Personal Statment (Math Teacher)
Personal Statement of Teaching and Learning Mathematics
About my background, I graduated from XXXX in 2011, majored in Mathematics and Economics. Last year when I was finding teaching jobs, I was frequently asked the same question – Why do you choose this program rather than a traditional Mathematics degree program? My answer is rather simple – I choose this program because I want to know how Mathematics can be applied in other disciplines, such as social science like Economics. During my three years of university study, I was amazed by the importance of Mathematics in social science. Economics models, social statistical research, national accounting, developmental analysis are all related to different streams of Mathematics. They are so beautiful and elegant, and often a mathematical equation can explain our world better than thousands of words.
Back to my secondary school life, I was a typical science student, taking Physics, Chemistry and Pure Mathematics. My school has not provided the subject ‘Applied Mathematics’ in A-Level, but I was really interested in learning how Mathematics can be ‘applied’ in our world. So I bought an Applied Mathematics textbook from a book store and it was about Probability and Statistics. I was hooked by the interesting probability problems and statistical distributions. Therefore I decided to take AL Applied Mathematics as an extra subject. I enjoyed the subject so much that I even considered doing the Applied Mathematics problems as leisure, and I would revise the subject whenever I feel bored with preparing other subjects.
On the other hand, I have considerably less interest in Pure Mathematics. While I still admire the use of differentiation and integration in different situations, I was annoyed by some of the abstract topics like ‘Complex Numbers’. Those abstract concepts like complex roots are very difficult to grasp and have seemingly no use in human world. I wondered why mathematicians invented imaginary numbers, as
About my background, I graduated from XXXX in 2011, majored in Mathematics and Economics. Last year when I was finding teaching jobs, I was frequently asked the same question – Why do you choose this program rather than a traditional Mathematics degree program? My answer is rather simple – I choose this program because I want to know how Mathematics can be applied in other disciplines, such as social science like Economics. During my three years of university study, I was amazed by the importance of Mathematics in social science. Economics models, social statistical research, national accounting, developmental analysis are all related to different streams of Mathematics. They are so beautiful and elegant, and often a mathematical equation can explain our world better than thousands of words.
Back to my secondary school life, I was a typical science student, taking Physics, Chemistry and Pure Mathematics. My school has not provided the subject ‘Applied Mathematics’ in A-Level, but I was really interested in learning how Mathematics can be ‘applied’ in our world. So I bought an Applied Mathematics textbook from a book store and it was about Probability and Statistics. I was hooked by the interesting probability problems and statistical distributions. Therefore I decided to take AL Applied Mathematics as an extra subject. I enjoyed the subject so much that I even considered doing the Applied Mathematics problems as leisure, and I would revise the subject whenever I feel bored with preparing other subjects.
On the other hand, I have considerably less interest in Pure Mathematics. While I still admire the use of differentiation and integration in different situations, I was annoyed by some of the abstract topics like ‘Complex Numbers’. Those abstract concepts like complex roots are very difficult to grasp and have seemingly no use in human world. I wondered why mathematicians invented imaginary numbers, as