Name: Ryan
Job: Earth Science Undergraduate
Source: Glacial Till [original post from April 2012]
Excerpt:
In spite of all my enthusiasm for the stars, I still couldn’t get past my math fears. My sixth grade math teacher had ridiculed me in front of my class for not being able to do simple arithmetic on the board. My parents found out about this episode and verbally flogged in her in the principal’s office, but it still wasn’t enough to undo the damage. I went through junior high and high school with a palpitation-inducing mathphobia that pretty much destroyed my math confidence and the desire to do anything with it. Those hesitations prevented me from pursuing astronomy and science in general throughout my high school career.
Working in the lab and having projects has given me a tangible motivation to not give up. It’s a consistent reminder of what I’m fighting to accomplish with my life. It’s there that I see the usefulness of the integral and everything else that has eluded my understanding. As clichéd as it sounds, working in the lab has kept me in school.
Read the rest at Glacial Till.
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