Math and Me
Vanessa Bashore
MM212: College Algebra

“We both just did out fives yesterday, how can she be doing her sixes already today?” I can remember thinking this like it was yesterday instead of 29 years ago. I was in first grade, and we were doing our times tables. I had been the first one to do all of my numbers so far in the class, and now Sara was up there doing her sixes before I knew them. That would just not do for me, so that night I went home and learned the rest of my numbers, six through nine, to be able to do them for the teacher the very next day. I guess you can say that this is where my love for math started. I am not saying that I never had to study or that I have never struggled with any math in my life, but for the most part, most of the math classes I have taken in my life have come pretty easily to me. I love when you are struggling with something in math and all of a sudden you have that a-ha moment where everything suddenly makes sense. In the past I have taken all the basics in math including Algebra and Geometry. However, these courses were also taken almost 20 years ago, and I have to admit that I am a bit rusty when it comes to all of the formulas and properties. Even though I may not remember all of the formulas, I still consider my previous courses a success. I may not remember the exact formula, but I do remember that the formulas exist and it is just a matter of looking the formula up and plugging in the right numbers to get the correct answer. For example, I remember how I used to love doing proofs in geometry, the longer the better. I probably could not jump right into one of those long proofs now, but I don’t think it would take me long to get back to being able to solve one. This is because math is always the same. It is not like English where the rules are always changing. Two plus two will always be four, and this is one of the reasons why I truly enjoy math. Overall, I would say that I am pretty good at math. I mean, I took this course as one of my electives, so I have to be somewhat confident in my mathematical abilities. I have actually done all of the practice problems in the book thus far. I work as a cashier at one of the local gambling cafes in the area, and most of the time it is pretty boring there. I use my Algebra text as a way to pass the time. It is better than any puzzle book that I have ever bought. Plus, being good at math is definitely a benefit where I work since I deal with large quantities of cash that I am responsible for. I am majoring in medical transcription here at Kaplan. I was only required to take one math class for this degree, Survey of Mathematics. I did very well in that class and actually finished with a 100%. With that being said, I think that I will do very well in this class. I love the way the assignments are set up, and I don’t find the work amount overbearing. I don’t think that I will have too many issues with this class. I have skimmed through the text book for one thing, and it appears to be an excellent resource that explains the lesson very well. However, if I do find myself getting stumped in a way that I can’t figure out with the text, there is always the math lab and my fellow classmates. Peers are always an excellent source for help. Math is everywhere and is in everything. Whether you are baking a cake or balancing your bank accounts, math is an extremely important in everyone’s life. I may be going into medical transcription, but math is still going to play a role in my future career. Most transcriptionists are paid by the line with the average company counting 65 characters as a line. It would be useful to be able to figure out how much money you are making by doing the math. There is no escaping doing the math at some point, so you might as well become as good as you can at it. It will always work out in your benefit to be able to do your own figures.