To be honest, Kunnu was arguably more excited for it than me; her screams were the ones to wake me up at 10:20 this morning, 10 minutes before the start of the talk. Although I didn't learn too many new things (I have been scouring TheStudentRoom for months about all things Oxford Maths), I found the talk really motivating and reassuring in a way. The undertone of the whole event was pretty much "do well in the MAT and the interview, and you're in". Obviously the statement is easier said than done, but it gives me a goal. And that goal is to get really good at maths. Really good.
Watching it made me want to go to Oxford so painfully bad. Talking to Sally makes me want to go to Oxford so painfully bad. I want to go so badly but I feel weirdly hindered in a way, I have this overwhelming feeling of definitely not being good enough. I am terrified by the thought that I don't have that spark of "natural talent". I wasn't even good at maths until maybe year 5, and I put hard work towards that every night just so that I could show up to secondary school and breeze through every Maths lesson. As tedious as I found it at the time, I can't say it didn't work. If I still have that energy inside of me to work towards the MAT, then hopefully I can reach my goal of getting an okay score too (we're talking 60s-70s, if I got in the 80s I'd probably combust).
I sometimes feel as though I spend more time looking for resources than I do actually using them. So I am going to list what I have right now, all of which I want to work through ideally before summer. Then we can see if that goal is in any way attainable:
- Finish all the puzzles in Algorithmic Puzzles by Levitin & Levitin
- Complete all the questions on I Want to Study Engineering
- Complete Dr Frost Maths Maths Challenge sheets
- Complete Dr Frost MAT topic-by-topic worksheets
- Complete edX Imperial Maths Extension of A-Level course
- Stanford Mathematical Thinking course
- STEP Integral Maths resources
- Do NRICH Questions
- Do UKMT Maths Challenge questions
Okay it really is a lot and some of these might not be of top priority. Perhaps the two courses aren't going to be the most useful things to do right now in this short period of time. Especially considering I have several exams coming up testing my skills on all my A-Level subjects (the part I always forget - I need A-Levels to get into uni!) On top of all that I have to read a bunch of wider reading books to prove my "passion". By the sounds of it that might be the easiest step.
What I am saying here is I need to put a pause on the laziness for the better half of the next year. Right now all I want is to work my hardest to get into [insert good university name here because I am too scared to put Oxford] and I think I will.
The scariest part of this whole ordeal is that I need to email my teachers and tell them of my intentions to pursue their subject for the rest of my life. Horrible thought so let's put that off for as long as possible. Or possibly never tell them? They don't need to ever find out, do they?
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