was that sometimes the teachers would use a different method of solving that would leave me more confused when I tried to solve a problem on my homework because the steps were different. Finally, I decided to break down the steps as if I was a teacher teaching it to a student.
This technique involved me having an example problem to refer back to with the title of method written & an explanation on how to do the steps. I then would slowly use the steps myself by writing out each part of the problem. As I was going, I would talk out loud to myself. Explaining why I moved this factor or multiplied these two variables together. The whole process I would be highlighting key factors or important steps that I had to remember to certain terms. Breaking down the problem, while relearning the lesson that in the end I knew the material because of how detailed I would recite it back to myself. This helped me not only understand the material but it gave me confidence to do it on my own without reflecting back to my help sheet every 2 mins. The steps didn’t just become memorization but it helped me to be able to recognize the method entirely on its own. I could recognize when a certain problem would require a certain method because of their set up.
As I continued using this method, I began to see the difference not only in my understanding but also in my test scores. Problems that once felt overwhelming became easier to approach because I had developed a process for working through them. My improvement showed me that academic success is not always being naturally good at a subject; sometimes it comes from finding a learning method that allows you to understand the information in your own way. This strategy has also shaped how I approach challenges outside of math. I want to pursue a career in medicine, where I will constantly encounter complex information & situations that require patience, careful thinking, & problem-solving. Math has taught me that when I do not immediately know the answer I do not have to give up. I can slow down, talk through the problem, identify what I know, & find my way forward. That is the mindset I will apply to my studies and myself throughout college & into my future career.