As a devoted math student, I had always aspired to reach the highest math classes offered at my school, one of them being Calculus AB. Before it began, I thought the content would be similar in difficulty to other classes I had taken, but to my surprise, calculus did not resonate with me nearly as well as I was expecting it to. In fact, I got a B- on my first exam. After two weeks of studying as I always had for math, I was defeated. This was the first time I had ever struggled in a class at school.
After my disappointing first test, I decided to devise a plan for me to be successful from then on. I began to arrive at school an hour before it began to get assistance from anyone in the math department, and stayed after school for at least 30 minutes for my teacher to expand on the lessons we were being taught. In addition, I watched nearly every Khan Academy video in their calculus regimen to key in on the basics in my teacher's lessons. But that was for a typical school day. Before exams, I realized for me to pass the tests, I needed to redo every homework assignment and every example problem we had done, regardless if it took me ten hours to do it. To solidify my understanding of the concepts we were taught, I often found myself at Perkins before the sun was up discussing my questions with my teacher..
All of my hard work paid off when I ended each quarter in the A-range, and most importantly received a ‘5’ on the AP Calculus AB Exam. This challenging course encouraged me to dedicate myself to be better than I began. Despite feeling like a failure throughout it, I managed to work as hard as I needed to in order to be successful when and where it counted. My overall success in the class encouraged me to enroll in Calculus BC, where today I am continuing to implement the dedication I learned that was required to be successful in Calculus AB.
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