When I was a boy I was often picked on for liking legos and doing math. These, along with other hobbies I enjoyed, were considered “nerdy.” The bullying got worse by they day, at on point almost being unbearable to my elementary school self, until one fateful day, which I met my hero. The math teacher, which I’m sure you can assume, also really enjoyed math, and he soon found out that I was picked on for liking it as well. One day, he sat all three of us down, myself, and the two kids; and talked to us about very important lessons. One of them being how interests don’t define a person. Now, he never directly addressed their bullying but rather tried molding them to be more understanding about other people and their differences. After this conversation the two bullies never picked on me again, actually going so far as to asking and attempting to learn about my hobbies, soon loving them almost just as much as myself. This interaction made me look up to my math teacher, wanting to be just like him. I decided from that day I would become a math teacher, regardless of how hard it would be. Well I lost that interest to teach and do math in middle school. I had practically forgotten about how my teacher in elementary school inspired me to become just like him, as I began straying towards an interest in science. Until I met my calculus teacher. She was basically a carbon copy of my elementary school math teacher, just teaching a much more difficult subject. Regardless of what she taught though, I found it interesting, probably making my young self very proud. She made learning this difficult math something that I would look forward to everyday. I decided about two months into her class that I was going to be an engineer when I grew up. Until unit nine came around, polar coordinates. Despite doing all the homework assigned and more, I could not understand this for the life of me. I had all the equations memorized but to no avail, I couldn’t connect the dots of the equations and the actual process. Our quiz on this topic came sooner than I thought and at the time, I was riding on a low A, so I couldn’t really afford to get a bad grade. During the quiz I struggled and struggled but had to leave most of the questions blank. As I was about to get up to turn my quiz in, I remembered how, nearly 8 years ago, I had a dream of becoming just like that math teacher, and would’ve overcome every obstacle to do it. So I grabbed my pencil and answered every question that was left on that quiz. I walked to her desk with confidence and handed her my quiz. Two days later, she hands them back, and to my surprise, I got a 72. I looked at which questions I got wrong, to no one’s surprise, the only questions I got wrong were the questions I couldn’t answer the first time around. Regardless of getting some of them wrong, without going back and having grit, I likely would have failed. To this day I continue to follow the dream of my young self, however it’s just a little modified, as I would like to pursue a career in civil engineering rather than teaching. But I think he’d be proud either way knowing that I have a goal to make the world a better place.