Personal Passion for Exploring Mathematics Further
"The search for a mathematical proof is the search for a knowledge which is more absolute than the knowledge accumulated by any other discipline. " These words from Simon Singh's famous book, "Fermat's Last Theorem", helped shape my vision of mathematics, teaching me that studying it doesn't mean following predetermined paths, but rather wandering in the wilderness, searching for enlightenment. What fascinated me about mathematical questions was the neatness of the solutions which relied on logical arguments and the certainty of the conclusions which once proven correct will remain unchallenged forever.
During the first year of high school, I began to feel that there is more to mathematics than what we learnt in school. It was then that I acquired a taste for studying mathematics for the sake of it, in order to acquire as much knowledge as possible. Whereas in the past years I sometimes felt reluctant to sit at my desk and spend hours solving problems for the olympiad, now struggle became passion and the idea of continuing work in order to learn new things was captivating. Alongside this change, my results in the olympiad also improved, each year bringing me closer and closer to finally achieving what then became my lifetime goal: the nationals. It all become reality in the 11th grade, when discovering the one area of mathematics that would fuel my passion for study, finally became known to me: calculus. The concept of infinity was a rather abstract, hard to tackle one until then; it meant just a really large number. It was then when I understood that even if you know the behavior of a mathematical entity in a thousand or million cases, you would still not be able to draw conclusions about its general behavior.
Being intrigued by this new area and oftentimes finding myself still studying well past midnight, I finally was able to see my dream come true as I succeeded in qualifying for the nationals, coming in 3rd in the municipal phase. That same year, I also managed to achieve important results in other competitions such as 8th place in the national contest "Laurentiu Panaitopol" and 5th place in the regional maths competition "Marcel Rosculet". My appreciation of mathematics also surfaced in one of my passions outside the academic sphere: aviation. As in mathematics, precision is of paramount importance in aviation because even the smallest errors can have disastrous consequences. This passion for flying motivated me to attend the aviation school. During the summer between 10th and 11th grade, I would wake up every day at 6am and go to the airfield to fly a two seater plane. When I was finally able to fly by myself, I felt that I made good use of some of the mathematics that I learned. Alongside calculations to find out the proper speed for take offs or landings and proper angles for turns, aviation always required me to make sure that everything was in the right parametres, just as mathematics required me to check that every step in a solution is correct. My passion for exploring the sky did not stop there, but also extended to the unknown universe. Thus, I decided to participate in the NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest alongside 4 of my classmates and we managed to obtain an Honorable Mention and we were invited to attend the National Space Society Conference in Los Angeles. The contest, which consisted of us building a project describing a space settlement, thought me the basics of teamwork and, once again, that great achievements only come with hard work and discipline.
I think one of the best aspects of high school was the brilliant group of people in my class. The effect that the community had upon me was to motivate me and to always make me strive to become better. I believe that the positive impact of the environment eventually helped me achieve my objectives and its competitiveness helped me evolve at my full potential. I look forward to continuing the same experience at a great university in the UK.
