High School Application Essay

From a young age, I was always interested in numbers. I’ve been told many times that as a toddler I was always asking questions, wanting to learn basic mathematics. My love for math continued through high school and to this day, and I currently pursue a degree of mathematics at the University of Bath. However, from my early days, along with my interest for numbers came an interest in money, and material gain. Not in making my own, but why others made the decisions that they did. Growing up in Illinois, in the Midwest of the United States, I was surrounded by corn, and my questions often headed towards it. If there’s so much corn, and it’s so easy to grow, why is it so expensive in the stores? Why weren’t more people shopping for potatoes in the store, if they were getting cheaper? As a ten year old, I had no idea the questions I was asking related to government stipends, and substitute goods. Trips to the supermarket were a joy to me as a child; seeing all the different products, people acting different ways. I’d ask my mother why she’s buying the branded goods vs. the store’s versions. Why was she at this supermarket rather than the one closer to the house? I was questioning the

Then, while taking basic economics courses, I understood finally. However, as simply introductory classes, my interest was piqued, but my heart still lay with mathematics. It wasn’t until recently, when I discovered the connection between these fields. I would sit in a statistics lecture, and be applying the theories to economic situations. Or, I’d be in a differential calculus class, and figure out how a business’s profits could be maximized through integral analysis. I got my hands on an intermediate level economics book from a friend down the hall and immediately it all clicked. Economics was the happy medium between my love for numbers and all my questions up