Life will have its challenges, and right now, an immense responsibility I have is to complete my degree and do well with my education. This course has brought many of those challenges and pushed me to reconsider some of the things I thought I could never understand. One of the mathematical ideas I found most interesting in the course was probably the application of integrals. The visualization of an integral as an area under the curve is such a powerful way to imagine so many aspects of explorative science. My interest in other STEM subjects could flourish if I developed a similar appreciation for other topics. One of the most extraordinary powers of mathematics lies in its, quite literally, infinite applicability – the power series topic made me curious about other self-replicable cycles. I am now interested in learning more about measure theory and fractals, even though the overview of the topic seemed intimidating.
One of the specific mathematical ideas I struggled with this semester was the arc length problems. The main reason was my incomplete understanding of the steps and the information required before solving the problem, including whether the function is differentiable. Besides specific task challenges, reconsidering what it means to fail at a problem and when to give up has been frustrating and eye-opening for me. For instance, I have been meeting with my organic chemistry professor weekly to review the material I may have missed during class or on the most recent exam. Over the semester, I learned that I am capable of doing the work I am met with – however, this capability does not always come from the first try. My biggest regret this semester is that my spirit was crushed so easily by Calculus II. One of the skills that I both developed and hoped to research even more is learning objective algebraic integration methods to evaluate indefinite integrals. Hence, contingent on completing the rest of my missing assignments, I hope to receive a B- in this course.