Background: this was an essay written for my college applications. The prompt: write an essay in which you tell us about something who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this is important to you. A bit cheesy, but it works…
There it was, plain as day on the ivory-coloured paper clutched in my reddening palms; the one word that I had been dreading since the day I set foot into this educational facility, the one word that I secretly wished I had never lived to witness. Yet there it was, written in bold, uppercase strokes in front of my very eyes.
4TH PHYSICS PRE-AP, CACCIOLA
It was bad enough that the dreaded P word had manifested itself on my otherwise glorious schedule (which included classes in French and Theatre; a year ago I had preferred to stay as far away from math and science as possible). Whatever had possessed the counselors to type it out in capitals, as if to amplify my melodramatic trauma?
I spent my final hours of freedom grumbling to myself about the unfairness of life and graduation requisites, shoving my scientific calculator deep into the recesses of my backpack as if to shut away the impending doom that throbbed in my head like a heartbeat.
Physics. Physics. Physics.
The sweet dreams of the Night Before School did nothing to quell the anxiety bubbling up within me. The rendez-vous with my companions did nothing to satisfy my need for reassurance that the mysterious demon named Physics would not consume me. The laughter and hustle-bustle of the hallways fell away; I could only hear my raspy breathing as I stumbled down the science corridor with a decelerating velocity and turned at a 45-degree angle north of east, right into the barren classroom where judgement was waiting.
“This is not a class for the weak,” was the greeting that wafted to my ears, only instead of drifting in sweetly and assuringly, they forced themselves in like needles. I winced and slid nervously into a seat in the front row; the only one that was not already occupied.
“It is those of you who are fearless and ambitious who will excel in all that you do,” the teacher continued, and although I knew he meant well, his friendly smirk terrified me. “In this class, you will certainly be faced with challenges and problems that you will not be able to solve easily. But who said easy problems were enjoyable?”
I burrowed my head into the square I had made with my arms on the cold desk. A pile of papers writhed their way into my hidey-hole. “Vector Components,” declared the immaculate sheets of numbers and text, as if vector components were anything to be excited about. I tossed the papers over my shoulder and pointed a pencil at the word “vector” threateningly, prepared for war against this tyranny.
“Here are your equations… you’re given this so use this to solve for that and plug into that to solve for the X value, understand?” Mr. Cacciola was saying, jabbing at the board with a yardstick. However, I was not listening, for it made no sense. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, too nervous to ask what exactly I should be understanding. His jovial voice continued. “Do problem one and raise your hand when you finish.”
Everyone eyed each other warily. They had not come in here expecting an assignment with almost no notes as preliminaries. The girls sitting three rows behind me began whining that they “didn’t get it.” A few boys shuffled their papers, obviously confused. Mr. Cacciola refused to relieve our tension with aid. How could you learn, he asserted, if you didn’t try? Why give up so early in the game? I was furious that he was leaving us to fend for ourselves. Didn’t he see that we needed help, that we didn’t understand? Our valedictorian pulled out some paper and began to scribble away. I scrunched up my eyebrows; Mr. Cacciola was obviously not going to waver in his decision, so I might as well begin my futile attempt. I looked at the paper until the numbers blurred; stared hard at the equations, willed them to reveal to me their secrets.
And then it dawned on me. I could see each equation’s role as a piece of the puzzle, and I could see it quite clearly. I dug out the scientific calculator, surprised that it wasn’t broken after I had piled three heavy textbooks on top of it. After a few rapid keystrokes, my hand had shot up into the air, a triumphant smile dancing on the edges of my lips. When Mr. Cacciola called on me, I blurted out the answer without hesitation and received a sincere nod of approval.
I hastily finished the rest of the Vector Component obstacle course, now reduced to small hurdles instead of the large brick walls I had once imagined. After a few problems, I found myself smiling with amusement. Could it be that Physics was actually… fun?
A few more weeks confirmed my suspicion. What had used to be my worst fear now became my greatest love. I looked forward to the haven called Physics at the end of the day; after 90 minutes in Spanish, I would slide into my second-row seat with an unrivalled eagerness, ready to face off against another page of challenging questions. I loved the numerical puzzles embedded in each worksheet, just calling out to me to solve them. I gobbled up nearly every problem that landed on the desk in front of me. Whenever I choked on one, I would whip out my formula booklet with grandeur, pore over the intriguing combination of equations, and scribble down my answer, finishing my masterpiece with a box around the numbers that played key to the lock of my curiosity.
It is now one year later, and not only am I enrolled in an exciting class of AP Physics C, I’m also pursuing studies in Computer Science and Calculus, two subjects that I would have certainly balked at if given the choice last year, with a renewed vigor that I haven’t witnessed since my days of fraction multiplication in elementary school. I plan to major in Computer Science in college, a dream that had been discarded once before in favour of an “easier path of study”. I now love the maths and sciences, and whenever I think back to my two-year-long absurd bias against them, I smile to myself and whisper a silent eulogy:
Thank you, Physics, for changing my life and making it a delightful adventure every step of the way. You’ve shown me the importance of thinking through problems that at first seem impossible, of never giving up in the face of confusion and failure, and of enjoying a challenge. After all, it is those of us who are fearless and ambitious that excel in everything that we do.