6th
The thing is, being a math major is kind of like being in an abusive relationship. It kicks you around, beats the crap out of you, and you just get up and ask for more. When it’s good, it’s good. But when it’s bad, it’s really bad.
It’s not uncommon for me to feel inadequate in my classes. But usually, a few days later I figure things out or do well on a midterm or understand a lecture well enough for the doubt of my inadequacy to go away for a bit. And I’ve been doing well lately. Well enough to convince myself that I’m going to get into a great grad school. But on Friday, I found out that I’m not doing so well in the area of math that I love the most. And it’s kind of shaken me up a lot more than I thought it ever could. I feel like I’m being over dramatic, but I have a lot riding on one class, one topic. And for the first time in years, I had a moment where I thought I could be losing out on my dream. More than just a moment, actually. Many, many moments.
This weekend is the time I had set aside to write my personal statement for grad school. Naturally, feeling more uncertain about my mathematical future than I have in a long time isn’t the best state of mind to be writing such an essay. How can I write about my love of math when it so clearly doesn’t love me back? How can I be sure that grad school is what I want to do when I can’t even pass the one graduate class that I’m taking now?
I’ve done poorly in classes when I haven’t been working hard enough, or when I was too distracted by things going on outside of school that I couldn’t properly focus. But I’ve never felt as though I simply wasn’t smart enough. Hard work only gets you so far.
Maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t know. All I know is I have too many important things coming up to be distracted like this.
